Slavery in the British and French Caribbean

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_British_and_French_Caribbean 

Emancipation proclamation of Guadeloupe.

Slavery in the British and French Caribbean refers to slavery in the parts of the Caribbean dominated by France or the British Empire.

History

In the Caribbean, England colonised the islands of St. Kitts and Barbados in 1623 and 1627 respectively, and later, Jamaica in 1655. In these islands and England's other Caribbean colonies, white colonists would gradually introduce a system of slave-based labor to underpin a new economy based on cash crop production.

French institution of slavery

See also: Natural person in French law

In the mid-16th century, enslaved people were trafficked from Africa to the Caribbean by European mercantilists. Originally, white European indentured servants worked alongside enslaved African people in the "New World" (the Americas).  At this time, there were not widespread theories of race or racism that would cause different treatment for white indentured servants and enslaved African people. Francois Bernier, who is considered to have presented the first modern concept of race, published his work “A New Division of the Earth according to the Different Species or Races of Men Who Inhabit It” in 1684, over 100 years after slaves were brought to the "New World" (the Americas). While this was published in the late 17th century, race theory was not largely popularized among merchants or colonizers until the 19th century. Racism ultimately dismantled the working integration of white indentured servants and enslaved Africans.

As of 1778, the French were trafficking approximately 13,000 African people as slaves to the French West Indies each year. Slavery had been active in French colonies since the early 16th century; it was first abolished by the French government in 1794, whereupon it was replaced by forced labour before being reinstated by Napoleon in 1802. The French slave trade ran along a triangular route, wherein ships would travel from France to colonized African countries, and then to the Caribbean colonies. The triangular setup was intentional, as France aimed to bring the African laborers to the New World, where their labor was of higher value because of the natural and cheap resources cultivated from the land, and then bring the product back to France. In French, the commerce triangulaire referred to this Atlantic economy based on the trafficking of enslaved people from Africa.

Saint-Domingue slave revolt in 1791

In France, the slaving interest was based in Nantes, La Rochelle, Bordeaux, and Le Havre during the years 1763 to 1792. The men involved defended their diabolical business against the abolition movement of 1789. They were merchants who specialized in funding and directing cargoes of stolen Black captives to the Caribbean colonies, which had horrifically high death rates. Enslavers relied on a continuous supply of newly trafficked enslaved people. The merchants intermarried with each other's families; most were Protestants. Their derogatory and patronizing approach towards Black people immunized them from moral criticism. They were strongly opposed to the application of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen to Black people. While they ridiculed the slaves as "dirty" and "savage", they often took a Black mistress (an enslaved woman forced into sexual services). The French government paid a bounty on each captive sold to the colonies, which made the business profitable and patriotic.

Slave trade

In this mercantilist economy of the French trans-Atlantic trafficking of enslaved human beings from Africa, wealth and goods were moved in an insular, unidirectional fashion to the exclusive benefit of Europe. In fact, the French had a policy called “the Exclusif” (exclusive in English), requiring French colonies to only sell exports to France and purchase imported goods from France. This promoted the concept of “centripetal trade” in which all profit and capital spread amongst the American colonies eventually circulated back into the hands of European powers. The trafficking of enslaved people was just one fraction of the mercantilist economy. In addition, Europeans brought “pacotille” or “cheaply made European goods” to trade with Africans. This often took the form of colonial products such as sugar, rum, tobacco, coffee, or indigo. Thus African leaders, who themselves were in control of selling African captives with Europeans, did not retain the wealth they acquired in the trafficking of enslaved people. Rather they were the targeted customers of poorly-made pacotille. Their profits from the trafficking in enslaved human beings then circled back to manufacturers in Europe, just as the Exclusif had intended.

