you are watching 40 hours of nonfiction authors and books on c-span 2's booktv. >> mit american history professor pauline maier is on on booktv's in this sunday. she has written several books on the american revolution, including from resistance to revolution, the old revolutionaries, american scripture. in her latest, ratification last year. joiner three hour conversation with pauline maier, taking phone calls and no country, sunday at noon eastern c-span 2. watch previous and that programs at otb.org, where you can find the entire schedule. ..

>> did actually start from a family -- two family stories. and so if we can look at the world map, marina and i were in jerusalem, in israel, visiting with my family, and i learned -- i asked about the story of one of my aunts, a mysterious aunt of mine, a nonjewish woman who had married into our jewish family, and i wondered about her, what's the story about her? it turned out that her grandfather had been a serf in russia. do any of you remember what a serf is?

hold on, you in the back row. could you hand this to him, and -- >> um, i think it was a slave. >> a serf was very much like a slave. he was a person or a woman who could be bought and sold with the land. so my aunt's grandfather was a serf, but he had invented a process for working with beet sugar that was so useful, he became so rich, he bought his freedom. when we returned about that, we -- when we learned about that, we suddenly learned about a connection to marina's family. >> so i had always known about my family's connection to sugar because my great grandparents traveled from india across to guyana which is in south america, but it's considered part of the caribbean, and they

came to cut, to work on sugar plantations. so part of what fascinated us was what is this substance where someone in be his family -- in his family all the way in russia, a serf, and someone in my family looking to get a better life over here in india and then over to the caribbean, what is this substance that could effect people from such different parking lots of the world? -- parts of the world? >> and before we trace that out, we want to ask you a question. how many of you think you might have sugar somewhere in your family background? so that's one, two, three -- oh, man, yes! yes! >> all right. what i'm going to do, i just want to hear from a couple of you where your family might have been from, okay? >> well, i think my family might

have been in the caribbean -- >> caribbean. >> okay, absolutely. >> okay, very good. okay? >> i feel my family was either in the caribbean or in europe. >> very good. >> okay, okay. >> i think my family was either in the caribbean or europe. >> okay. very good. anybody else here? >> actually, i know that my family was from the caribbean, and that's where i get it from. >> get sugar. if you have the caribbean in your background, you definitely have sugar in your background. but we believed that many more people have sugar in their background than they know. and we're about to take you, as i say, spinning around the world, and the subtitle of our book is, "a story of magic, spice, slavery, freedom and science." and let's start out with magic. why might we relate sugar to

magic? well, sugarcane -- if we go back to the world map -- originally was very first, you know, off at the edge, on the far edge. we know that it was first grown in new guinea. and it was -- they grew sugarcane. have any of you seen sugarcane before? >> okay, good. >> have any of you ever tasted sugarcane? all right. all right. we know that, we do know that sugarcane was first grown in new guinea, and then it was brought up to india. and the reason we know that is there are prayers to the goddess durga where you would burn various offerings to the goddess. and one of the offerings that you burned was sugarcane. and we know that the original word in the ancient indian

language of san create for -- sanskrit was that which brings sweetness to the people. but at a certain point the name for this substance changed, and the new name for it was shakara which means gravel. can anybody guess why you might use a word that means gravel for sugarcane? or for sugar? this gentleman. >> you might use gravel because it, when you put it in your hand, it kind of, like, it came out like sand, and sand is like gravel. >> you're exactly right. originally, they had cane, but they had learned how to make cane into sugar. and this is one of the crucial things. sugar granules do not exist in nature. what exists in nature is the cane. we had to learn how to turn the cane into those little pieces of

sugar. and we'll get to that, but before we get to that the question is, how did knowledge of sugarcane spread? how did people learn about this plant growing in new guinea, this substance used in religion in india? does anyone remember who might have brought knowledge of sugar across -- that back row there is great. i think the second guy there hasn't spoken yet. >> christopher columbus -- >> oh, no, you're ahead of us, buddy. you're ahead. we're way back. >> um, i think it's the, it spread because it went across the world, and i think china had it? >> yeah, but before china gets it there's someone -- there's a woman here on the end, marina. >> i think it was, i think it

was the slaves. >> that's later. we're way back. we're in b.c., guys. we're way, way back. >> the australians? >> nope, no australians. >> the greeks. >> yes. alexander the great. if any of you remember the story, alexander the great is conquering across from greece. he's conquering across iran. he's conquering -- he gets to the edge of india, and his troops say i won't go any further. i've gone as far as i'm going to go. but alexander is conquering -- he has this hunger to know. alexander can never know enough. so he sends his friend in a boat saying go explore india, find out stuff for me. and his friend comes back and talk talk talks about the reed that gives honey though there are no bees.

