Slavery and Sugar

The triangular commerce between Europe, the New World, and Africa generated an all-pervasive slave-sugar industrial complex that included slave traders; carters, dock workers, and harbor officials; shipbuilders and shipyard workers; seamen, captains, and ship’s bursars; freight forwarders, insurance agents, and customs agents; refiners, packagers, and bakers; grocers and confectioners; and brokers and commercial agents known as factors—all demanding (and sometimes receiving) assistance in the form of subsidies and economic protection or monopolies. See sugar trade.