The French trans-Atlantic trafficking of enslaved human beings has qualities of both an economy of trade and traite. Many historians consider the trafficking in enslaved people to be “an economy of trade according to “rational” sets of prices, and not as a pure extraction of theft of Africans from Africa by Europeans.” Indeed, the victims of chattel slavery became commodities, given a “rational” price tag. At the time the Dictionnaire universel was written the cost of an enslaved person in a French colony was £19. While this is a somewhat arbitrary number, from an economic standpoint, this is an example of trade in the sense that goods of “similar” value were exchanged. However, the Europeans purchasing enslaved people directly from Africa bought them for about half the price of slaves in the "New World" with the thought that slaves in Africa did not have environmental factors or technology to be as efficient as enslaved people in the colonies. Examples of slave prices in Africa include 172 cowries, 1/25 of a horse, and 9000 pounds of sugar. The relativity of the price of an enslaved people contributed to the centripetal force of triangular trade. It drew profits for merchants who bought the same slaves in Africa from Africans for a low cost and then upticked the price for Europeans in the American colonies. While the exchange itself might be considered trade, the power of Europeans to monopolize the trading and trafficking in enslaved people and control the market poses a strong confounder to the situation, pointing the trans-Atlantic trafficking of enslaved people from Africa to also be an economy of traite.

General overview

Hon Stedman Rawlins, Slave/ Plantation owner, Saint Kitts, Old Burying Ground (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

The Lesser Antilles islands of Barbados, St. Kitts, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Antigua, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Saint Lucia and Dominica were the first important slave societies of the Caribbean, switching to the institution of slavery by the end of the 17th century as their economies converted from tobacco to sugar production, and as mercantilism became the dominant economic system in Europe. The mercantilism model limited imports and highly valued exports, which largely drove imperial efforts across Europe by utilizing slave labor in order to produce cheap goods to be sold at higher market prices upon their return to Europe. By the middle of the 18th century, British Jamaica and French Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) had become the largest slave societies of the region, rivaling Brazil as a destination for enslaved Africans.

The death rates for Black slaves in these islands were higher than birth rates. The decrease averaged about 3 percent per year in Jamaica and 4 percent a year in the smaller islands. The diary of slaveowner Thomas Thistlewood of Jamaica details violence against enslaved people, and constitutes important historical documentation of the conditions for enslaved people from the Caribbean.

For centuries the institution of slavery made sugarcane production economical. The low level of technology made production difficult and labor-intensive. At the same time, the demand for sugar was rising, particularly in Great Britain. The French colony of Saint-Domingue quickly began to out-produce all of the British islands combined. Though sugar was driven by slavery, rising costs for the British made it easier for the British abolitionists to be heard. Sugar thus became inherently linked to the institution of slavery, and the link was publicized specifically in abolition and anti-sugar movements, but was understood by many French citizens. Voltaire, for example, wrote of a sighting of a maimed slave in Candide, writing: "C'est à ce prix que vous mangez du sucre en Europe" ("this is what it costs for you to eat your sugar in Europe").

In addition to sugar, France additionally capitalized on "pacotille," or cheap goods such as rum, tobacco, coffee and indigo. These cheap products were brought from Europe and traded to African elites in exchange for enslaved people. Profiting from "pacotille" was another method of perpetuating the mercantilism economic model.

Anglo-American institution of slavery

The system of enslaving people from African heritage that developed in the Lesser Antilles was an outgrowth of the demand for sugar and other crops. As part of Oliver Cromwell's Western Design, the English captured several Spanish colonial possessions in the West Indies, most prominently Jamaica, which was invaded and occupied in 1655. White colonists soon transformed Jamaica into a center of the Atlantic slave trade.

A Linen Market with enslaved Africans. British West Indies, circa 1780

In 1640 the English began sugar production with the help of the Dutch. This started the Anglo-American plantation societies which would later be led by Jamaica after it was fully developed. At its peak production between 1740 and 1807 Jamaica received 33% of the total enslaved people who were trafficked in order to keep up its production. Other crops besides sugar were also cultivated on the plantations. Tobacco, coffee, and livestock were all produced as well using slave labor. Sugar, however, stands out most prominently due to its exorbitant popularity during the time period and the dangers of its production, which claimed the lives of many enslaved people.