now, why would you describe sugarcane as the reed that gives honey though there are no bees? >> because it was "squawk on the street"? >> yes -- because it was sweet? >> yes, and why else? you'll get a chance. >> because the honey, bees usually produce the honey, and with sugarcane they didn't need bees. >> right. because what they knew -- before people knew about sugarcane, how might they have sweetened their food? what ways might people have used to sweeten their foods? >> they would use mashed fruits and honey and sap from a maple tree? >> very good. you all may remember that in north america there were no bees, north and south america. they didn't have honey. so what they had was maple syrup, they had the agave cactus, and in the rest of the

world they had honey. so we've had sugar used in magical ceremonies, we've had sugar, now, is spreading, people are starting to learn about it -- >> but one thing we want to mention when you say that they used, let's say, honey or fruit is sugar or sweetness at this time is not the way we think about it where you're going to have a chocolate bar or a cookie. it is just a taste. it is a spice. it is something you use in your meal to give it one of the flavors, okay? let's think, there's a meal you just had where you used sweetness as part of the meal. what big meal did everybody have just recently? >> breakfast? >> okay. [laughter] >> think of a hold lay, a hold hold -- holiday.

>> thanksgiving. >> typical thanks giving plate you might have meat next to relatively sweet cranberries. you're using sweetness there as part of your main meal. maybe you had pecan pie or sweet potato pie later, but also on your plate sweetness was a spice. >> is this is sweetness -- so this is sweetness, now, as a spice. >> and when sweetness was a spice, do you think sugar was easy to get or hard? >> hard. >> how many say easy? how many say hardsome you're right! >> so when it is as a spice, it is what we call a luxury item. it's not something that you can just go to the corner store and get a bag of. it's something that will cost you a lot of money. it's very special. you just use a little bit of et. it. >> and we know that the place that really caused the growth of

knowledge of sugar is this wonderful, mysterious school. it was a school in what is now iran. it was the first university -- the first medical college where doctors trained while they healed patients. it had an observatory of the heavens. and here to this day on the palace of justice in tehran there is a sculpture of has rah, the just who was the king in iran in the period when this academy was the world center of knowledge. so people were coming from india, from greece, there were christians there and jews and persians all sharing knowledge about the world and sharing, in particular, knowledge of sugar. sugar was also considered a

medicine. they actually gave sugar to people to try to heal some of their ills, although they noticed that it wasn't too good for your teeth. the key next step comes this 600s and 700s a.d.. can anyone remember what, the huge change in the spread of knowledge, the spread of information that came in the 600s and 700s a.d.? the big -- the new religion that was spreading all over the world. >> christians. >> no, we had the christians already. yes, sir, in the back row. >> hinduism? >> no, hinduism existed already. >> islamsome.

>> islam! islam comes to the fore in the 600s, and as the -- as islam spreads across iran and spreads down -- crash -- into china, into russia, into central asia, into the middle east, into europe, islam has a common language of scholarship which is arabic with, and now they're spreading knowledge of sugar everywhere anyone speaks arabic. they can now learn how to use this new substance. one way they used sugar is to make beautiful sculptures. see these look like trees? these were entirely built out of sugar. so what they would do is they would have these big celebrations where a ruler, to

show what a wonderful, powerful, generous ruler he was, would commission these huge sculptures that were made out of sugar. and sometimes there were also -- have any of you ever had mars pan? a mixture of sugar and almonds. and they would also make these sculptures out of the mixture of sugar and almonds. can you -- while arabic is spreading, spreading knowledge anybody remember what we call numbers that we write? what to can we call numbers, 0, 1, 2, 3, the way we write them? what do we call that kind of number? >> counting numbers? >> counting numbers, or there's another name for that kind of number. >> numeral? >> or what's the word that comes just before numeral? >> roman? >> digits? >> no.

>> arabic? >> yes! we call them arabic numerals because the arabs brought the knowledge of how -- instead of using remember roman numerals, x, i, all this comply candidated stuff, and -- complicated stiff, and the arabs brought numbers. was there any part of the world that didn't -- can you think of a part of the world near the middle east, near africa, near asia that doesn't speak arabic at this time? we're now talking about 1100, 1000 a.d.. where is there a place where they don't speak arabic? >> [inaudible] >> okay. what's another possibility? the. >> china, what's a place where

they're not speaking arabic? >> pakistan? >> uh -- >> europe? >> yes! you got it. as the arabs are spreading knowledge, spreading numbers, spreading information about sugar all over the world, europe is going in the opposite direction. europe is blocking out things, we don't want any of what you've got. so europe is withdrawing -- >> [inaudible] >> what about south america? >> we ain't there yet. in europe, however, they still liked spices. and, in fact, if you were having a feast, you might have boar's head. this is an actual -- we've now used a medieval recipe to -- why is it green? because the painted with, like, mashed-up parsley or something because they wanted to have,

