How the sugar grew out of slavery — Featured Documentary

[0:00] It's been going on for 500 years. Sugar is quite a story. It's a global one and has shaped our world. [0:25] Sugar has been fundamental to colonialism and fundamentally important to the production of racial inequality. [0:34] It's the story of blood, sweat and sugar that binds Africa, Europe, the Americas and Asia. [0:45] When you exprime, what comes out is the blood of the worker class. [0:52] For sweeter or for worse. [1:19] Sugar, they're super delicious, really nutritious. Food for action. [1:25] The evolution of sugar in our early modern and modern diets in the European world and beyond has been, yeah, phenomenal. [1:34] The history of sugar is a story of domination of our bodies, of land, of the world, of growing domination. [1:45] In 1600, the average European consumed just 87 grams of sugar per year. In 1800, nine kilos. Today, up to 40 kilos per year. [1:58] Sugar provides very easy energy, right? It isn't nutritionally valuable for our bodies, but it is easy. It's quick. [2:09] Global sugar production increased. In the 17th century, it soared. In the 18th century, it quadrupled. [2:17] And 30-fold in the 20th century. In 2025, it reached almost 190 million tons. By way of comparison, we produced four times as much wheat, but wheat is nutritious whereas sugar is not. [2:39] We could do well without sugar. During the most time of human history, there was no sugar. [2:47] And, let's say, around 1200, 1300 na Christus, there was sugar on a single scale. [2:54] And that was mainly in China, India and Egypt. [2:58] Sugar made its way into the European diet quite gradually, really over centuries. [3:09] Sugar started as a luxury. The aristocracy could have sugar. [3:13] They could adorn their tables with sugary treats, but also sugar was becoming present in medicine and as a spice. [3:22] Only the richest people could have it. [3:27] But the taste of sugar is irresistible. Soon addicted, Europe craves more and more. [3:34] How could this demand be met? [3:37] The great Portuguese navigators led the way in the 15th century, conquering the seas. [3:46] They pushed back the boundaries of the known world in their quest for power, gold, silver and sugar. [3:53] In 1419, the island of Madeira was conquered and given over to sugar cane production. It was soon supplying all of Europe. [4:16] Then, in 1474, Portugal seized two uninhabited islands off Gabon, São Tomé and Principe. [4:27] A tiny territory, but it changed human history. [4:37] I would say that the junction of the development of the economy of sugar with the mobilization, [4:43] a long distance, of slavery work, [4:47] is a very decisive moment. [4:48] It was a very decisive moment, sad, [4:51] and very dangerous moment, with very worrying consequences, [4:54] even today, for all of us. [4:57] To plant, harvest, crush, boil and turn sugar cane into loaves for sale across Europe, [5:08] men and women were captured and sold in their thousands on the west coast of Africa. [5:16] Then, they were forcibly transported to the island where they were enslaved. [5:22] Sugar and slavery. [5:24] In the jungle of São Tomé, the Portuguese created a model. [5:28] E tudo isto, técnica, tecnologia, mobilidade de mão de obra escravizada, [5:34] forma o modelo da economia de plantação. [5:37] E esse modelo é transponível, é circulável para outros contextos que reúnem as mesmas condições. [5:45] Christopher Columbus knew what he was doing. [5:52] In 1493, just a year after his first voyage to the Americas, [5:57] the explorer crossed the Atlantic again, [6:01] and returned on behalf of the king and queen of Spain [6:04] to the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. [6:06] His mission was to colonize it. [6:09] In his chests were sugarcane plants. [6:15] They were planted there, and for the short time, [6:18] there was a plantage complex. [6:21] And so the production of sugar, [6:23] in the new world, is the production of sugar, [6:25] in the new world. [6:41] And so it's very bad. [6:42] It's bad. [6:46] It's bad. [6:47] It's bad. [6:54] Look at my face. [6:55] 500 years on, sugar still rules the island of Hispaniola, [6:58] today divided between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. [7:01] For generations, thousands of workers have fled the poverty of Haiti [7:09] and crossed the border each year to cut sugarcane in the Dominican Republic, [7:14] by hand, like their ancestors. [7:19] In the region of El Cebo, a few hours' drive from the beaches of Punta Cana, [7:26] there are an estimated 200,000 Haitian workers. [7:30] The majority of the economic development that has the country [7:38] comes from the migrant workers' work. [7:42] If there is a person in the field that has a status [7:49] or is Dominican, it's because they have another job. [7:52] It may be a tractor, an operator, or a técnico. [7:56] But all the rest of the work that there are in La Caña [8:00] are operated and constructed by the Haitian migrants. [8:04] From Haiti, we have worked to attend Haiti to keep work. [8:11] Every예요 went along in Haiti but now we can stay put to the Knox family. [8:15] Almost not only their neighbors are able to work, [8:18] but even for us. [8:19] We are to be fine. [8:20] And we work with praise, because he físates theaka perp timing, [8:23] Wees we don't have to worry, but he didn't even pay for the poor boy to eat. [8:27] Our army is a hovered and a bear. [8:29] Our kids here, my sl guar, are aORA1. [8:31] Everyone is a Families, if they take garbage and are dozens, [8:34] theyHere they take for us to eat, they always leave us there. [8:37] They are raising us here to work and end our family to be standing here. [8:40] We live in a world that is deeply affected by the sugar economy that was created under [9:26] slavery and persists to this day. [9:32] Nothing could stop the sugar economy, and following Christopher Columbus and the Portuguese [9:37] and Spanish conquistadores, it subjugated all of the Americas. [9:44] When the Portuguese colonized Brazil in the early 16th century, they brought sugarcane [9:49] with them. [9:52] In just a few years, they destroyed the primary forest to make way for sugarcane fields, reducing [9:58] the indigenous peoples to slavery. [10:06] Até hoje, Pernambuco tem mais de 10 comunidades indígenas, só que elas vivem todas no sertão, [10:13] fugiram do açúcar. [10:16] As comunidades indígenas fugiram completamente da sociedade açucareira, que trouxe morte, [10:21] gravidão e degradação ambiental. [10:26] Sugar decimated Brazil's indigenous peoples. [10:32] So as in São Tomé and Hispaniola, the planters replaced them with enslaved men and women [10:39] from Africa. [10:40] O Brasil, pra cá, vieram cerca de 4 milhões de africanos. [10:47] Dos 9 milhões de africanos no total, que foram arrancados do continente africano e trazidos [10:54] pra cá, quase a metade, 4 milhões desses 9, vieram pra o Brasil. [11:01] É uma economia extractivista que exige e obriga a extraer mão de obra, seres vivos, [11:49] corpos de homens e mulheres africanos a que se esclaviza, e tudo é para, finalmente, proveer [11:58] um bem de consumo que era de luxo, ao principio, como o açúcar, nos mercados europeus. [12:04] É evidente que a história do açúcar é um dos exemplos maiores dessas dinâmicas de globalização. [12:36] E contar, portanto, esta história a partir da coroa espanhola ou a partir da coroa portuguesa [12:43] é contar uma parte muito importante desta história, mas é, de facto, obscurecer o envolvimento [12:49] ativo de financeiros que estavam na Itália, o envolvimento ativo de empresas e de