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From the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries, Madeira and the Canary islands were successful and booming sugar markets, playing a pivotal role in creating the transportation of sugar from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean, also known as the “sugar route” (Vieira, 42). Sugar cultivation contributed greatly to the socioeconomic and political conditions of the islands and Europe. When sugar production was low, the islands and European nations suffered. According to Fernando Jasmins Pereira, if the Madeira and Canary islands were economically and socially unsuccessful, the sugar industry was directly impacted: “The decline of Madeiran production is principally due to the impoverishment of soils, which given the limited area available for agriculture, inevitably reduced the productive capacity” (Vieira, 48).
The island of Madeira was uninhabited when discovered, and the need for labor was crucial. This reminded me of John Gillis’s Islands of the Mind. Here, Gillis discusses how the geography of islands contributed to European’s perception of the Atlantic and the outside world as mythical, unknown, and vast: “Islands were a kind of third place, partaking of both sea and land, liminal places that were the sites of rites of passage for travelers between earth and water”(Gillis, 28). What simultaneously boomed along with the sugar market was the slave trade. As a result, the island’s agrarian condition and lack of civilization resulted in an increase in slave trading and ownership to create the economic success of sugar cultivation (Vieira, 57).
Along with slavery, the sugar boom directly influenced the economics and markets of the Atlantic world. What resulted from the successful cultivation of sugar was a scramble for land to produce and market sugar, as well as a direct connection between the ‘Old’ and ‘New’ worlds. This bridge was built through Atlantic islands correlating their needs to the demands of European nations; Islands like Madeira and the Canary would alter their economic needs in order to support those of Europe (Vieira, 62-63). Erin Wroe wrote that by working in Atlantic trade, European nations set to establish themselves as powerful economies that wanted to create permanent settlements for future business endeavors. I found this argument incredibly insightful, as Wroe’s case acknowledges and discusses the exploitation of peoples and land in order achieve economic success. While originally unintentional in terms of harm, the destruction of Atlantic islands and the abuse and exploitation of slaves ultimately led to the expansion of sugar cultivation and slavery in the Caribbean New world.