just like the arabs made these giant things out of sugar, in medieval europe you wanted to show you were rich by making something elaborate, making this and by using spices. spices that -- but the europeans did not know where the spices came from. so if you look at this picture in the upper corner here, this shows someone fishing in a river that they thought came out of paradise. they thought spices floated down a river somewhere in asia which was where the garden of eden still was. because they didn't know. they didn't know where sugar could come from. >> the garden of e dean is actually sunken in the persian gulf. >> okay. >> so i have a question for all of you, which is we've been talking about the spread of sugar, the arabs are the ones who developed it, but there's

one big problem with sugar. with this sugarcane, in fact, the one we have here right now. what is the problem with sugar or sugarcane? >> it could give you diabetes. >> yes, that's one problem. [laughter] >> but when you have to make sugar. >> it dries up when you cut it? >> exactly. take a look at this cane. you can see, it's pretty dry, pretty woody. do you think you're going to get much sugar crystals from this? >> no. >> absolutely not. this is a reed in which it must be milled within 48 hours of being cut. so you have to cut the cane, get it over to some kind of process where they crush the cane and they can get the pulp out, and then it has to be boiled and boiled and boiled so that we can get those crystals that we all

know. and so this has to happen within a very short period of time. and it is, in fact, the egyptians, the arabic world that developed the system by which we could process these, this cane, all of these reeds. and be they developed -- and they developed something called the, anybody want to a guess what they -- want to take a guess of the name they invented? >> it's a system. >> [inaudible] >> they did use mills, but what's the system called? >> where you've got a lot of people working to get this sugarcane processed. what do we call that? >> a plantation? >> very good. so it was in the arabic world that they first developed the

plantation where you have lots of people working, cutting the cane, getting it over to the mill, turning those fires on so that the sugar can be processed. so this idea of sugarcane plantations, processing sugar spreads upward into the mediterranean islands, the canary islands, okay? and there's somebody who we will now talk about how it made it way over to -- in the 1400s spain and portugal were with competing to explore down the coast of africa and find a sea route to asia. that way they could have the prize asian spices they wanted without having to pay high prices to venetian and muslim middlemen. spanish and portuguese sailors

searching for that sea route conquered the canary islands and the asors. soon, they began building muslim-style sugar plantations on the islands, some of them stafferred by slaves -- staffed by slaves purchased from nearby africa. one sailor came to know these islands particularly well because he traded in white gold: sugar. and then as he set off on his second voyage across the sea to what he thought was asia, he carried sugarcane plants from go her rah, one of the canary islands, with him on his ship. his name was christopher columbus. >> and i have to tell you, marina and i cannot agree on who wrote that passage. we both like it so much, we each want to -- >> i say i wrote it. >> i say i wrote it. >> we still don't know who

the -- where the truth lies. okay. so a lot of you have mentioned south america, the west indees, all of you -- west indees, all of you have have backgrounds. this is now sugar has been brought across to this whole area here. we've got dominican, barbados, all of these places that have sugarcane planted on it, hispaniola, okay? >> >> hispaniola is the dominican republic and haiti. >> cuba. all of these are places where sugar is now being planted. so what is this now the beginning of in terms of world history? >> now, to be clear, there has always been slavery everywhere in the world.

slavery is as old as world history, it has existed in every part of the world. however, asthma arena was saying -- as marina was saying, christopher columbus brings sugar over on his second voyage, what do you need to have a lot of sugar? you need fertile soil, you need wind or water power to run the mill, you need to be near water so you can ship it, you need a lot of wood, right? because you need to keep the fires burning because you're going to be bubbling vats of sugar. but you need one more thing to produce sugar. what do can you need? >> hard workers. >> you need hard, cheap workers. you need people who you can get to work for very little because the more they work, the cheaper they are what happens to the

price of sugar? >> it goes higher? >> or more likely it -- >> it goes lower. >> it goes lower because you're producing cheap sugar, the price goes down. let's look at -- now, here is the most important little diagram. can any of you member of the approximately 12-13 million africans sold into transatlantic slavery, what percentage were brought to north america where we are? what percentage came to north america? i'm trying to look for someone who hasn't spoken recently. just guess, right? this is not a test, just -- >> about 80%? >> 80% to north america is one guess.

