- About the Exhibit
- Empires and Revolutions: 1613–1825
- Trade with Spanish America: 1825-1900
- Cultural Encounters: 1825-1900
- Political Encounters: 1850-1930
- An Hispano Landscape: 1900–45
New York as a Sugar Capital
New Yorkers began refining sugar in the 1720s, first importing it from British colonies like Barbados and then from the French colony of Saint Domingue. When a slave rebellion (1791-1804) created the free republic of Haiti and disrupted the island’s sugar production, merchants and refiners turned to the Spanish colonies of Puerto Rico and Cuba where slavery survived until 1873 and 1886 respectively.
In the 1800s, as planters in the Caribbean installed steam-powered mills to process cane more efficiently, vast amounts of raw sugar reached the refineries of New York and Brooklyn, where it was turned into white sugar. By 1860, Brooklyn had become the world’s center of sugar refining. By 1900, its factories processed millions of pounds each day. Mass production made white sugar a household staple.