Engenho

Many places in the world had begun to substitute sugar for honey as a major commodity due to the supply increase and lower prices.

Sugar became a luxury item on the world market because of it exploited coerced labor demand and the industrial organization that were both imperative to production.

[2] The native population were not really adhering to the slavery aspect and were hard to keep under control, so as the market for sugar grew these factors caused the eventual import of African slaves.

[4] Engenhos could be considered revolutionary at the time because of its industrial advancement, the work combined manufacturing, chemistry, and agriculture to mass produce sugar.

The overseer had to be a free white, while the slaves purchased needed to be strong field hands and some already familiar with the sugar production process.

They were sometimes imported from Sao Tome in Africa because of the country's history as major world sugar producers which allowed for the workers from there to already have the artisan skills needed for the sugarcane production.

[4] The process needed slaves for cutting, carrying, evaporation, and crystallization all in a compressed time frame due to the nature of the crop.

The sugarcane would become rotten after twenty four hours from being cut, so time was of the essence and the workers could not afford to make mistakes.

[2] An aspect that made the engenho a different type of operation was its need of all the people involved from field slave all the way to chief overseer.