>> 91? >> 91% to north america is another guess. >> 75%? >> 75. one more guess. >> 52%. >>52%. marina is now going to show you the actual percentage of enslaved africans who came to the united states. 4%! 4% of the enslaved africans were brought to north america. 96% of the enslaved africans were taken to the sugar land. if we have 50 of you in this room, that means two of you came to north america, 48 of you went to work in sugar. if you want to know the history of enslavement, it's sugar. sugar drove the world economy. it was the labor of the africans

that spun the world. because as sugar is getting cheaper -- >> well, first of all, we're going to talk about what it was like to work on these sugar plantations. so we've got sugar plantations, brazil, french guyana, guyana, suriname, haiti, all of these areas. that 96% are going to those sugar lands. let's talk for a moment about what life was like on the sugar plantation. you saw these cane reed here, okay? you heard that once the harvest started, the sugarcane had to be cut and processed no later than 48 hours. what we is we had droves of

people, women, children. they were constantly hoeing the plants to get rid of the weed. you'd stand there all day long in the broiling sun getting rid of the weeds. that would spring up around the sugarcane. there were other people who were sent in to plant, and they had to plant in a very exact way. you see this tile here? it would be right in the middle of that one and then the next one and the next one and the next one. then there were very often the strongest slaves were the ones who eventually would be sent in, and they would be the cutters. and they would cut the cane, and they'd use -- they'd call it either cutless or machete, and they'd cut it. they'd hold it up top, cut it here, let it go down. and they would have to carry this cane very often on top of their heads, okay? sometimes they would have a cushion that would go on top of

their head, and they'd carry it over. then there would be other people -- >> wait, wait, i want to interrupt for a second. i need a strong person. >> yeah, let's get a very strong person. >> all right. i want you to lift up those canes. hold them all up together. all right. lift them all up. just grab them and lift them. >> yes. now, i'm going to ask -- tell you, guess how many in an average day -- women gathered them and carried them. how many do you think -- now that you've lifted this, how many do you think a woman could carry in a day? just guess. give me a number. >> three? >> women had to gather 1200 stalks a day. 1200 stalks a day of the weight of what robert is just now

carrying to keep the process moving. thank you. >> so you've got the people who are carrying it, taking it over, then there's the people who are feeding it into rollers, into whatever meal system they have going that will grind it, then there are people working in what we call the boiling house, and, boy, that boiling house is boiling. if you think it's hot right now under the lights, imagine a house where the furnaces are going all the time, day, night, and you have to keep working no matter what as they process that ground-up sugar into the boiling vats. then there are people called can boilers, and they take these long ladles, and they're testing it and taking what we call the scum at the top, they take that off, okay? and they are testing it for the moment when sugar turns to

crystal because there's an exact moment. it's called striking and that is when it goes from being a liquid to a crystal. processed down. then there's a whole other group of slaves who are there to put the sugar -- to sift the sugar and then put them into the hog's head barrels, and then they're shipped across the sea. this goes on and on relentless cycles of work. on some plantations you might have several harvests happening in a year. it's not like there's a harvest and you're off for the rest of the year. they would plant one field over here for one harvest, another field over there for another harvest. so you're put on this relentless cycle of work, working, working. and dangerous work, particularly in the boiling house where people's arms could get caught in the rollers. it's very, very hot and

dangerous -- >> if you look carefully at the illustration of the mill, there's a sword that was kept next to the mill. can anyone guess why you would keep a sword next to the mill? >> for protection? >> nope. why would you keep a sword next to the mill? >> just in case it stops working? >> nope. >> to chop off the -- >> the reason you have a sword next to the mill is if you -- people are working the hours a day -- 12 hours a day, i'm sorry, 14 hours a day. have you ever been really tired and you close your eyes for a minute? some if your hand goes into the mill, the mill won't stop.

the only way to save you is to cut off your arm. >> oh! >> and they talked about how many one-armed people they saw on the plantations. because that was it. they would never -- what marina said is i true, they will never stop the process. ands that is -- and that is why when we talk about the 96% and why it's so unfamiliar for so many of us, in all of the sugar lands the enslaved people died faster than they had children. the work was so brutal that you are constantly bringing over more people simply to replace the people who were dying. the work was so relentless. >> so here's my question. we now have sugar at this cheap commodity -- mark, do you want to give us the stats on how much sugar we go from? >> in 1700 the average english

person ate four pounds of sugar a year. 1800, 14 pounds. 1900, 90 pounds. 2000, 140 pounds in america. now in 2010, 150 pounds. sugar transformedded how we ate, transformed who we were. and this acceleration is because you have enslaved people who are driving the price of sugar so far down that everyone can have it. it's not a luxury. it's not a spice. it's not a decoration. it's a necessity. >> it's what we call a staple. now, let me ask you, who are these people who are eating all this sugar?

