Murder, Betrayal, and Deceit - The Secret History of the Coffee Bean - Part 6

The first coffee planters in the New World toiled the miseries of mosquito-infested jungles and mind-bending heat. Not only did they have to plant their new cash crop, but they had to plant food for themselves. Let alone setup housing for themselves, their slaves, and shelter for their machinery. Since they were surrounded by thick jungle, daily life was more than difficult.

The Europeans, having developed an insatiable taste for coffee, relied more and more upon coffee producing colonies to satisfy the demand. The fledgling United States had acquired a strong taste for coffee. The surge in demand was the gold rush of their time, literally making millionaires overnight. The unprecedented prosperity however did come with a cost; it was built on the backs of slave labor.

The dependence on coffee by countries like Brazil no doubt had a colossal impact on both economic and social life, but it was an unhealthy dependence of sorts, making the Brazilian economy susceptible to severe fluctuations in global coffee demand, price, and weather. To keep their costs down, they relied on the colonialists other staple; slave labor. The Spanish and Portuguese coffee plantations are responsible for importing almost 400,000 African slaves within the ten year period from 1840 to 1850, changing the ethnic makeup of Brazil forever.

With the massive success of the coffee bean came a new aristocracy. As with most colonial exploits, cultivation was not the main problem, rather it was the growing demand from Europe for coffee that led to the horrifying practice of slavery. The coffee plantations were so reliant on slave labor, that while most Spanish speaking nations banned slavery by the 1850's, Brazil didn't ban it until 1888.

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