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Was Madeira the First Testing Ground for the Plantation Complex? - Environmental Engineering and Coerced Labor in Early Madeira | Sleepy Facts About History
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When Portuguese navigators reached the uninhabited island of Madeira around 1419, they found a steep, volcanic landscape covered in dense laurel forest. Within a single lifetime, this empty island was transformed into one of the most productive sugar suppliers in the Atlantic world. This episode examines how that transformation was achieved not through sudden discovery, but through the deliberate assembly of environmental engineering, international finance, and coerced labor.
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