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| | SUGAR |
 | | Consequently, the plantation system and the sugar refining industry, rather than the harvesting of spices and silk production, were destined to shape the economy and society of Brazil and the West Indies. |
 | | Since sugar cane had been introduced to Madeira and the Canaries after their colonization during the last half of the fifteenth century, the techniques of sugar production, exploitation of labor, and economic organization developed on these islands were easily exported to the new world. |
 | | Although sugar cane was reputedly first planted in Brazil in 1516, it was apparently done as much for strategic as economic reasons, because the European powers were struggling for legal and economic claims to territory in the Americas. |
| www.bell.lib.umn.edu /Products/sugar.html (1274 words) |
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