England had multiple sugar colonies in the Caribbean, especially Jamaica, Barbados, Nevis, and Antigua, which provided a steady flow of sugar to Europe and North America; indentured and enslaved people's labor produced the sugar. English involvement in slavery increased as a result of the Treaty of Utrecht, which was signed in 1713. During the negotiations of the treaty, of special importance was the successful secret negotiation with France to obtain a 30-year monopoly on selling African slaves in the Spanish Empire, known as the Asiento de Negros. Queen Anne of Great Britain also allowed her North American colonies like Virginia to make laws that promoted the institution of slavery. Anne had secretly negotiated with the French government to get its approval regarding the asiento, since it had previously been awarded to France to the benefit of French merchants. The British government gave the asiento to the newly-formed South Sea Company. Most of the trafficking of enslaved people by the South Sea Company involved sales to Spanish colonies in the Caribbean, and to Mexico, as well as sales to British colonies in the Caribbean and in North America. Historian Vinita Ricks says the agreement allotted Queen Anne "22.5% (and King Philip V, of Spain 28%) of all profits [from the asiento] collected for her personal fortune." Ricks concludes that the Queen's "connection to slave trade revenue meant that she was no longer a neutral observer. She had a vested interest in what happened on slave ships."

The enslaved people incoming to the Anglo-American colonies were at high risk both mentally and physically. The Middle Passage alone accounted for roughly 10% of all deaths of trafficked African people. Some experts believe that one out of every three enslaved people died before ever reaching their African port of departure. It should be mentioned that the majority of Anglo-American enslaved people came from Western Central Africa. These factors and others caused many enslaved people on arrival to feel alienated, fragile, and that death was right around the corner. The conditions suffered by slaves during the voyages were diabolical. The enslaved people were placed in close quarters, fed barely enough to keep them alive, and oftentimes they fell victim to diseases contracted prior to the voyage. The slaves would not see sunlight during this period. They were prone to both weight loss and scurvy.

Slaves in the British colony of Antigua, 1823

The living and working conditions in the Lesser Antilles were excruciating for the enslaved people who were brought in to work the slave labour camps. The average lifespan of a enslaved person after "adjusting" to the climate and environmental conditions of Jamaica was expected to be less than two decades. This was due to their limited familiarity and immune defense against the diseases and illnesses present in Jamaica. Disease decimated incoming enslaved people populations. Attempts were made to help curtail the problem, but ultimately were fruitless.

To help protect their investments, most enslavers would not immediately give the hardest tasks to the newest enslaved people. Enslavers would also set up a walled area away from the veteran enslaved people in order to stymie the spread of disease. These areas would contain 100–200 slaves at any time. Later, after new enslaved people had been bought, they would be placed into the care of older and more experienced slaves who were already accustomed to the labour camps in hopes of increasing their chances for survival. Examples of tasks assigned to new slaves include planting and constructing buildings. Though newer enslaved people typically formed supportive relationships with veteran enslaved people these relationships were not always positive, and abuse did occur.

Sugar production in the Lesser Antilles was a very grisly business. On Jamaica from 1829 to 1832 the average mortality rate for slaves on sugar plantations was 35.1 deaths per 1000 enslaved people. The most dangerous part of the sugar plantation was the cane planting. Cane planting during this era consisted of clearing land, digging the holes for the plants, and more. Overseers used the whip in an attempt to both motivate and punish the human beings they enslaved. The slaves themselves were also working and living with barely adequate nourishment and in times of hard work would often be starved. This contributed to low birth rates and the horrifically high mortality rates for the slaves. Some experts believe that the average infant mortality at plantations to be 50% or even higher. This extremely high rate of infant mortality meant that the slave population who existed in the Lesser Antilles was not self-sustaining, thus requiring a constant importation of new slaves. Living and working conditions on non-sugar plantations was considered to be better, however, only marginally.

Abolition

Main article: Abolitionism

 

This scene depicts Voltaire's Candide and Cacambo meeting a maimed enslaved person near Suriname. The caption says, "It is at this price that you eat sugar in Europe". The enslaved man who utters the remark has had his hand cut off for getting a finger stuck in a millstone, and his leg cut off for trying to run away.

The institutionalised enslavement of human beings from African heritage was first abolished by the French Republic in 1794, but Napoleon revoked that decree in 1802. On March 29, 1815, Napoleon abolished the slave trade but the decree did not come into effect until 1826. France re-abolished the institution of slavery in its colonies in 1848 with a general and unconditional emancipation.

