Latest / The History of Portugal: The Small Nation That Built a Global Empire — Fexingo History
The Sugar Trade: Madeira and the Birth of the Atlantic Economy
In this episode of The History of Portugal, Lucas and Luna turn away from the Indian Ocean and look west to the Atlantic islands that powered Portugal's early empire. Long before the carracks rounded the Cape of Good Hope, the tiny island of Madeira became a laboratory for a new kind of colonial economy built on sugar, slavery, and the plantation system. Lucas traces how Prince Henry the Navigator's captains introduced sugarcane in the 1420s, how Genoese capital and Sicilian techniques turned a volcanic island into a lucrative sugar factory, and how the demand for labor drew…
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