comerciantes [12:55] que estavam na Holanda. [12:58] Em 1610, ongeveer, is Amsterdam de grootste suikerverwerker en handelaar in Europa, verwerkt [13:10] en verhandelt 50% van alle suiker, dus het is eigenlijk dat Amsterdam als centrum van het [13:15] kapitalisme in de 17de en deel nog in de 18de eeuw, ja, ook het centrum is van Europese [13:20] suikerhandel. [13:21] Dus die twee vallen precies samen met elkaar. [13:25] Dus je kunt wat dat betreft zeggen dat suiker een driver is geweest van moderne kapitalisme. [13:30] Dat also explains why so many wars were fought over those Caribbean territories where, especially [13:45] the French and the British and the Dutch as well, were growing their sugar. [13:49] Everyone wanted their share of so-called white gold, including Britain and France. [13:58] In the 17th century, as a result of wars and treaties, the Spanish lost ground and the Caribbean [14:07] islands changed masters, but not their destiny. [14:11] Everywhere, sugar ruled. [14:13] In 1697, the Spanish ceded the western part of the island of Hispaniola, today's nation [14:43] of Haiti, to France. [14:46] At the time, the French called it Saint-Domingue. [14:48] It rapidly became the largest sugar producer in the world, the richest colony. [14:53] So people talk about a sugar revolution that actually metastasized from Brazil through [15:02] the Caribbean and came to dominate the region by the 18th century. [15:13] The plantation model was exported everywhere from Portuguese Brazil, fields of sugarcane, [15:19] mills to grind it, furnaces to boil it, and slaves exploited around the clock. [15:28] And all of it dominated by the masters' big house. [15:32] This plantation model has endured in the Dominican Republic. [15:51] In El Cebo region, 70% of sugar production is by a single sugar company, Central Romana. [16:02] In the middle of the sugarcane fields, out of sight, the slave quarters have been replaced [16:07] by the batayes. [16:09] This is where the Haitian workers and their families live. [16:16] And we know the spelling of the house. [16:22] We go to durante a few months. [16:29] If we are sick, since we are in the middle of the island [16:36] What happened when the old man has been there is a big issue. [16:46] We are living in there because when we are operating in the middle of the wind, [16:50] We can train it to feed us to bring us to the middle of the fire [16:54] We are trying to build the fire, and we are trying to get people to see in this city. [16:57] They live here, and sometimes even there, when they fall, they fall down, and they fall down. [17:03] But, after that, the people who are maltraités are in the job, they are obligated. [17:06] They live their job as if... [17:08] It's like if you're an esclave, you're still alive. [17:14] It's like physically, you're an esclave, but you're not alive. [17:24] I remember when my mother was in Guadeloupe when I was little, [17:42] I always heard this expression around me, [17:44] Timoula bien sorti, Timoula bien sorti. [17:47] So, at a moment, I decided to ask my mother what it means. [17:52] She said that it means you're well sorti, you're well blanche. [17:55] So, even the Antillais have interiorized the racism [18:00] which was implemented at this colonial time [18:02] and who pretended that the white skin was superior to the white. [18:08] If you read the writings of the missionaries like Jean-Baptiste Labatte [18:16] or Jean-Baptiste Duterte, they also developed these stereotypes [18:21] of Blacks who feel bad, Blacks who are fainéants, [18:24] but in the context of the slavery itself. [18:26] For example, the fainéantism, the supposed fainéantism of Blacks, [18:30] was a way to increase the exploitation of Blacks on the land, [18:34] to always make them work more. [18:36] Racism legitimates all of these violent ways of suppressing [18:47] and exploiting people, of depriving them of their dignity [18:51] and explains to us why that's natural. [18:54] We can see how it was given an extreme impetus [18:57] by the sugar plantation system and by the slavery system more generally. [19:01] European trade flourished, including in France. [19:06] The so-called merchant market branch of the Atlantic, [19:09] from La Rochelle to Nantes to Bordeaux, [19:15] they increase the widespread threat in the colonial trade [19:17] and the colonial trade. [19:19] They lead to a proto-industrialization of the 18th century. [19:21] The new trade and colonial trade [19:23] lead to a proto-industrialization of the 18th century, [19:25] which is mainly to the suffering of the 18th century, [19:27] and also to the affineries. [19:29] In business circles, there was a sense that the Caribbean Sugar Islands made the world [19:56] go round, or at least, the European economy. [20:01] Because at the end of the 18th century, the plantation owners and sugar producers' profits meant [20:07] they could invest at home. [20:10] They had capital, banks, and networks. [20:14] They would help finance the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution, and Britain led [20:20] the race. [20:22] So at the basis, sugar is almost the engine for that economic revolution, but sugar is [20:28] a different kind of engine as well. [20:33] And it wasn't just the factories that needed financing. [20:37] Those who kept them running had to be fed too. [20:42] The new working class who flocked from the countryside to the cities to rent out their labour. [20:51] A back-breaking pace, a poultry wage. [20:55] Like the machines, they needed energy to keep going. [20:59] It was just cheap, easily accessible calories, sugar. [21:06] As more sugar could be produced in greater quantities, and arriving in Europe, and then becoming [21:17] more and more affordable, the majority of people could include in their diet. [21:21] The British working classes, they started to drink a lot of tea with sugar mixed in. [21:32] It has a ritual quality, tea drinking, I think. [21:36] But sugar mixed with tea also gives you some cheap energy, really. [21:43] It's estimated that as a proportion of their diet, the working classes were eating more sugar [21:49] than, for example, the middle classes. [21:52] So I think that's become one of the class distinctions between the haves and the have-nots, is that [21:58] gradually, sugar went from being the food of the rich to being actually just the cheapest, [22:04] nastiest fuel that you can fob people off with who can't afford what you want for your own family. [22:11] Now, that sugar was grown with energy provided by enslaved African labourers, right, who were [22:16] brought over in the course of the slave trade. [22:33] And so, those villages in Africa, producing those workers, captured through the slave trade, [22:39] producing that sugar, which then went into the diets of European workers, that was a circulation [22:44] of energy, transfer of energy, really, from Africa to the Americas, to Europe, that sugar [22:52] production brought. [22:53] FEEDING THE EUROPEAN POOR WITH SUGAR PRODUCED BY AFRICAN SLAVES. [23:04] THIS IS HOW THE SUGAR INDUSTRY BOOSTED ITS GROWTH. [23:07] AT THE END OF THE 18TH CENTURY, IT WAS AT ITS PEAK. [23:11] WHO COULD SHAKE IT? [23:14] THIS AUGUST 14, 1791, IS THE START OF THE HAITIAN REVOLUTION. [23:25] ON THAT NIGHT, ENSLAVED INDIVIDUALS GATHERED TOGETHER AT A SPOT IN MON ROUGE IN HAITI, [23:32] WHICH IS IN THE NORTHERN PLANE, AND THEY CAME TOGETHER AND FORMED A PLOT, A PLAN, [23:38] TO REBEL AGAINST THE ENSLAVERS EN MASS. [23:43] AND THAT'S WHAT THEY DID. [23:44] THE FIRE OF REVOLT ENGULFED THE SUGARCANE PLANTATIONS AND SWEPT THROUGH SENT DOMING, [23:55] TODAY'S