William Wilberforce's Slave Trade Act 1807 abolished the trafficking of enslaved human beings in the British Empire. It was not until the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 that the institution finally was abolished, but on a gradual basis. Since enslavers in the various colonies (not only the Caribbean) were losing their unpaid labourers, the government set aside £20 million for compensation but it did not offer the former slaves any reparations.

The colony of Trinidad was left with a shortage of labour. This shortage became worse after the abolition of the institution of slavery in 1833. To deal with this, white plantation owners on Trinidad transported indentured servants from the 1810s until 1917. Initially Chinese people, free West African people, and Portuguese people from the island of Madeira were imported, but they were soon supplanted by Indian people who started arriving from 1845. Indentured Indians would prove to be an adequate alternative for the plantations that formerly relied upon slave labour. In addition, numerous former slaves migrated from the Lesser Antilles to Trinidad to work.

In 1811 on the island of Tortola in the British Virgin Islands, Arthur William Hodge, a wealthy slaveholder, plantation owner and Council member, became the first person to be hanged for the murder of an enslaved person.

In 1833, the British Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act, permanently abolishing the instutiton of slavery in Britain's overseas colonies. The Act also stipulated that all formerly enslaved people would undergo a system of apprenticeship whereby they would work for their former enslavers for a period of time; how long this would last would be up to the government authorities in each British colony. On 1 August 1834 in Trinidad, an unarmed group of mainly elderly Black people being addressed by the Governor at Government House about the new apprenticeship laws, began chanting: "Pas de six ans. Point de six ans" ("Not six years. No six years"), drowning out the voice of the Governor. Peaceful protests continued until a resolution to abolish "apprenticeship" was passed and de facto freedom was achieved. This made Trinidad the first British colony with enslaved people to completely abolish the institution of slavery. The successful resistance of the implementation of the full six-year term of the Apprenticeship system and Abolition of Slavery in Trinidad was marked by ex-slaves and free people of colour joining in celebrations through the streets in what became known as their annual Canboulay celebrations. This event in Trinidad influenced full emancipation in the other British colonies which was legally granted two years ahead of schedule on 1 August 1838.

After Great Britain abolished the institution of slavery, it began to pressure other nations to do the same. France abolished the institution of slavery in 1848, in its colonies of Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana and Réunion.

Sugar marketing

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_marketing

 

A Redpath Sugar advertisement.

Sugar is heavily marketed both by sugar producers and the producers of sugary drinks and foods. Apart from direct marketing methods such as messaging on packaging, television ads, advergames, and product placement in setting like blogs, industry has worked to steer coverage of sugar-related health information in popular media, including news media and social media.

Sugar refiners and manufacturers of sugary foods and drinks have also sought to influence medical research and public health recommendations. The results of research on the health effects of sugary food and drink differ significantly, depending on whether the researcher has financial ties to the food and drink industry. The authors of a 2016 review of funding bias concluded that "This industry seems to be manipulating contemporary scientific processes to create controversy and advance their business interests at the expense of the public's health".

History

In the early 1950s, sugar was marketed as a healthy substance that would help curb hunger and provide an energy boost. More recent methods are necessarily less direct. Methods of marketing sugary products include:

• marketing high-sugar versions of established low-sugar brands as flavour variations
• using words associated with health, such as "healthy", "natural", "naturally sweetened" and "lightly sweetened"
• using associations with fruit to imply healthiness
• shill advertising, through front groups and individuals with no obvious connection to the sugar industry, including people presenting themselves as independent scientists
• targeting women, who make many food purchasing decisions
• targeting children; below age seven, they have difficulty recognizing persuasive intent, and below the age of twelve, they are more easily distracted from it than adults. Almost a quarter of food industry advertising money is spent on advertising to children.
• positioning sugary drinks and foods as a freedom-of-choice issue rather than a public health one

Influence on health information and guidelines

Sugar refiners and manufacturers of sugary foods and drinks have sought to influence medical research and public health recommendations, with substantial spending documented from the 1960s to 2016. The results of research on the health effects of sugary food and drink differ significantly, depending on whether the researcher has financial ties to the food and drink industry. The authors of a 2016 review of funding bias concluded that "This industry seems to be manipulating contemporary scientific processes to create controversy and advance their business interests at the expense of the public's health". A 2013 review concluded that "unhealthy commodity industries should have no role in the formation of national or international NCD [non-communicable disease] policy".

