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Sugar in Spain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2008

David Abulafia
David Abulafia*
Affiliation:
Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, CB2 1TA, UK
*
E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Sugar has attracted attention from economic historians, particularly because ofits significance in the organisation of labour – notably the role ofsugar in the development of slavery in the New World. In a Mediterraneansetting, the links to slavery are less obvious, but the gradual westwardtransfer of sugar technology from the Levant to Sicily (under Muslim rule, andlater under Aragonese rule) and to Spain reflects seismic changes in theMediterranean economy. This was a luxury product and, as demand in westernEurope grew, European merchants sought sources of supply closer to home than theeastern Mediterranean. Their reluctance to trade in the Levant reflectedpolitical uncertainties in the period when Turkish power was rising in theregion. In southern Spain, Valencia (under Christian rule) and Granada (underMuslim rule) became major suppliers to northern Europe by the 15th century.Paradoxically, the survival of the last Muslim state in Spain, Granada, was madepossible through the injection of capital by Italian and other merchants tradingin sugar. However, the discovery of the Atlantic islands, especially Madeira,gave the Portuguese an opportunity to develop sugar production on a massivescale, again targeting Flanders and northern Europe. The article concludes withthe arrival of sugar in the Caribbean, in the wake of Columbus.

Type
Articles
Information
European Review , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , May 2008 , pp. 191 - 210
Copyright
Copyright © Academia Europaea 2008

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References

References and Notes

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