It’s fair to say that people of colour in Louisiana don’t have a great deal of reason to be thankful for the sugar plantations that helped make the state wealthy, and yet it was one of their own who transformed the sugar industry the world over, improving both the product and the lot of the enslaved people forced to produce it.
Sugar cane growers in the early 19th century had a problem. The raw cane juice was turned into sugar in a process known as the ‘Jamaican Train’. Initially, juice was boiled in a large kettle until most of the water had evaporated. The resulting syrup was then ladled by hand into a series of ever smaller copper evaporating pans until just the crystalised sugar was left. At least that was the theory, but there were numerous problems.
The dangerous job of ladling hot syrup from pan to pan led to large numbers of injuries among enslaved workforces. From the point of view of the owners, the process led to spillages and considerable...