HAITI. [23:56] IT WAS THE MOST PROFITABLE COLONY IN THE FRENCH EMPIRE AND THE WORLD'S LARGEST PRODUCER [24:01] OF SUGAR. [24:02] BUT IT WAS BUILT ON THE BACKS OF 450,000 AFRICAN MEN AND WOMEN CONDEMNED TO SLAVERY. [24:10] WHEN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION TOOK PLACE IN EUROPE IN 1789, NEWS REACHED SENT DOMING, [24:18] AND THE SLAVE LABORERS BEGAN TO DEMAND THEIR SHARE OF LIBERTÉ, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY, AND SIMPLE HUMANITY. [24:26] SO IT WAS FUNNY TO ME THAT SOMEHOW THE HAITIAN REVOLUTION WASN'T CONSIDERED AN IMPORTANT EVENT IN [24:33] WESTERN HISTORY WHEN IT'S SO BOUND UP WITH THE RIGHTS REVOLUTION THAT WE IDENTIFY WITH THE FRENCH [24:39] REVOLUTION AND WHICH WE THINK IS FUNDAMENTAL TO THE HISTORY OF THE WEST. [24:44] AND YET, WITHOUT THE REBELS OF SENT DOMING, THE WORLD MIGHT NEVER HAVE WITNESSED THE FIRST [24:49] ABOLITION OF SLAVERY PROCLAIMED BY THE NEW FRENCH REPUBLIC IN 1794. [24:54] AND THEN NAPOLEON CAME ALONG. [24:57] NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. [25:01] AFTER THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, THE GENERAL SEIZED POWER IN FRANCE IN 1799. [25:07] HE VOWED TO RESTORE LAW AND ORDER AND COLONIAL ORDER. [25:12] IN 1801, HE LAUNCHED AN ATTACK ON THE FREED MEN AND WOMEN OF SENT DOMING. [25:19] BUT THEY FOUGHT BACK. [25:21] ALTHOUGH THEIR GOVERNOR GENERAL, TUSSIN LOUVERTURE, WAS ARRESTED AND DEPORTED, [25:26] HIS TROOPS WENT ON TO DEFEAT THE FRENCH. [25:28] ON THE 1ST OF JANUARY, 1804, THEY PROCLAIMED INDEPENDENCE FROM FRANCE [25:33] AND CREATED THE FIRST FREE AND INDEPENDENT BLACK STATE IN THE WORLD WHERE SLAVERY WAS OUTLAWED. [25:39] HAD THE SUGAR EMPIRE CAPITULATED? [25:44] WELL, NOT QUITE. [25:50] AFTER THE HAITIAN REVOLUTION, MANY FRENCH COLONISTS FLED, SEEKING NEW LANDS ON WHICH TO REBUILD THEIR SUGAR FORTUNES. [25:58] THEY FOUND THEM IN CUBA, AS WELL AS LOUISIANA, A FRENCH COLONY SINCE 1682. [26:04] AND THEY TOOK THEIR ENSLAVED LABOR AND RUTHLESS EXPERTISE IN SUGAR PRODUCTION WITH THEM. [26:11] AND THEY STIMULATED THE SUGAR ECONOMY THERE, WHICH REPRODUCED ALL THE MOST BRUTAL EFFECTS OF SUGAR PLANTING IN THE CARIBBEAN. [26:20] AND SO THEN THEY BECOME THE SUGAR EXPERTS AND, YOU KNOW, YOU HAVE ALL OF THE OPPORTUNITY TO GROW SUGAR HERE. [26:31] AND SO THEN THEY TAKE THAT TECHNOLOGY AND GET RICH AGAIN OR MAKE PEOPLE THAT WERE ALREADY PLANTATION OWNERS AND [26:38] SLAVEHOLDERS MAKE THEM EVEN RICHER BECAUSE THEY'RE BRINGING IN ALL OF THIS KNOWLEDGE ABOUT SUGAR. [26:43] IT'S FLOODED INTO LOUISIANA. [26:45] BITTERSWEET, BITTERSWEET. [27:04] I GREW UP GOING INTO THE SUGARCANE FIELD WITH MY BROTHERS, CHOPPING OFF A COUPLE OF PIECES AND THEN, [27:11] YOU KNOW, LIKE YOU'RE SITTING DOWN AND EATING SUGARCANE WITH YOUR FAMILY. [27:15] BUT, I MEAN, THIS IS TRAUMA. [27:18] THIS IS BLACK LABOR. [27:19] THIS IS EXTRACTION. [27:21] EVERYTHING FROM THE SOIL. [27:22] SO I'M A TENTH GENERATION LOUISIANIAN FROM THIS PORTION OF THE STATE. [27:29] AND THESE PLANTATIONS THAT WE'RE DRIVING IN FRONT OF IS WHERE MY ANCESTORS WERE ENSLAVED. [27:33] IT'S MY ANCESTORS WHO BUILT THESE PLANTATIONS. [27:36] PLANTATIONS AND SLAVERY. [27:52] ON THE BANKS OF THE MISSISSIPPI, SUGAR PROSPERITY FLORISHED ONCE AGAIN. [28:01] BUT FRANCE WAS ABOUT TO GIVE IT UP. [28:03] NAPOLÉON HAD LOST SAINT DOMINGUE. [28:06] BRITAIN WAS CHALLENGING HIM AT SEA. [28:08] AND HE HAD EUROPE TO CONQUER. [28:10] IN 1803, NAPOLÉON ABANDONED HIS DREAM OF AN AMERICAN EMPIRE [28:17] AND SOLD LOUISIANA TO THE UNITED STATES FOR $15 MILLION, [28:22] INSTANTLY DOUBLING THE YOUNG NATION'S TERRITORY. [28:25] FEW AMERICANS KNOW THAT WE OWE THE EXPANSION OF THE UNITED STATES BEYOND THE EASTERN SEABOARD [28:33] TO THE HAITIAN REVOLUTION. [28:34] NOW THE IRONY IS THAT WHEN THE UNITED STATES EXPANDED INTO THAT LOUISIANA TERRITORY, [28:40] IT ALSO EXPANDED THE INSTITUTION OF SLAVERY. [28:44] SO, RIGHT, THE END OF SLAVERY IN SAINT DOMINGUE, HAITI, [28:49] LED TO THE EXPANSION OF SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES. [28:56] THAT IS THE STRENGTH OF SUGAR AND ITS ECONOMY. [29:02] IT ADAPTED, MUTATED, AND RELOCATED IN RESPONSE TO CHANGE, [29:10] A WAY OF SURVIVING THE STORMS AHEAD. [29:13] THE HAITIAN REVOLUTION LIT A FEWS IN SUGAR COLONIES ACROSS THE WORLD. [29:17] ENSLAVED PEOPLE ROSE UP. [29:19] EVEN WHEN THOSE UPRISINGS WERE CRUSHED, [29:22] THEIR ECHOES CARRIED ALL THE WAY TO EUROPE. [29:28] IN 1807, BRITAIN BECAME THE FIRST COLONIAL POWER TO ABOLISH THE SLAVE TRADE. [29:33] AND IT THEN OUTLAWED SLAVERY IN ALL ITS COLONIES IN 1833. [29:41] IT WAS A HEAVY BLOW TO SUGAR. [29:43] BUT ONCE AGAIN, IT SHIFTED, ADAPTED, AND MOVED ON. [29:48] THIS TIME, CUBA, STILL UNDER SPANISH RULE, ENTRED THE GAME. [29:55] EL CASO ESPAÑOL ES CURIOSO EN LA MEDIRA QUE, [30:00] CUANDO LA ESCLAVITUD ENTRA EN CRISIS EN OTROS TERRITORIOS, [30:05] EN CUBA SE EXPANDE, VINCULADO PRECISAMENTE AL DESARROLO DE LA PLANTACIÓN AZUCARERA. [30:12] DE MANERA QUE, DURANTE LA MAYOR PARTE DEL SIGLO XIX, [30:17] EL GRAN PRODUCTOR DE AZUCAR DEL MUNDO ES CUBA. [30:20] CUBA ES, COMO DECIMOS EN CASTILLANO, LA GALLINA DE LOS HUEVOS DE ORO. [30:27] Y BUENA PARTE DE LA RIQUEZA, TANTO PRIVADA COMO PÚBLICA DE ESPAÑA, [30:33] DEPENDE DE LA CUBA AZUCARERA, DE LA CUBA ESCLAVISTA. [30:43] A LA ISLA DE CUBA LLEGAN A LO LARGO DE TODA SU HISTORIA CASI UN MILLÓN DE AFRICANOS, [30:47] QUE ES MÁS DEL DOBLE DE LO QUE LLEGAN A ESTADOS UNIDOS EN TODA SU HISTORIA. [30:52] SPAIN WAS ACTUALLY ONE OF THE LAST COUNTRIES TO ABOLISH SLAVERY IN ITS COLONIES. [31:05] IT FINALLY DID SO IN 1886, LONG AFTER BRITAIN, FRANCE, THE UNITED STATES AND PORTUGAL, [31:12] AND TWO YEARS BEFORE BRAZIL IN 1888. [31:15] ULTIMATELY, IT TOOK NEARLY A CENTURY FOR THE GLOBAL SUGAR INDUSTRY [31:22] TO STOP RELYING ON SLAVE LABOR, AT LEAST IN THEORY. [31:29] E PORTANTO, ESTE MOMENTO É UM MOMENTO MUITO LENTO [31:32] E QUE MOSTRA BEM O CARÁTER CENTRAL [31:35] QUE A MOBILIZAÇÃO DE TRABALO ESCRAVISADO TEVE NO DESENVOLVEMENTO DECONÓMICO. [31:44] EVERYONE INVOLVED KNEW THAT THE COLONIAL SUGAR ECONOMY [31:47] COULDN'T SURVIVE WITHOUT A WORKFORCE IT COULD EASILY EXPLOIT. [31:51] IT WAS A FRIGILE, SHRINKING SYSTEM, AND THE MARKET WAS ABOUT TO BECOME EVEN MORE COMPETITIVE. [31:58] SUGARCANE NOW HAD A RIVAL. IT WAS EUROPEAN, SUITED TO NORTHERN CLIMATES, DIDN'T DEPEND ON SLAEFLABOR, [32:08] AND SINCE 1799 IT'S SUGAR COULD BE EXTRACTED ON AN INDUSTRIAL SCALE. THAT RIVAL WAS SUGARBEATS. [32:21] DAT IS IETS WHAT NAPOLION HEEL GOOED UITKOMT. HE HEFT IN 186 IT CONTINENTAAL STELSEL AFGEKONDIGD. [32:28] DAT BETEKENDE DAT ENGELAND NIET LANGER IN STAAT IS OM ZUN PRODUCTEN TE VERKOPEN IN CONTINENTAAL EUROPA. [32:35] En op dat moment is Engeland in bezit van de meeste suikerkoloniën, inclusief de Fransen. [32:40] Dus er is een dringende noodzaak om een alternatief te vinden. [32:44] SUGARBEETS WAS A MAJOR CHALLENGER TO BRITAN'S SUGARCANE POWER. [32:52] NAPOLION TOOK CENTERSTAGE AGAIN AND CHAMPIONED ITS LARGE-SCALE PRODUCTION TO COMPETE WITH BRITISH-CONTROLLED CANE SUGAR. [33:03] BY THE END OF THE 19TH CENTURY SUGARBEETS SUPPLIED AROUND HALF OF THE WORLD'S SUGAR. [33:08] FOR SUGARCANE PLANTERS IN THE COLONIES IT WAS A MAJOR CRISIS. [33:18] THEY WERE SQUEEZED BETWEEN BEET SUGAR COMPETITION AND THE GRADUAL ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. [33:24] SO HOW COULD THEY STAY PROFITABLE? INVEST? GET INTO DEBT? DIVERSIFY? HOW COULD THEY SURVIVE? [33:33] THE FACT THAT THEY LOSE THE CAMPAIGN TO MAINTAIN THE SLAVE TRADE, THE FACT THAT ULTIMATELY [33:39] SLAVERY IS ABOLISHED AND EMANCIPATION DECLARED, DOESN'T MEAN THAT THEY'RE NOT STILL TRYING TO MAINTAIN THEIR POWER AND INFLUENCE. [33:46] AND WHAT