Sugar and "False Commodities"

The second chapter of Mintz’s Sweetness and Power deals with the methods and history of production concerning transforming sugar cane into the commodity we know as ‘sugar.’  Over the course of his discussion Mintz touches upon a subject which arose within the class a few times, specifically: did African slaves fall into the category of commodities as defined by this course?  To this question Mintz very clearly states, “Slaves were a ‘false commodity’ because a human being isn’t an object, even when treated as one.” (Mintz, p43)  I would have to agree with Mintz in this assessment but at the same time, I can understand how the question continues to arise, especially when dealing with sugar. 

The means of sugar production is so labor intensive that the methods became tied directly into the African slave trade.  Mintz catches upon this in his analysis of the plantation as an early proto-factory.  The laborers were treated as something less than human, interchangeable parts of a larger system which were used for their labor-value until they collapsed at which time the person was replaced with someone else who could still stand.  The nature of Mintz’s writing is an attempt to reconnect the consumption of this commodity with its production and it is quite obvious that Mintz wishes us to associate the identity stripping nature of forced labor with the “purifying” nature of sugar refinement.  In this way Mintz can ensure that the reader has become primed to link further discussion of sugar’s increased production and consumption directly with the horrendous labor issues that exist in order to meet the rising demands for the commodity.