Unknown Maker, Chinese export

Over centuries, as demand for sugar increased, the locations where sugar cane was grown expanded, as did the number of enslaved humans forced to cultivate this labor-intensive crop. Originating in New Guinea, sugar cane was brought to India and then the Caribbean, where the Dominican Republic led production in the early 1500s. A century later, sugar cane became the base of the economy in Dutch-colonized Brazil, where more than 500,000 Africans had been shipped through the Atlantic slave trade to plant, tend, harvest, and process the crop.