The Spread of Sugar Cane Cultivation
The people of New Guinea were probably the first to domesticate sugarcane, sometime around 8,000 BC. After domestication, its cultivation spread rapidly to Southeast Asia, southern China, and India, where refining the juice into granulated crystals developed. By the sixth century AD, sugar cultivation and processing had reached Persia, whence they were carried into the Mediterranean by the Arab expansion. "Wherever they went, the Arabs brought with them sugar, the product and the technology of its production."
Spanish and Portuguese exploration and conquest in the fifteenth century carried sugar south-west of Iberia. Henry the Navigator introduced cane to Madeira in 1425, while the Spanish, having eventually subdued the Canary Islands, introduced sugar cane to them. In 1493, on his second voyage, Christopher Columbus carried cane seedlings to the New World, in particular Hispaniola.
Read more about this topic: History Of Sugar
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