90 pounds of sugar, 40 cups of tea, what's going on? why are people eating so much sugar in their day? >> because it's a sweet. >> that's part of it. >> why suddenly so much consumption of the sugar is going on? >> because sugar is in everything now and everything -- >> but why? what made it, why were people craving -- that's now. >> the price has gown down so much. >> the price has gone down, and who are the people that are eating the sugar? >> because there are more slaves? that's possible. >> that's who's making the sugar. who's consuming? those barrels are going off across the seas, where are they going? >> what's happening is just at the moment that the sugar price is going down there's a huge

change taking place first in england in how people work. people used to work on farms, they would work in a little shop. starting around 1800, people in england are working in factories. if you work in a factory, you're working ten hours, 12 hours, 14 hours. can you just leave your factory and go to the farm and pick an apple? >> no. >> if you're working, i how are you going to get enough energy to get through your day when you're working in a factory? >> sugar. and what -- and there are three substances that they would take their sugar with; tea, coffee and cock -- chocolate. so what you had was you had slaves in the caribbean producing this cheap sugar, shipping it off in barrels, and

it's going to england where you have workers working in factories, work -- they get through the day with that sweetened tea. they drink it, they gum -- before you know it, we have something called the cookie. we have something called the biscuit. all the things that we take for granted now. you know those energy bars that people like to eat now. all of that dates back to the moment when people began to work in factories. at that time they would drink something like 40 cups of tea to get them through the day. and this is why they're starting to consume so much sugar. >> but here's a twist. here's the interesting twist. we've just seen sugar leading to death, brutality, enslavement. we've just seen how sugar is fueling the industrial

revolution. well, on the sugar islands the planters are getting really, really rich. they're getting so rich they don't even have to live on the islands anymore. they move off to england. the plant -- you may own 2,000, you know, people p -- acres and acres in barbados, antigua, but you live in london. and when you live in london, you can go to parliament, and you can make the laws in england. and you can make laws that say everybody in the english empire must eat sugar only from british islands. and i you know who gets mad about that? the americans. the americans say no taxation without representation. how come the sugar island owners are so rich they can live in

london? we can't live in london. that's not pair, we want to be independent. -- that's not fair. we want to be independent. so the beginning of the drive comes when the americans say i can't stand these -- >> [inaudible] >> the sugar tax, exactly what you said. you're so right. the beginning of that american revolution is started as the americans are angry over the british planters. pleasure can -- we've mentioned the industrial revolution, we've mentioned, now, the american revolution. anybody remember any other revolutions that happened around the, you know, end of the 1700s, the beginning of the 1800s? >> around the world. let's see, what other revolutions do we know about? >> >> the french and indian war. >> the french and indian war and what revolution? the french revolution. you're right. >> french revolution. >> so the french revolt, the

french get rid of their king, the french even i abolish slavery. however, the revolution consumes it in violence. has any of you ever heard of the guillotine? the guillotine, if you think of the french revolution, you think of this big knife going -- they were consuming themselves in violence so a general was put in percentage of france. does anyone remember his name? >> famous french general. >> famous for being short. >> napoleon? >> napoleon. napoleon take over in france, and he says, wait a second, hold on a second. that's not a good idea. so he decides that he wants to make -- he's going to feed his empire, he's going to get a lot

of money for france by going back to hispaniola, he's going to make this island the sugar center of the world. and in order to do that, he buys the middle of america to feed haiti. anybody remember one or more revolution? >> important revolution not far from us. >> 1804. 1804, a date you need to know. >> the american revolution? >> nope, 1804. >> the haitian revolution? >> very good, very good. >> in 1804 the haitians have defeated the two powerful armies in the world. they have defeated the british and the french. when the haitians become independent, napoleon no longer needs the center of north america. he sells it to us, and that is called? the louisiana purchase. >> the louisiana purchase, great. >> the louisiana purchase is haiti's gift to america. it is because haiti achieved et

freedom. napoleon didn't immediate the center of america. all right. haiti is the second country in the world to fight free of it european masters. to be independent, it is our near neighbor. in 1804 haiti becomes free. when does the unite recognize its sister? the only ore free republic in our part of the world? >> [inaudible] >> when? just take a guess. yeah. >> when they take more advantage of us? >> no. what year? >> 1893? >> that's not a horrible guess, but it's not true. >> 1862? >> yes. 1862. if we -- the united states will

not recognize a republic of freed slaves. why not? why will it take us until 1863 to recognize a republic of freed slaves? >> because that's the time of the civil war. >> exactly. until we're ready to free our own slaves, we cannot accept the principle that slaves can free themselves. so here you have haiti achieves its freedom, and we ignore it. we ignore it. except there's one thing that happens. the slave masters from haiti need to go somewhere. they're not going to stay in a republic of slaves who have fought for their freedom. where might they go? some went to cuba, where did the other ones go? someone who with hasn't spoke spoken. oh, you haven't spoken much, with's the -- >> the united states? >> where?

where in the united states might they go? somebody -- come on. where might they gosome take a guess. >> i'm not for sure. >> just guess. >> south america? >> no. in the united states. where? someone who hasn't spoken. where with might they go? >> me? >> yeah, you. >> somewhere in the south. >> where in the south? >> who won the super bowl last year? [inaudible conversations] >> all right! louisiana. in louisiana. friends, i have something to tell you. i have something to tell you. i mentioned that in all the sugar lands the enslaved people died faster than they had children. in every one of the american slave states with one exception -- enslaved people had children faster than they died. there was one exception. what do you think the exception was?

