The Politics of Produce · Episode 6 of 17 · 24 min
Sweetness and Power: Sugar, Slavery, and Haiti
Sugar powered the Atlantic slave trade and produced the only large-scale slave revolt that won, the Haitian Revolution. The episode follows the plantation complex to Cuba's sugar bowl and the 1960 quota cut, then to beet sugar, today's Big Sugar farm-bill program, and the Everglades, giving growers' and critics' cases.
Who's who
- Toussaint Louvertureformerly enslaved leader of the Saint-Domingue insurgents
- Jean-Jacques Dessalinescompleted the revolution and declared Haitian independence in 1804
- Napoleon Bonapartesent the Leclerc expedition, then sold Louisiana
- Charles Leclercled the French expedition to restore slavery
- Fidel Castroleader whose 1959 revolution expropriated sugar estates
- Dwight D. Eisenhower+12 more episodessigned the 1960 cut to Cuba's sugar quota
Where it happens
- Saint-Domingue (Haiti)richest colony in the world and site of the revolution
- Cuba+2 more episodessugar bowl of the world
- Everglades, Floridaenvironmental cost of Florida cane growing
- Barbadosearly site of the sugar revolution
Timeline
- 1697Spain cedes western Hispaniola to France
- August 1791enslaved people in Saint-Domingue rise in revolt
- January 1, 1804Dessalines declares Haitian independence
- 1959Cuban Revolution expropriates large sugar estates
- July 6, 1960Eisenhower slashes Cuba's U.S. sugar quota
- 2025farm-bill sugar loan rate raised to 24 cents per pound
Still debated
Death tolls of the Haitian Revolution are uncertain and politically charged, as is the weight of yellow fever versus combat against Napoleon's army. Scholars also debate how decisive the 1960 quota cut was in Cuba's turn to the Soviet Union.
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