The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1857-08-06
Early History of the Sugar Cane.


The early history or origin of the sugar cane,
and of the culture and manufacture of sugar. are
involved in much obscurity. The cane is sup
posed to have been cultivated in China, from re-
mote antiquity. But of this, there is no anthem
tic record. Sugar was probably unknown to the
ancient Egyptians and Jews, and could have been
but imperfectly known (f known at ally to the
Greeks and Romans. The first notice of it, in
history, is by Theophrastus, who wrote three
hundred years before the Christian era. In his
description of the different kinds of honey, he
mentions, ''Honey extracted from canes or reeds"
Strabo says: " Reeds in India produce honey
without bees. During the first century of the
Christian era, Pliny, Dioscorides, Galen and
other writer's, describe a concrete honey, which
they call Saccharon, used as a medicine, and
which they say is 8. collected from canes like a
gum, white and brittle between the teeth; the
largest is the size of a halle nut" Some writer's
have conjectured, that the sugar referred to by
the Greek and Roman writers, was sugar candy,
obtained from China; others with more probable
ity, that it was not the product of the cane, now
cultivated, but of a different species, the arundo
bambos of Linnaus, which yields a sweet milky
juice, freely crystalizing in the sun rays; resem-
bling sugar in taste and appearance and similar,
if not identical, with gum mama. Prior to the
9th century, nothing was known, in Europe, of
the process of manufacture of sugar from the
cane. For the first considerable supply of sugar,
as well as for the earliest example of its manufac-
ture, the western nations were indebted to the
Saracens, who introduced the culture of cane,
first into Egypt, subsequently into Cyprus, Crete
and Sicily, and finally into the southern part of
Spain. Sugar was first imported into Venice
from Alexandria, in 996, and in the 18th century
from Sicily. 1t had been but little sought for in
Europe, prior to the Crusades. 1.-The Crusa-
ders,'' says one of their historians, found in
Syria a sweet reed, from which a kind Of wild
honey was made, called zucra. 1t was cultivated
with great labor, and, when ripe, bruised in NOR
tars, and the strained juice set in vessels, where
it concerted into a white salt, which was eaten with
bread" 1t was probably boiled into a syrup be-
fore being placed in vessels to crystalize, as cane
juice, unconcentrated, left to evaporate in the
suns rays would be converted into vinegar.
1t was chiefly through the instrumentality of
those wild adventures, returning from the Holy
Land, that a taste for sugar and other luxuries
and re6nements of the East was spread through
out Europe. Previously to l446, sugar was
known in England only as a medicine. 1t was
imported into England in small quantities., by
the Venetians, in the 18th century, but honey
was then and long afterwards the principal in
gredient, in sweetening liquors and dishes. In
the early part of the 18th century, the quantity
imported was inconsiderable, and used only by
the rich. The Spaniards and Portuguese who
had learned the culture aud manufacture of
sugar from the Saracens, introduced the sugar
cane into the Canary Islands, and at a very early
period of American history. conveyed it to the
new world; and it is probably this fact which
lead Humboldt to doubt that the cane was indig-
enous there. 1t is now the prevalent opinion,
that the sugar cane fourished in many parts of
the new world when discovered by Columbus.
But whether the cameo of the West India Islands
be indigenous, or of Spanish origin, all agree in
according to the Spaniar6s and Portuguese, the
merit or demerit, of introducing into the new
world the art of manufacturing sugar from the
cane. and with it, its long cherished ally, the sys-
tenn of African slavery.
The sugar cane is said to have been first cult
waited in st. Domingo or Hayti, in 1906. And it
appears to have succeeded there better than in
any other part of the West India Islands. Peter
Martyr, in a work published in 1880, SAYS that
IN 1910, there were t"ehty-eignt sugar estates IN
st. Domingo, established by the Spaniards. SIT
is marvellous, . says the writer, g to consider how
all things increase and prosper in the island.
There are now twenty-eight sugar presses, where
with, great plenty of sugar is made. The canes
or reeds, wherein the sugar groweth, are bigger
and higher than in any other place; and are as
big as a mans wrist, and higher than the stature
of a man by che half. This is more wonderful,
that whereas, in Valencia, in Spain, Where a
great quantity of sugar is made yearly, ,chenso-
ever they apply themselves to The great increase
thereof, yet doth every root bring forth not past