THEY DO WHEN THEY REALIZE THAT SLAVERY IS GOING TO BE ABOLISHED, THEY DEMAND THAT THEY BE PAID FOR THE LOSS OF THEIR PROPERTY. [34:01] AND SO BRITAIN AND FRANCE TOOK THE STING OUT OF ABOLITION BY COMPENSATING PLANTATION OWNERS FOR THE LOSS OF WHAT THEY CALLED THEIR PROPERTY. THE HUMAN BEINGS, THEY'RE ENSLAVED. [34:12] THE HUMAN BEINGS, THEY'RE EXPROPRIED. [34:14] WE'RE EXPROPRIED. [34:15] WE'RE EXPROPRIED. [34:16] WE'RE EXPROPRIED. [34:17] WE'RE EXPROPRIED. [34:18] THE HUMAN BEINGS, THEY'RE EXPROPRIED. [34:19] THE NEW REPUBLIC OF HAITI WAS THE FIRST TO PAY THE PRICE. [34:21] AFTER YEARS OF LOBBYING, IN 1825, THE FRENCH PLANTATION OWNERS EXPELLED FROM SAINT-DOMING [34:25] SAINT-DOMING, SAINT-DOMING, SECURED AN INDEMNITY OF 150 MILLION GOLD FRANCES. [34:35] HAITI WAS FORCED TO PAY IN EXCHANGE FOR FORMAL RECOGNITION OF ITS INDEPENDENCE. [34:40] TO ENSURE COMPLIANCE, FRANCE THREATENED PORT AU PRINCE WITH WARSHIPS. [34:45] IT ALSO DEMANDED THAT HAITI BORROW THE MONEY FROM FRENCH BANKS, INCLUDING THE POWERFUL [34:52] CAISES DE DEPOTS AND CONSIGNATION, WHICH FINANCED INDUSTRIAL EXPANSION. [35:13] AT HIGH INTEREST RATES, SUGAR WEALTH WAS MADE TO FLOW BACK TO MAINLAND FRANCE. [35:18] THE OVERALL LOSSES TO THE HAITIAN ECONOMY WERE FAR GREATER. [35:23] AND HAVE BEEN CALCULATED IN MODERN TERMS TO BE BETWEEN 22 AND 48 BILLION U.S. DOLLARS. [35:31] THE SYSTEM IS DESIGNED TO PUNISH HAITI AND HAITIANS FOR BEING FREE AND TO PUNISH THEM ECONOMICALLY. [35:37] IT'S THE HAITIAN PEOPLE WHO ALWAYS SUFFER UNDER THESE POLICIES AND SYSTEMS. [35:48] HAITI HAS NEVER TRULY RECOVERED. DEBT AND ABJECT POVERTY HAVE PUSHED GENERATIONS INTO EXILE, [36:07] A SOURCE OF CHEAP LABOR FOR THE SUGAR INDUSTRY IN THE NEIGHBORING DOMINICAN REPUBLIC. [36:14] IN THE WORLD OF SUGAR, FREEDOM CAME AT A HIGH PRICE. [36:39] AFTER BRINGING HAITI TO ITS KNEES IN 1825, THE PLANTATION OWNERS WON ANOTHER BATTLE IN 1849. [36:47] THIS TIME, FRANCE PICKED UP THE BILL. [36:49] A YEAR AFTER ABOLISHING SLAVERY, THE PARLIAMENT OF THE FRENCH SECOND REPUBLIC PASSED A NEW COLONIAL COMPENSATION LAW. [36:58] THIS GRANTED FORMER SLAVE OWNERS 126 MILLION GOLD FRANKS IN REPARATIONS, ABOUT 7% OF THE STATE'S ENTIRE BUDGET. [37:06] NOW THAT MONEY THAT GOES TO THE SLAVEHOLDERS IS THEN REINVESTED IN THE VICTORIAN ECONOMY. [37:13] AND SO, YOU KNOW, MONEY IS FUNGIBLE. [37:15] AND IT BUILDS UP OTHER INDUSTRIES THAT MAY NOT HAVE AS MUCH TO DO WITH SLAVERY, BUT ARE STILL FUNDED OFF THE BACKS OF ENSLAVED LABOR. [37:22] AND THE MONEY FROM SUGAR KEPT CIRCULATING. [37:26] IN THE FRENCH COLONIES, IT FINANCED THE FIRST BANKS IN MARTINIQUE, GUADELUP AND RÉUNION. [37:32] THE PLANTATION OWNERS USED IT TO PAY OFF THEIR DEBTS, MODERNIZED THEIR ESTATES AND SUGAR REFINERIES, AND TO LOOK AHEAD TO A FUTURE BEYOND SLAVERY. [37:44] A FUTURE BEYOND SLAVERY. [38:04] The strategies will actually continue to work on the modernization of sugar production and the expensive sale of sugar. [38:12] Because manpower was still needed to cut, crush and boil the sugar cane. [38:22] Every sugar colony in the world now faced the same challenge as to how to replace enslaved labour and keep sugar flowing without increasing costs. [38:35] And for this, the British had a plan. [38:38] Even before abolition, they tested it in 1829 on Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. [38:45] From colonial India, they brought in poor workers threatened by famine along with Chinese labourers from Singapore. [38:57] They called them coolies. [38:59] These officially free workers were bound by contracts to work for three, five or more years for minimal wages. [39:09] Food and lodging were provided. But if they ever wanted to return home, they would have to pay the cost of the journey. [39:18] A new system was born, indentureship. The British rolled it out across their empire and the French soon followed. [39:28] I think we need to take the language as it is, a system that consists of forcing certain populations to work. [39:40] Indenture is in a borderland between slavery and freedom. [39:48] Although the contract was for five years, there were many stories of people who were indentured for decades because they had become indebted to the plantation. [40:03] Whether they were buying their food through the company store or sometimes less healthy things like rum, the time just got added on to their contract, their labour contract. [40:18] So debt became kind of self-perpetuating. Debt locked them into decades of being bound to the planter. [40:31] When we go to the language system, the conditions of work and the conditions of life, apart from this notion of freedom, are the same. [40:53] They live practically in the same homes. In the work rhythms, things change quite a little. [41:01] In the vocabulary, we always talk about being trained and engaged. [41:05] These are stigmates of a society that continues, of mentalities that continue to exist after the abolition of slavery. [41:13] And that is how indentureship rescued the sugar economy. [41:25] Between 1850 and 1930, an estimated 750,000 Chinese and 2 million Indians were uprooted and scattered across what you might call Planet Sugar. [41:40] It's important to recognize that these workers, plantation workers, indentured workers, were actually the vanguard of the Indian diaspora. [41:49] These were the first Indians abroad in significant numbers. [41:53] Their path crossed those of other indentured peoples, Africans, Vietnamese, Malagasy, Rodrigans, Oceanians and Japanese. [42:05] Together, these forced exiles forged the very identity of the sugar lands. [42:10] On the French island of Réunion off the Southeast African coast, indentured servitude continued until 1933. [42:27] Around 200,000 laborers met their fate here, their lives bound to sugar. [42:33] Our island is a symbol of the India and Africa. [42:45] When you eat the sugar, you have a taste of sugar, it's good, it gives you France. [42:59] You understand? [43:00] Our ancestors contributed to all this. [43:02] You see? [43:04] These racines will always remind us. [43:07] We became proprietors. [43:15] But the goal is not to become slaves again. [43:19] The ancestors were slaves. [43:24] They were fed. [43:25] They didn't have a life. [43:27] They adapted. [43:28] They did this meeting. [43:30] The Indians were the same. [43:32] The Indians were the same. [43:33] The Indians were the same. [43:34] The Indians were the same. [43:35] They were the same. [43:36] They were the same. [43:37] They were the same. [43:38] They were the same. [43:39] They could sell slaves. [43:40] They have to say things like this. [43:42] They were the commitments, they took They were the same. [43:45] They were the same. [43:46] They were the same. [43:47] They did this. [43:48] They were made them. [43:49] They did this. [43:55] And they created theselets. [43:58] Some people usedHola that food food, serve them and serve them. [44:05] Beacon people were in this sense of walk. [44:10] While slavery and indentured labor are technically a thing of the past, in the Dominican Republic it's [44:16] it's hard not to make the comparison between working conditions today [44:21] and those on the plantations 200 years ago. [44:50] If we don't have a liquidation, we also have a liquidation, even if we don't have a cell phone. [44:55] We need more money. [44:58] If I was young, I was like a cell phone. [45:02] The state automatically extracts their labor contributions to those workers [45:09] and doesn't return to those workers their pensioners, [45:14] and also their liquidations that correspond to them as workers. [45:21] Those workers who have lived more than 40 years [45:24] picking