>> so they could have more labor? >> yeah, but what's the one slave state where people died faster than they had children? >> so they could work? >> but where? >> what state? >> probably maryland? >> nope. the answer is louisiana. because sugar is deadly. sugar is nonstop labor. so the one slave state in which people died faster than they had children. so we're going to, now, switch to the next act. but i want the tell you -- i want to tell you something, friends. the hard part of writing about this book was we had to write about this tragedy, about the this level of brutality and death. because t true. you have to tell the story, but we also wanted to give some voice to the people who have passed away. how could we let them speak?

well, one way we could is there is a lot of music and dance that came out of the enslaved lands, the sugar lands. and on our web site, sugar changed the world, we have, for example, there is a brazilian dance. have any of you heard of it? well, here we're going to see a little, and this came directly out of the sugar plantations. [applause] >> it was a fighting style, but it was also a performance. oh, we're just dancing. leave us alone. no problem here, we're having a good time. [inaudible] you want to know how to fight.

so we have on our web site at sugar changed the world many kinds of music and dance that is the heritage that came out of the sugar lands so that we understand this isn't just death, there was also life. >> so what we want to now turn the next act to is this idea of how did slavery, in fact, end? okay? you have all -- you have sugar is now being relentlessly created with slaves in the west indies. it's this very cheap product that everybody eats that we're all dependent upon. you have slave owners, you have west indian planters who are getting rich off of this, and they basically own parliament in england. their voice gets heard. how would it be possible to ever

have this idea that a slave could be free? that a slave is not the property of another person? where does this idea begin? so what we're going to do is we're going to go back to thinking about that world of england where you have people working in factories, where you have people also having another kind of revolution. it's a revolution in their mind. it's a change of ideas. and what starts to happen is you have what we call the abolition movement in england. this is not the abolition movement of the united states. but in england. where they launch a brilliant, brilliant campaign. how many of you sometimes you'll go, let's say, to a coffee shop or a starbucks, and they'll say

this coffee is free trade coffee? or you might have a cotton shert that says this has been made -- no chirp have worked -- no children have worked in this factory. have you ever seen anything like that? or nike sneakers where they tell you no children helped make this rug, right? free trade coffee. all of that dates back to the abolition movement where you have people trying to figure out how do i convey to the average person the fact that the sugar they eat every day is produced by someone who's giving their life for this? so they began to create little purses that they would carry that showed an image of a woman slave weeping under a tree. they would have labels that would say do not drink this blood-sweetened beverage. they would remind people every

day when they were sipping that wonderful sweetened beverage that blood went into that bev beverage. they made it close to the people, and year after year they would show them manacles and the cheaps that the slaves were brought over in, the whips that were used so that people would get a feeling for this practice that took place so many thousands of miles away. all they know is the sugar. >> what they did is they connected the product to the person who made it. so every time you took a sweet taste, you thought of the blood price for your sugar. and they won. in be 1838 -- in 188 england ended slavery. england, which was making more money out of sugar slavery than any other country in the world, was the first country in the

world the abolish shave ri. >> what you have, then,age this, 1838 in jamaica, trip da, tobago, in all the british colonies the bells rang. they rang and they rang and they rang. it was emancipation day in the west -- in the british colonies in the west indies. all of those slave were now free. but there were people who were not happy with the idea that is is -- that the slaves were free. there were people who listened to those tolling bells, and they felt this is the death knell of my livelihood. and that was the west indian planters pause they said who's going to -- [inaudible] and we're going to find out soon how they solved that.

but in the meantime, queer going to -- we're going to take a break. we'll take you on a quick little journey. remember that short general, what was his name againsome. >> napoleon. >> all right. napoleon has this problem. he's lost haiti, he sold louisiana, the british control the seas, where is he going to get sugar? can't get it from the brits, they're his enny. where can napoleon get sugarsome. >> new begin -- new guinea? >> no. that's not a bad idea, but the british control the seas. >> europe? >> europe but sugarcane doesn't grow in europe. >> how are they going to get sugar -- how are you going to get sugar? >> aid ya? -- asia? >> but you -- sugar over land b from asia? not very likely. how is poor napoleon and his

french people gonna sweeten their hot chocolate? marina's going over there. >> by using syrup from the maple trees or by -- >> oh, you -- >> say againsome. >> bees. >> bees. remember when our story ban with my aunt -- began with my aunt whose grandfather had been a serf? napoleon learned that a german scientist had figured out that beet sugar is chemically identical to cane sugar. this was the first time in human history that a tropical product could be substituted by another product. science is now gonna tell us where our sweetness comes from, not any more of the plantation, at least the british slave have been freed.

