I must confess a certain ignorance regarding sugar. I had erroneously assumed that sugar began in South America and the West Indies (the Caribbean) but I was incorrect. So, the time I was most aware of likely began around the Elizabethan era of Queen Elizabeth I in England where sugar was perceived by royalty as more of a drug like cocaine with medicinal qualities and then mixed with chocolate discovered in South America to make Cocoa and Hot chocolate drinks for Royalty around the same time in Europe.
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The Portuguese took sugar to Brazil. By 1540, there were 800 cane sugar mills in Santa Catarina Island and there were another 2,000 on the north coast of Brazil, Demarara, and Surinam. The first sugar harvest happened in Hispaniola in 1501; and, many sugar mills had been constructed in Cuba and Jamaica by the 1520s.[22]
The approximately 3,000 small sugar mills that were built before 1550 in the New World created an unprecedented demand for cast iron gears,
levers, axles and other implements. Specialist trades in mold-making
and iron casting developed in Europe due to the expansion of sugar
production. Sugar mill construction developed technological skills
needed for a nascent industrial revolution in the early 17th century.[22]
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