and cultivating cattle, [45:27] at the age of 60 or 70, their life is not the same, [45:31] because they have spent their whole life in the garbage of cattle [45:36] without any benefit, without any guarantee. [45:49] 500 years, and it isn't over. [45:53] The sugar economy has always managed to turn every upheaval to its advantage, [45:58] from the abolition of slavery to changes in the market. [46:03] At the dawn of the 20th century, it was booming, and it only grew stronger. [46:09] This time, it placed its fate in the hands of a rising new power, [46:13] the United States, a new horizon, new fortunes, and a new empire to come. [46:30] If the history of sugar is associated with changes in the European diet through the 18th and 19th century, [46:36] by the 20th century, the pioneer for a lot of those changes is definitely the United States. [46:41] It begins at the end of the 19th century, [46:44] when there are still more people coming to the city. [46:47] That means that the food supply is more efficient. [46:51] It means that many people who don't eat their own food and don't know where food comes from. [47:00] And so that food revolution really served the function of putting sugar everywhere in all sorts of consumables that we buy off the shelf. [47:23] It means that sugar is completely cooked and that food is longer good. [47:33] Sugar slips into our diet in all sorts of pernicious ways. [47:41] And I think that with the arrival of sort of mass-produced branded foods, [47:46] maybe people become even less conscious of how much sugar they're eating. [48:02] In the late 19th century, American food companies reinvented what people ate and exported their new products across the globe. [48:13] Fast food, ice cream, fizzy drinks. It was a new golden age for sugar. [48:19] The zoetigheid wordt geaccepteerd als onderdeel van het burgerlijke bestaan. [48:39] The zoetigheden, the first a sort of beloning for the Sundays, [48:43] begin to be part of the daily consumption. [48:48] Sugar was no longer just a habit. It was an addiction. [48:58] In 1800, the average European ate nine kilos of sugar a year. [49:03] By 1900, the average American was eating 30 kilos. [49:08] Over that same century, the world's population doubled and North America's grew 12-fold. [49:15] With numbers like that, demand exploded. [49:18] People wanted sugar, more sugar, more sugar than ever. [49:23] It's really important to us to emphasize that this plantation kept operating until 1973. [49:34] Most people don't know that people continued to live on plantations for that long. [49:41] After the American Civil War and the abolition of slavery in the U.S. in 1865, [49:49] Louisiana sugar plantation owners feared for their business model. [49:53] But like their French and British counterparts in the Caribbean, Mauritius and Reunion, they simply adapted. [50:01] Before long sugar was thriving again along the banks of the Mississippi. [50:13] These were businesses that didn't just stop just because slavery ended. [50:21] The people who ran these businesses were still interested in making money in a lot of ways. [50:31] The interest was not in figuring out how to restructure society after the Civil War. [50:37] It was instead, how do we continue to do the thing we did before but without slavery? [50:41] So they just replaced slavery with wage labor. [50:44] These photos date from the years just after the Civil War and the abolition of slavery. [51:12] These workers and their families were supposedly free. [51:20] They had been promised 40 acres and a mule to begin a new life. [51:25] In reality, the plantations had stayed intact and the land was never redistributed. [51:32] Many former slaves had only one option, to take out their machetes and return to work [51:38] for the very masters who'd once owned them. [51:44] The planter power was so complete. [51:49] There was a major strike here. [51:51] The response from the planters from that event was to create essentially their own militias. [51:57] In 1887, when the Knights of Labor organized about 10,000 workers around Thibodeau, [52:03] the planters' association was intimately involved in the suppression of that strike, [52:10] which was brutally violent. [52:18] In the town of Thibodeau on the 23rd of November, 1887, 60 black sugarcane laborers [52:25] were shot dead by police and the planters' militia. One planter's wife later wrote in a letter, [52:38] I think that settles the question of who makes the law around here, the black man or the white man? [52:55] In Louisiana, defending the planters' interests went hand in hand with defending white supremacy. [53:02] In 1896, racial segregation was written into law. Racist violence became legitimate. [53:10] Out on the plantations, work simply carried on. [53:23] But who cared? As long as sugar kept flowing, the refineries kept running and profits were rising. [53:39] By the late 19th century, the heart of the sugar economy was beating on America's east coast. [53:48] And if it had a face, it was this man's, Henry Osborne Havermeyer. [53:55] Henry O. Havermeyer is one of the important people that the American, let's just call it, [54:01] suiker-imperialism, was the world's first modern sugar barren. [54:10] In just a few years, he bought up most of the refineries in the United States [54:18] and created a corporate giant, the American Sugar Refining Company. [54:22] In the early 20th century, the company refined 98% of all American sugar. [54:37] A monopoly. Nothing stood in sugar's way. Not even the American government. [54:51] The island of Hawaii would discover this the hard way. Throughout the 18th century, [55:04] Christian missionaries bought up fertile land and planted sugarcane intensively. [55:09] The island was turned into one vast plantation. Then, in 1898, it was annexed by the United States. [55:23] In 1898, it was a year of conquests. In April, the United States declared war on Spain. [55:49] España perdió la mayor parte de su imperio a principio del siglo XIX y pasó a ser una potencia [56:03] imperial de segundo o tercer orden, pero conservó tres territorios insulares, Cuba, Puerto Rico y Filipinas. [56:10] Y Cuba, particularmente, era la colonia más rica del siglo XIX. No solo la colonia más rica para España, [56:17] sino de todos los territorios coloniales, el gran productor de azúcar del mundo es Cuba. [56:23] And its main customer was the United States, which imported most of its sugar production. [56:40] Henry Osborne Havemeyer had already invested heavily in Cuba, [56:44] and by the time the Spanish-American war broke out, controlled almost all of the island's refineries. [56:50] El azúcar es un componente esencial en la relación de Estados Unidos con Cuba, [57:04] en el interés de Estados Unidos con Cuba. [57:06] Spain was defeated on all fronts in August 1898. The Philippines were occupied, Puerto Rico was annexed, [57:25] and Cuba gained a tightly controlled independence and effectively became an American protectorate. [57:31] The patterns in the sugar industry remain the same. The work is poorly paid. The men are mostly [57:50] extremely mobile and pull from one plant or from one central to the other. And through the immigration [57:56] of more and more former slaves from the other Caribbean, it comes to that the pay is poorly paid. [58:13] This was Cuba. And on one side, a sugar workforce made up of former slaves turned indentured laborers, [58:22] Chinese coolies, poor European migrants, and Haitian and Jamaican cane cutters desperate for a contract. [58:30] And on the other side stood a saccharocracy. This was made up of Creole and Spanish