science is now gonna begin to give us our sugar. >> so what you have in this period which is exactly what links us, same period, that serf that's related to his aunt, okay? she -- he's developing beet sugar, and here in the west indies the west indian planters are saying who's going to cut my cane? >> where can they get someone to cut their cane? no one's coming from africa, no one from south america or north america. they did actually try bringing enslaved people from ireland to barbados. they said it was to take a slave -- which, by the way, shows slavery wasn't yet racial. you could enslaved for being catholic because it wasn't, it was about who are we going to get to cut the cane. all right. if you're not getting anyone from here, you're not getting

anyone from here, you're not getting anyone from here, where can you get someone to cut the cane? >> your children or family members? >> no. the enslaved -- the formerly-enslaved people are as far away in the plantations -- >> not too interested in going back to those plantations, right? >> canada. >> nope. >> canada? >> ukraine? >> no. no, the answer is people were brought from the other country in england's control, india. marina's relatives were brought people from india. any of you who have ever been to trinidad, to tobago, to jamaica, to the guyanas know there are many people from india in the caribbean. why are they? because they were brought to cut the cane. >> once those bells tolled and

the slaves said i don't want to work on these plantations, what the slave owners, what the east indian planters did is we called for a system that calls et inden clued. you're not quite a slave. you sign a contract, they bring you over, and you have to work for at least five years on the plantation. you are technically allowed a passage back if you fulfill the terms of your contract. very often people did not go back. sometimes because they didn't make enough money to make it worth it. they're not going back to their village to say this is all the money i made. most chose to settle in i didn't caribbean and the other place they were taken to. so they are the ones that are now working the sugarcane plantations which is precisely how it linked to my family's

story. we should also mention that this idea of bringing people over to work the plantations, perhaps not as slaves but as indentured workers also effected another part of the world that's now part of the united states. it is a place where they grew a lot of sugarcane. can anybody think what that place might be where there might be a lot of sugarcane? >> hawaii? >> hawaii, you're absolutely right. >> exactly right. they brought over japanese, chinese, korean and filipino at various waves to work the cane plantations which were growing in hawaii. so the indentured system is how many, many, many, many people still work these plantations.

now, there is another place in the world where there was sugar plantations, other kinds of plantations too, where indians were sent. anybody have any idea? not the caribbean. any idea? where indians were sick from india -- >> madagascar? >> yes, some. >> some, yes. >> anyone else? you want to guess? >> china? >> nope. one more guess. >> russia? >> nope. >> they were sent to the very bottom of africa, south africa, okay? one area where there's quite a lot of sugar is called nep central. and there was quite a bit of

sugar that was growing there. and one day a man came into the office, a barrister. barrister is a lawyer in english. and he had broken ribs, raw -- teeth were with broken, and he was weeping. he was weeping because his owner, the plantation owner had treated him so poorly. and this lawyer thought o hymn what is this system that would so treat its workers, is this not a form of slavery? now, this lawyer is someone who we have come to know since. does anybody know? he was in south africa, he was from india. does anybody know who this man was? >> gandhi? >> exactly. mo hand december gandhi.

who we then came to call mahatma gandhi, you know, the great gandhi. why would we call gandhi the greatsome what is it that he did for us? anybody? >> he helped people that were working for those people to tibet their rights back. >> and -- to get their right back. >> and how did he do that? in what way? what was his philosophy? >> he once said an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind? >> wonderful. >> he went on strike? >> he went on strike. he was in favor of peace, yes. >> excellent. every one of these things is true. an eye for an eye makes everyone blind. you go on strike, you march.

he preached, he developed this idea of nonviolence. he developed the idea that you must be pure in soul. and this is how we shall fight this injustice. and that is what we call the name of the movement which means truth force or sole force. and for year after year he fought these poor people who were working marched with him, and they managed to abolish the indentured system through this philosophy. ..

so if we think back to sugar and this idea that a product can link you to the person who produced it, sugar is responsible again for most of atlantic slavery, for millions of deaths. it was used by the abolitionists or led to the abolition of slavery, first in the world and inspired not by gondi to developed the concept of

nonviolent resistance which would be used in india and come back to america. so if you go now and look at the label on the candy bar, or the cereal in the morning. and it says sugar, you will know that in that one word, is magic, is slavery, is freedom, is science. that history is right there and it is there for you to know and it is fair for you to know today, what am i using? what price am i paying, who is paying a price for what i enjoy, what needs the people of the world? i can do you on the cover of our book these children carrying sugar cane is now. this isn't the dominican republic today. this is not 100 years ago. this is now.

