Sugar, Demerara and the British Empire
Overview
Sugar truly became part of the British diet within the 19th century, when the working class secured "tea and sugar" in their diet. Thus, there was a significant increase in sugar consumption in England: in 1856, "sugar consumption was forty times higher than it had been only 150 years earlier" and in the 1890s, consumption was around "ninety pounds per person per year" (Sidney Mintz, Sweetness and Power, p. 143). However, with the ready availability and cheapness of sugar, the working class households, naturally, did not receive adequate nutrients, such as protein, from meat. Furthermore, the father in the household received a "disproportionately large fraction of the total protein," since it was believed the laborer needed protein to continue doing his work. Thus, poorer families received inadequate nourishment with the increase in sugar consumption, aided by the fall in price of sugar.Sugar had been a lucrative crop during slavery, because of slavery: African labor to the Americas helped run and maintain the sugar colonies. Following the abolition of slavery, however, the supply of labor was cut-back significantly, and the sugar colonies sought other sources of labor, including China and India in the form of indentured workers. Demerara was a common destination for Indian indentured workers, who were a crucial in helping Demerara stay competitive in the sugar industry and become an important exporter of sugar for Britain, while under British rule.
Britain's Sugar Imports from Main British Colonies, in Tons, 1870: West Indies, including British Guiana, India, including Ceylon, and Mauritius.
A glimpse of life in Demerara for its plantation workers:
The Clarence concludes the voyage in our log by returning to England and bringing back "224 [Hogsheads]" of sugar, 10 hogsheads of rum, and 10 barrels of rum, among other items, and emigrants as well.
Other Voyages
The Greens (*citation to Greens) made some occasional voyages to Australia starting in the late 1840s, and "after the discovery of gold there in 1852, these were increased to a monthly service." The Greens were wooden shipbuilders, and the fact that their business continued up until the 1850s and after shows that wooden sailing ships were not obsolete after the first half of the 19th century. As Gerald Graham discussed in The Ascendancy of the Sailing Ship 1850-85, wooden sailing ships, after the invention of steam, were still widely used because they were better for longer routes, such as that from England to Australia, since steamships required "enormous space for coal stowage," and wooden sailing ships were better at carrying "bulky cargoes such as wool, nitrate, grain, oil, and coal."(Source: Gerald Graham's The Ascendancy of the Sailing Ship 1850-85. Page 82). Thus wooden sailing ships were often used to sail Australia around the 1850s, including the Prince of Wales, another one of Green's ships commanded by Joseph Watson (for more information on Green's ships, visit Green's Vessels), Australia being an attraction for its wool trade and offering the possibility for migration for people in Europe and Asia.(DNB Article on Richard Green, and Gerald Graham's The Ascendancy of the Sailing Ship 1850-85)
