Slavery and sugar cane production are very much related in America's peopling history.
English planters first started planting sugar cane in Barbados in the 1640's, using both enslaved people from Africa as well as prisioners from the British Isles. Hundreds of thousands of enslaved man were brought from Africa to the Caribbean and to America so that the Europeans could have sugar and rum, both made from sugar cane.
Slaves worked in extremely harsh conditions and they were recruited at a very early age. As a result, white men who owned plantations were aware of the fact that under these working conditions, the enslaved people would die young. Therefore, each year a planter bought newly imported slaves from Africa to replace those who had died.
In sum, sugar cane production killed hundreds of thousands of slaves not only African ones, but also the American children born of enslaved mothers.
