Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom, and Science Characters

Slaves

These were people who were captured and taken from their homeland. Many came from Africa. They were brought to other lands against their will and forced to do labor for no pay. If a slave didn't do what was expected of them, they were beaten by an overseer.

A slave was a person owned by another person. The slaves on a whole were not educated because they existed only to work. If they tried to run away, they could be killed if they were caught.

When the slaves went to rest, their houses were often cramped, wet, and open to the elements. Most slaves in Louisiana, where conditions were particularly harsh, died before they turned 30.

Indentured

These were people who had life slightly better than slaves, but not much better. An indentured person was a person who made a contract to work for a certain amount of time over a certain over a certain number of years for a certain wage in order to pay a debt or in exchange for passage away from their home. Many times people were tricked into working on sugar plantations as indentured workers. By contract the indentured workers were supposed to get paid for daily work. The wage was very low, but people were desperate. Plantation owners often chose to get around the contract by paying by project rather than by day. The projects they assigned took much longer than the seven-hour days in the contract.

Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great wanted to conquer Asia. He built a fleet of 800 ships, and appointed his close friend captain then sent them to investigate India's coast.

Nearchus

Nearchus is the close friend of Alexander the Great who was appointed as captain of a fleet. He stumbled upon a "sweet reed" in his journeys.

Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus was an explorer. He was known for his trading, using "white gold" (sugar).

Pedro Cabral

Pedro Cabral tried to sail around Africa to Asia in order to purchase spices for Portugal. The ocean current took him to Brazil instead.

Olaudah Equiano

Olaudah Equiano was an educated slave who wrote about what it was like to arrive in Barbados and to be sold off to the sugar planters.

Thomas Thistlewood

Thomas Thistlewood was an overseer who worked in Jamaica in 1750. He was known for his cruelty.

Mr. Wickham

Mr. Wickham was an Englishman who wrote to his friend in 1615, asking for tea. It was the first time the drink was mentioned by a European.

Catherine of Braganza

In 1662, Catherine of Braganza married Charles II from England, and she made tea drinking popular in English court.

Madame Villeneueve

Madame Villeneueve brought her slave to Paris and left her in a convent as she traveled. She appealed to the court when her slave decided to become a nun.

Pauline

Pauline was a slave who decided to become a nun. The judges ruled in her favor.

Louis XIV

Louis XIV issued a set of rules that defined slavery as legal in the French sugar islands, but in France itself, they were free.

Pierre Lemerre the Young

Back in 1716, 60 years before the Declaration of Independence, Pierre Lemerre the Young declared that all men were equal.

King George III

On March 25,1807, King George III signed a law banning English involvement in slave trading.

Cechu

Cechu was an orphan who wrote for elite newspapers, exposing the tricks planters used to get around the terms of the indenture contract.

Mohandas Gandhi

Mohandas Gandhi was a lawyer who told the Indians to think of their self-worth. Instead of acting out with violent protest, he taught passive aggression.