planter families, [58:37] who owned sugar fields that stretched over tens of thousands of hectares, closely linked to American [58:43] power and interests. While the countryside went hungry, the parties in Havana's clubs and casinos were in [58:55] full swing. The gap between the plantations and the capital's glittering nightlife widened, [59:03] as deepening inequality tore the island apart. [59:06] In the eastern part of Cuba, the eastern part of Cuba also owned a very illegal land of Cuban farmers. [59:15] And in that time, in the year 1920, there was also a guerrilla against the American plantations in [59:22] Oost-Cuba. Oost-Cuba remained calm and it is no coincidence that the guerrilla war of Fidel Castro [59:32] began precisely in that part of Cuba. [59:39] Fidel Castro's father was a major landowner. He himself, as a young lawyer, chose to defend [59:46] landless peasants and impoverished sugar workers. In 1950, Castro openly challenged General Batista's [59:54] dictatorship and took over the leadership of the armed struggle. His fighters entered Havana on the [1:00:04] 1st of January 1959, which marked the start of the revolution. Machetes in hand, the guajiros, [1:00:17] the cane cutters, became the new heroes. Soon, American-owned sugar mills were swiftly nationalized. [1:00:27] Plantations were collectivized or broken up and shared out. The great land-owning families fled, [1:00:38] but Cuba's love affair with sugar was far from over. [1:00:59] The U.S. imposed an economic blockade on Cuba, which closed off the American market. But the [1:01:15] Soviet Union welcomed Cuban sugar with open arms. The new Cuban government banked on sugar, [1:01:24] imposing increasingly ambitious production quotas. In 1970, it set the target at 10 million tons. [1:01:33] Students from around the world flooded in to help cut cane, including a few American rebels. The [1:01:51] revolution was powered by sugar, as long as it lasted. Fue preciso, en el caso cubano, [1:02:04] desde luego, pero no solo en el caso cubano, desmontar bosques, talar muchísimos árboles, [1:02:14] cultivar caña de azúcar, que es una caña de azúcar que poco a poco va quitando los nutrientes del suelo, [1:02:21] va erosionando el suelo, de manera que al cabo de 40 años, 50 años, buena parte de estos suelos ya no [1:02:32] producen más y no producen bien. Y muchos de estos ingenios son abandonados y son trasladados a otro lugar. [1:02:39] Casi no produce azúcar Cuba. Ahora Cuba importa azúcar. Una sociedad que creció al calor de la [1:02:54] producción y exportación de azúcar, ahora necesita importar azúcar. [1:03:00] Sugar was Cuba's lifeblood. But when the soil was exhausted and the Soviet market collapsed, [1:03:06] that lifeblood dried up. It was as though the country couldn't escape sugar, [1:03:14] a nation being forged, populated and exploited for a single crop. [1:03:21] What future lay beyond after sugar? Every island in the Caribbean was asking the same question. [1:03:28] And it still pays? [1:03:32] Oh, sugar? Oh, yes. Even with higher wages and greater cost of production, it pays. [1:03:38] In the 1960s, British sugar colonies gained independence within the Commonwealth. France [1:03:50] chose to keep its islands, making them overseas départements. But whatever the case, [1:04:00] whether it was British Jamaica or French Martinique, Trinidad or Guadeloupe, Guyana or Guyane, [1:04:08] the reality didn't change. People now find these houses too big. [1:04:16] Well, just my husband, myself and Mama, we don't find it any too big. My husband and I have just [1:04:21] enough room to quarrel in, I assure you. And you can still get sent here to run a big house like this? [1:04:25] Yes, mine never leave. The best land remained in the hands of white planter families known as [1:04:32] bequets in Martinique. My family has arrived here for 300 years. The Martiniquais, I've always known them. [1:04:39] I've always known them. I've always known them. I've always known them. I've always known them. [1:04:41] I know how to manipulate them. And the machetes remained in the hands of black field workers, [1:04:48] the descendants of slaves. It's hard in the field to work. It's hard in the field? Why is that? [1:04:56] Well, because they're not paying enough money. Bob Marley said the day we find that we are free [1:05:05] only to be chained in poverty, right? That is one of the saddest parts of the story of emancipation [1:05:13] in Caribbean. The emancipated slaves did not receive compensation in the way the slaveholders did [1:05:20] for the labor, generations and generations and generations of labor that their ancestors had [1:05:25] performed. And they were not able to invest that money in their own futures. And so you find [1:05:32] generations of poverty succeeding generations of enslavement. Disadvantage is inherited as well as [1:05:41] wealth, right? Disadvantage accumulates just as well as capital. The legacy of sugar weighed heavily on the [1:05:55] people as well as on the land. Centuries of monoculture farming left the soil exhausted, sacrificed at the [1:06:05] expense of food crops and infrastructure. The islands had lived on sugar alone, a dangerous dependency. [1:06:25] But sugar consumption didn't fall. Quite the opposite. By the 1960s, Caribbean sugar had become surplus [1:06:33] to European needs. France and Britain implemented more modern, intensive farming methods. Sugar beet was [1:06:46] now grown on an industrial scale. Why import sugar from across the world when you can make it yourself? [1:06:55] En het is ook opmerkelijk dat eigenlijk de eerste grote agrarische lobby op Europees niveau, die ontstaat, [1:07:06] dat zijn de suiker, de bietsuiker industrieën. The European Community's Common Agricultural Policy accelerated the shift. [1:07:17] It gave subsidies to farmers and assured them it would sell their biets at a guaranteed price. [1:07:31] Maar die garantieprijzen waren dusdanig genereus dat de overproductie, dat werd op de koop toegenomen [1:07:38] en dat werd vervolgens gedumpt op de wereldmarkt. Het gevolg is dat de prijzen op de wereldmarkt voor suiker [1:07:45] vanaf de jaren 50, 60 ook een stelselmatig naar beneden zijn gegaan en eigenlijk veel te laag waren [1:07:52] om producenten, bijvoorbeeld in het Caribisch gebied of in de Indische Oceaan, fatsoenlijke boterham te geven. [1:07:59] Het is een, dat dumping is echt een hele perverse praktijk geweest, wat het gevolg is geweest van protectionisme, [1:08:08] het gevolg is geweest van een concitie tussen de Europese regering en grote industriëlen. [1:08:16] Against this shielded, heavily protected beet industry, Caribbean cane could no longer compete. [1:08:24] One by one, from Jamaica to Martinique, plantations and refineries close their doors. [1:08:35] Well, when the sugar economy collapses, [1:08:38] these Caribbean economies cast about looking for other ways to make their national income. [1:08:44] So they're still oriented toward growing agricultural products for export. [1:08:48] So bananas becomes a crop that a lot of people grow. [1:08:51] They're still oriented toward catering to Europeans and others. [1:08:55] So tourism becomes a way that they try to prosper nationally. [1:09:14] Now, none of these things really replaces the profitability of sugar. [1:09:23] Unemployment hit hard and it struck young people the hardest of all. [1:09:28] They emigrated en masse. [1:09:33] A new wave of sugar exiles began, but this time they were leaving the islands for Europe. [1:09:49] In France, they were known as the Boumidome generation. [1:09:53] Named after the agency set up in 1963 to send young