Abstracts History

Sugar in the British Atlantic World 1650-1720

by Mimi Goodall

This DPhil thesis, Sugar in the British Atlantic World 1650-1720, seeks to analyse the effect and extent of the sugar trade in the seventeenth century. By 1700, sugar was one of the most important commodities in Europe. It was the driving force behind the trafficking of hundreds of thousands of people, huge accumulation of capital, the growth of international trade, and a number of important subsidiary industries. The development of the institution of chattel slavery and its influence on the history of capitalism has been the subject of many scholarly investigations, however there has been comparatively little work done on the consumption on sugar itself. The thesis, therefore, examines trade in sugar across the Atlantic Ocean and tracks the ways in which the good was consumed. The intellectual contribution of the thesis comes from its discussion of extensive archival material which identifies the extent of early sugar consumption and which traces how the good transformed from luxury to everyday comestible. Building on from this, the work also seeks to understand the repercussions of such consumption for the Atlantic economy. It demonstrates the key role played by sugar in the rapidly changing economic systems and culture. Tracking consumption of sugar in the British Atlantic world tells us more about the state of the sugar trade as a whole, and the global economic system which it helped to forge. The research gives insight into the development of international trading networks, the commercialisation of the British Atlantic economy and, underneath it all, the reliance of the metropolitan environment on exploitation in the colonies.