History of sugar cane

History of sugar cane

Inhabitants of New Guinea grew sugar cane more than 8,000 years ago. The plants were also widely grown in ancient India. Sugar cane is specifically mentioned in records of an expedition by the Macedonian king Alexander the Great to what is now Pakistan in 325 B.C.

The cultivation and refining of sugar cane spread east from India to China about 100 B.C. but did not reach Europe until about A.D. 636. In the early 1400's, Europeans planted sugar cane in northern Africa and on islands in the Atlantic Ocean. Portuguese settlers later planted sugar cane on the west coast of Africa and in Brazil. The Italian navigator Christopher Columbus brought sugar-cane cuttings to islands in the Caribbean Sea in 1493.

The first sugar mill in the Western Hemisphere was built in 1515 in what is now the Dominican Republic. Jesuit missionaries brought sugar cane to Louisiana in 1751. In 1791, the first sugar mill on the North American mainland was built in New Orleans by Antonio Mendez, a Louisiana planter.

Excerpt adapted from the "Sugar" article, The World Book Encyclopedia © 1999