people from Martinique, [1:09:59] Guadeloupe and Réunion to mainland France. [1:10:04] They were the cheap labour that powered the prosperity of the post-war boom years. [1:10:13] In Britain, the Windrush generation traded Jamaica, Trinidad and St. Kitts [1:10:18] for the building sites of London, Birmingham and Manchester. [1:10:22] They were welcome for a while, but then became undesirable when economic crisis and unemployment hit [1:10:35] in the early 1970s. [1:10:41] Many had to leave in search of new horizons, sometimes even to cut sugar cane yet again, [1:10:49] like the thousands of Jamaicans sent to the new sugar paradise, Florida. [1:10:57] The men are lined up, they come up to representatives either from the companies [1:11:02] or from the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association. [1:11:11] And these fellows, they want to see their hands, they'll feel them to see if they have calluses. [1:11:22] They ask you the questions, you know, you're willing to work, what kind of work you do, [1:11:26] and you tell them farm work boss, you're willing to work seven days a week, yes boss, [1:11:31] you're willing to eat rice and pork, all that. [1:11:33] I get this video and I start looking at it and I see these guys with their hands out, [1:11:38] I see them bending, I see them, you know, feeling muscles, and I think, man, it's exactly. [1:11:47] Dave Gorman filed a class action against Florida's powerful sugar companies in 1989, [1:11:53] together with two other lawyers on behalf of 20,000 Jamaican sugar cane cutters. [1:12:01] These migrant workers were paid by the task and earned well below the U.S. minimum wage. [1:12:09] It was supposed to be the great sugar trial. [1:12:15] When I watch it, I feel that we got screwed. They got screwed, we got screwed. [1:12:22] We should have won. [1:12:27] These Jamaicans were hired legally under a U.S. program for temporary unskilled workers known as H2. [1:12:40] It was a 20th century form of indenture. And until the 1990s, the sugar industry took full advantage. [1:12:49] From the island of Jamaica, I am a H2 worker, putting cane in a Florida, working so hard in the burning sun, [1:13:11] wondering if slavery really done, I'm working. [1:13:15] And the music, water dripping from the ceiling, the proximity of the men sleeping next to one another. [1:13:25] It was in my early 20s at the time, and it was the closest I had ever seen in my life of something akin to slavery. [1:13:34] Sometimes they put the cane price at $138 a row. The next day, they drop it at $105 a row and such a lie. [1:13:48] They keep on. So every time they see we're cutting the cane fast and every time we make quick money, [1:13:53] they drop the price lower and lower the next day. [1:13:58] It's a crime. They contractually agreed to come and work for a certain amount of money. [1:14:04] They were not paid that. They were not provided the housing that they contractually agreed to. [1:14:09] They weren't provided the medical care. They were not provided anything that was promised to them. [1:14:19] And yet they provided what was requested of them for the sugar industry. [1:14:26] Today, these plantations stretching far into the distance are owned by a single conglomerate, Florida Crystals. [1:14:34] At its head are two brothers of Cuban origin, Alfonso Alfie Fanjol and Jose Pepe Fanjol. [1:14:46] People ask me, what do you do? What is your profession? I say, former. And sometimes they look at me, former. [1:14:57] You know, that's what I am. I've done everything in a form. [1:15:01] Their story is one America likes to tell. Two self-made men who fled communist Cuba in 1959 and became billionaires. [1:15:11] Two brothers in a long line of sugar magnates. They rebuilt an empire in just 30 years, Florida Crystals. [1:15:24] Then they brought up other firms to create a new giant, ASR, American Sugar Refining. [1:15:32] A nod to history. That was the name of the monopoly founded by Henry Osborne Havemeyer, the first of the sugar barons. [1:15:43] A success story, largely underwritten by American taxpayers. [1:16:06] The sugar industry has an arrangement under US law that is more favorable than any other agricultural industry. [1:16:25] The Fanjols were very smart politically. They made the very smart political decision that one would be a major contributor to the Democratic Party. [1:16:35] The other would be a contributor to the Republicans. [1:16:37] Would that be a winning strategy? In 1992, one judge dared to rule in favor of the cane cutters, ordering Florida's sugar companies to pay $51 million in back pay and damages. [1:16:58] We used to joke around about being able to go down to Jamaica and hand out money. And they took an appeal. And the appellate court reversed. They decided that the contract was ambiguous. [1:17:27] I've done this work for 45 years. I've done more farm worker cases than any attorney in the country. I've won more farm worker cases than anyone in the country. [1:17:43] And this is the one that got away. They didn't want to pay the money. And they were willing to pay their lawyers. And their lawyers gambled and won, essentially. [1:17:54] The Fanjols brothers then streamlined their business. After the trial, new machinery allowed them to replace cane cutters for tractors, much cheaper and far less demanding. [1:18:14] And their empire stretched out even further. Since 1984, they've also been operating in the Dominican Republic, a two-hour flight from Miami. [1:18:39] Central Romana, the country's largest sugar producer, is now affiliated to American sugar refineries, ASR. Here, migrant workers from Haiti, paid by the task, cost even less than the machines. [1:19:06] Central Romana. Se deben a Florida Crystal, Domino Sugar, al imperio de los hermanos Fanjul, en Estados Unidos. [1:19:12] Un imperio que se ha levantado aquí en la provincia del Ceibo. [1:19:17] It was in El Ceibo province that homeless families found shelter on communal land. [1:19:25] Unfortunately, it was on the edge of a Central Romana plantation. [1:19:29] En el año 2016, en la noche del 26 de enero, a las 3 de la madrugada llegaron muchos guardiacampestres, policía privada de la Compañía Central Romana, y tumbaron más de 80 viviendas. [1:19:44] Cuidado, eh. Cuidado, eh. Cuidado, eh. Cuidado. [1:20:07] Cuando el techo bajó, uno de esos clavos que se quedan así le trapasó el pie al niño. No me gusta. No me gusta recordarlo porque me hace sentir mal, pero muy mal. [1:20:22] Y simplemente era el hecho que no tuviéramos ahí porque ellos tienen... Fuimos donde las autoridades. Fuimos donde el síndico, que es el alcalde. Fuimos donde el gobernador. [1:20:38] Y que nos indignamos porque eso había sucedido muchas veces ya, aquí en El Ceibo, sin que nadie se atreviera a denunciarlo. [1:20:50] Porque Central Romana es el poder. Es más que presidente. Con decirle que cuando fuimos donde el gobernador de la provincia nos dijo que no podía intervenir porque lo destituían a los dos minutos. [1:21:05] In 2022, a U.S. government investigation confirmed that Central Romana was engaging in abusive practices in the Dominican Republic. [1:21:20] Imports of its sugar into the U.S. were banned, a decision the Van Roel's contested. [1:21:28] But the ban was lifted in March 2025, shortly after Donald Trump became president again. [1:21:34] Pepe Van Roel was one of the donors to his election campaign. [1:21:38] What you see is that over the last few years the concentration has become stronger... [1:21:47] ...of the plantages and of every form of sugar production. [1:21:50] There are probably seven or eight big sugar conglomerates in the world