17th Century Jesuit's Introduced Surgarcane Into Louisiana

Granulated Sugar Becomes a Very Sweet Business Indeed
Europeans were using sugar long before New Orleans came along. In fact, sugar was behind 90% of the battles going on in the Caribbean. What, ye thought it was gold, matey? Narrrr!

But four decades after Jesuit priests first brought sugarcane into south
Louisiana in 1751, Etienne de Bore produced the first successful sugar crop in Louisiana. He sold it for $12,000 ... Louisiana started growing a lot of sugar ... and like cotton, it all got shipped through New Orleans. In 1812, the steamer New Orleans — the first steamboat that ever floated on the Mississippi — carried a load of sugar from New Orleans to Pittsburg.

Sugar became another major commodity being shipped out of NOLA ... You wouldn't have recognized sugar of that time period. It came in blocks shaped like cones and loaves. Pieces were broken off with special iron sugar-cutters shaped something like very large heavy pliers with sharp blades attached to the cutting sides. These cutters had to be strong and tough, because the loaves weighed as much as 35 pounds, and could be as big as three feet high and 14 inches in diameter at the base. Then, in 1830, the vacuum pan was invented, and with it the practice of refining sugar. The process was perfected by an inventor named Norbert Rillieux — the son of a slave and a French engineer. Previously, sugar was refined by heating cane juice in a series of open kettles and pans called the "Jamaica Train," where slaves poured juice from container to container with long-handled ladles. The work was hard, hot and dangerous. Rillieux's invention saved time, lives ... and money.

Read the full surgarcane story (here)