so when we talk about the price of the things we enjoy, if we honor those people who ended slavery, if we honor those people who fought non violently for change, we can also think about the products we use and what choices we can make to honor those who suffer to give us pleasure. martin luther king wrote in the birmingham jail, they are all linked in a web. we are all linked in a web and we see that in this product which we see every day. that was the story we tried to tell in sugar changed the world. i hope it has been useful for you. [applause] >> we have time for a few

questions. >> sure. >> we have time for a few questions. three from the academy and three from 61 perhaps? >> go for it. >> how did you feel when you went past where you use to work and it was a car place? >> where my family home once was. he is referring to the story that i have always heard about my beautiful family house. it was built with my family's success in these sugar lands. the house is gone. it had been torn down. and of course i felt very sad because there was no house. and yet at the same time in the tropics things fall down pretty quickly. they don't last as long -- we

have houses of brick that last for ever. in the tropics wooden things come and go. the others in ahead to accept is that was history. that was another time. my family did well. they had this house and by father wound up emigrating and coming to the united states. we do move on. it was time for the next generation to do something. >> i should mention a few come to our web site we have a link to something called google lists where it will take you -- it is on google earth and you can go to the village where marina's ancestral home is. [talking over each other] >> in guyana. >> another question. >> how were you able to link your life to the story of sugar?

>> we started with the story of my aunt and marina's family. that began us on the journey and we started tracing all the connections from there. >> what is the most significant thing that you guys learned from writing the book? >> for me it was that 96% i did not know, i did not know that 96% of the enslaved africans went to the sugar land. that really changed my view and i really felt at that point that it is criminal that we don't know that. what other part of our life do we say let's study 4% and ignore 96%? no other part of our life. >> i think what was true for me is i have always known about the non-violent movement but i had never realized it was linked to

sugar. we know about gandhi and non-violence but i never connected it to sugar so that was a revelation for me. >> i have a question for both of you. what inspired you to write sugar changed the world? >> a really think it was learning about our relatives. we are husband and wife. i am mostly a historian. marina is mostly a novelist. we wanted to combine our talents. we wanted to study something together. >> did you come to -- >> good question -- >> the one day i came to was looking for more information, i think that place is fascinating and i had trouble getting as much information about it as i wanted. the other dead end is in the 1930s people went to interview people who were still alive who had been enslaved in america.

so we do have some interviews with people who worked in sugar slavery in louisiana which we mention in the book but we could not find the same voices for the sugar land. we couldn't find people talking about what was it like to live on a sugar plantation in haiti or brazil. >> mind-boggling to think that twelve million came across to work in this and we don't have their voices. that is a dead end when you think about it which is what inspired us to do the website where you can hear the music of the song and the ritual and the things they were able to develop since they could not write their thoughts down about their experiences. >> do you plan to make this book into a movie or documentary? >> if someone wants to do it we would love to.

>> yes. >> how was it to write the book together with your different ideas? >> great question. as you know, as you heard we still argue about the one paragraph and that one of thing. i am sure i wrote it and he is short he wrote it. we actually really enjoyed it because when we went into the process we knew we were very different writers. mark's training is as a historian. i am very interested in storytelling and narrative and texture and setting and character. that is what i think about but i also love history. so we went into it knowing that we each brought something different. it is like having a meal where you have the sweet part and this our part. we knew that we word bring different things to the table. >> marina is a professor in

college. she teaches english and she is a really tough editor. i would write something and she would criticize it and i would be angry. this is great! what are you talking about? and a day later, you are right. we would go through it that way. >> this story telling, storytelling right this whole book? >> we tried wherever we could to include personal stories because as i said at the beginning, this is so huge it can be overwhelming but we wanted to make it personal whenever we could. yes? this is being passed around. >> as an african-american i know part of my heritage is storytelling. is that what prompted you add is that a point you tried to convey in the book? >> it is in a sense in that we

want to recover all these stories and in particular when we keep talking about the experience of the sugar land, one thing you all know that is happening now is more and more people are coming to america from the caribbean. more people are coming to america to have a caribbean background. more people are coming to america that are hispanic which means almost anything. but also can mean having this background and we wanted those stories to begin to be told. we are also hoping that people who perform this music, who dance, will bring their art into the pool so that we can all share and experienced the beauty that came out of so much pain. >> last question. >> when did slavery start to be about race? >> i happen to have written another book and that. basically in the initial years

when africans were sold into slavery, the europeans actually used one group of africans to guard another because the africans had no sense of race. they just had their own i don't like the next group over unlike the europeans didn't like that next group over. it was only after hundreds of years that the difference became attached to skin tone rather than language, religion, belief, geography, all the other ways we divide. so actually raise in its modern sense the way we think about it was only invented in the late 1700s. it is a very late and new idea. >> let's give them another round of applause. [applause] >> thank you.

>> and your teacher for bringing them today please. [applause] >> for more information about sugar changed the world and the book's office visit sugarchangedof theworld.com. >> visit booktv.org to watch any of the programs you see here on line. type the author or book title in the search bar on the upper left side of the page and click search. you can also share any thing you see on booktv.org by clicking share on the upper left side of the page and selecting the format. booktv streams live on-line for 48 hours every weekend with top nonfiction books and authors. booktv.org. >> next, frank brady examines the life of chess master turned international fugitive bobby fischer. mr