that have to say about it. [1:21:56] They have great access to the governments. [1:21:59] In Europe you have sugar in Germany or North sugar. [1:22:04] You have Therios in Frankreich. You have Theten Lyle in England. [1:22:07] And you have Van Jules in Florida. [1:22:13] After that, groups like Cossan and Raisin in Brazil. [1:22:17] Since the 16th century, Brazil has been the sugar country, the world's biggest producer and exporter. [1:22:30] It sells itself as inventing the future. [1:22:45] Somos o agro que impulsiona. [1:22:47] A crise do petróleo internacional fez com que o Brasil se desse conta de que ele estava muito dependente dos combustíveis fósseis, etc. [1:23:02] E aí pensou, vamos incentivar com dinheiro público a produção de álcool aqui no Brasil. [1:23:07] When oil prices quadrupled in 1973 and the world faced an energy crisis, Brazil turned back to sugar. [1:23:18] In 1975 it launched the pro-alcool program, betting heavily on ethanol. [1:23:25] Since then, a large part of the country has run on this cane-based fuel. [1:23:32] It's promoted as the green alternative that could dethrone oil and decarbonize growth. [1:23:39] So, could sugar really turn out to be the savior of the planet and of humankind? [1:23:44] I want to leave the president of the republic again, with this country growing, with this [1:23:52] country respected the world, with this country inveighed by the world, by our capacity to [1:23:59] make this energy revolution that we are doing. [1:24:03] This energy revolution is playing out here, in Sao Paulo State, the richest region in Brazil. [1:24:12] It is a pillar of Brazil's agribusiness. [1:24:17] It alone produces around 14% of the world's sugar. [1:24:23] Six million hectares are planted with cane, half of them devoted solely to ethanol. [1:24:28] The plantations lie packed together. [1:24:37] And, as in Florida, harvesting is now fully mechanized. [1:24:41] Look at that. [1:24:44] In this period, when the ethanol came, also used to have a very big response on the mechanization. [1:24:53] A machine substitutes more or less 80 to 110 men. [1:25:01] It's better than the manual cut. [1:25:06] I'm not saying that it's bad. [1:25:08] I'm saying that the way it's been placed today for workers is destructive. [1:25:15] Because, for a worker, there's nothing good for them. [1:25:30] I can say clearly that the life of these workers in a machine, [1:25:36] it's not going to pass from 12 to 15 years. [1:25:39] It's just to investigate. [1:25:40] These workers in the machine, they can't wait for their meals, [1:25:48] they can't wait for their meals, for their physiological needs. [1:25:53] If the sugar is so good for Brazil, it's better, right? [1:26:04] If the ethanol and the sugar are the chief of our nation, it's better. [1:26:11] It's better. [1:26:12] It's better. [1:26:14] It's better. [1:26:15] It's better. [1:26:16] It's better. [1:26:25] It's better. [1:26:26] But, in general, the pollution that comes out of cars is less than you're ruining a [1:26:34] litre of etanol or one litre of gasoline or diesel. [1:26:36] The atmosphere pollution is much less. [1:26:39] But, in this accountability, we have to consider the degradation of the soil, [1:26:43] the exploration of the work force, the desmatation, the polluted rivers, [1:26:48] polluted, the mortality of the fauna and the flora in a general way." [1:26:57] And then there is drought, worsened by monoculture and deforestation. [1:27:05] In 2024, accidental or deliberate wildfires tore through São Paulo's cane fields. [1:27:12] They burned tens of thousands of hectares and covered half of Brazil in smoke. [1:27:21] Yet the market barely flinched, prospects remained bright, and growth continued. [1:27:26] In Florida, sugar is also a hot topic. [1:27:42] Near Muck City, at the heart of the Florida Crystal's plantations, fires burn through the [1:27:47] cane fields every year without fail, from October to May. [1:28:01] The whole Muck City area is being choked physically by smoke and ash that falls and burns eight [1:28:09] months out of a year. [1:28:11] Chemicals in the air. [1:28:12] Black snow. [1:28:13] And our cancer rates have gone up. [1:28:21] Right now, there's a study from FSU that revealed that one to six deaths is caused a year from [1:28:27] the burning here. [1:28:28] It's hell. [1:28:32] It's hell down here. [1:28:34] It's literally burning hell in the community. [1:28:37] But unlike in Brazil, these fires are not natural disasters or accidents. [1:28:47] On these ultra-modern, fully-mechanized plantations, an age-old practice survives to make harvesting [1:28:54] easier. [1:28:57] To strip away the dry leaves, the sugar cane is set alight thousands of hectares at a time. [1:29:02] Like black snow, ash falls everywhere, in some places more than others. [1:29:12] They have provisions right now that's been placed on our community that says that when [1:29:18] the wind blows to the east, they can't burn. [1:29:20] But when it burns out to the beautiful community of the Muck City, let it burn, baby, let it burn. [1:29:26] And I believe and I know it's because of environmental racism. [1:29:31] They don't see my people working. [1:29:33] We're, I would say, at least 60%, 70% African-American. [1:29:38] Whether it be Jamaicans and Haitians and all of that, but we're all, we're all, I'll just [1:29:43] say, black. [1:29:50] It's a shame. [1:29:51] Especially allowing us to be ranked the number one poor city. [1:29:54] How can we be ranked the number one poor city when we got a billion dollar company burning [1:29:58] directly on us? [1:29:59] We're choking, and we're choking from so many things. [1:30:10] Not only environmental racism with the sugar cane burning, but also in our economics here. [1:30:15] And I am sending a message out that very strong acts in our industry. [1:30:21] Listen. [1:30:22] Allow us to breathe. [1:30:23] Let us breathe. [1:30:34] For five centuries, this has been going on. [1:30:36] For five centuries, sugar has subjugated lands and lives on every continent. [1:30:43] It is well so that sugar has its erfenis nagelaten in our society. [1:30:51] A erfenis of racism. [1:30:53] A erfenis of overconsumption. [1:30:55] The legacy of slavery. [1:30:56] The displacement of whole communities. [1:30:57] Forced labor. [1:30:58] Environmental collapse. [1:30:59] And public health crises. [1:31:00] That's the bitter price for our collective addiction to sweetness. [1:31:02] Al Jazeera contacted the government of the Dominican Republic. [1:31:05] And asked it to respond to allegations made in this program. [1:31:10] But they didn't reply. [1:31:11] We also asked Central Romana to respond to statements made in the program about its alleged abusive practices in the Dominican Republic. [1:31:16] They replied to say that these were, quote, completely false and defamatory. [1:31:22] A spokesperson said that the company would not respond further. [1:31:26] We also asked Florida Crystals to respond to Robert Mitchell's claims about the detrimental effects of their burning sugar cane fields on his local community. [1:31:36] But they didn't reply. [1:31:37] We also asked Central Romana to respond to statements made in the program about its alleged abusive practices in the Dominican Republic. [1:31:39] They replied to say that these were, quote, completely false and defamatory. [1:31:41] A spokesperson said that the company would not respond further. [1:31:44] We also asked Florida Crystals to respond to Robert Mitchell's claims about the detrimental effects of their burning sugar cane fields on his local community. [1:31:56] But they didn't reply.