There have been similar efforts to steer coverage of sugar-related health information in popular media, including news media and social media.

The Sugar Research Foundation, a trade association for the sugar industry, conceived, funded, and participated in an influential 1967 medical review. It was called "SRF Funds Project 226", and published as "Dietary Fats, Carbohydrates and Atherosclerotic Vascular Disease". While this took place in 1965–1967, it was documented in a 2016 JAMA Internal Medicine publication which reviewed industry documents. Among the researchers who put their names to the 1967 review, David Mark Hegsted went on to write national nutrition guidelines, and Fredrick J. Stare was head of Harvard University's nutrition department. Rules surrounding conflicts of interest in academic publishing were laxer then, helping the payment to go undeclared. Taking into account "other recent analyses of sugar industry documents", the 2016 review concludes that such actions were part of a wider industry-sponsored research program in the 1960s and 1970s. It also concludes that "Policymaking committees should consider giving less weight to food industry–funded studies".

Immediately afterwards, the same Sugar Research Foundation funded a study comparing sugar-fed and starch-fed rats. "SRF Funds Project 259: Dietary Carbohydrate and Blood Lipids in Germ-Free Rats" was funded from 1967 until 1971, when, after reporting preliminary results to the funders, it did not have its funding renewed. The research was never published.

The U.S. National Institute of Dental Research's 1971 National Caries Program was lobbied by the sugar industry, which substantially influenced the types of research the caries program called for. Research on food cariogenicity that could have harmed the sugar industry was omitted from funding priorities. The NIDR's public health task force on caries and an industry task force on caries had almost exactly the same members. The NIDR copied 78% of the industry groups' report into their own, with portions being copied verbatim.

After the WHO recommended cutting sugar consumption to less than 10% of daily energy intake in 1990, the International Life Sciences Institute gained accreditation as a research organization the WHO and FAO. The institute was founded by parties including Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and General Foods. Phillip James, head of the International Obesity Taskforce, considered that this accreditation increased industry influence over world health guidelines.

The development of official European dietary guidelines was influenced by European sugar industry groups, who in 2000 threatened to block the report if a recommendation to limit sugar consumption to less than 10% of daily energy intake were not removed. The medical experts felt forced change the recommendation, to one that sugar should not be eaten more than four times a day.

Industry groups also criticized the evidence behind the World Health Organization 2003 recommended limit on free sugar consumption (again, to less than 10% of daily energy intake). The US sugar industry additionally lobbied the US Congress to cut funding to the WHO.

When the WHO updated the recommendations, a decade later in 2013, it commissioned two reviews, and found support for both the earlier recommendation and a new, stricter one, half as high as the old limit. This also met with industry opposition. The WHO began requiring anyone submitting formal comments on the proposal to fill out a conflict-of-interest form.

In 2011, the competing Corn Refiners Association (which makes sugar syrups) and the Sugar Association became involved in a lawsuit against one another, which continued as of 2015. In the course of this lawsuit, numerous internal documents were made public. These revealed funding of over $10 million to James Rippe for health research and media outreach, and a combined $4 million to Citizens for Health and Center for Consumer Freedom, which publicly opposed one another's views on the healthiness of the rival products without acknowledging their funding (such shilling is legal in the US following the Citizens United ruling).

In 2015, it was reported that Coca-Cola had paid millions to promote controversial health messages related to sweet drinks, ranging from academic research to social media posts, since 2008. The money went to researchers, dietitians, health experts, research organizations, and professional associations, among others.

Following this media attention, Coca-Cola released information on almost $120 million U.S. dollars given out to medical, health and community organizations between 2010 and 2015. These include $29 million for academic research; the largest donation was $7.5 million to Louisiana State University's Pennington Biomedical Research Center. Coca-Cola has now announced that it will "pull back" (reporter's phrasing) from funding health experts and obesity research, in order to improve its transparency.

Labelling

Sugar is added to ingredients lists under dozens of different names, which, where ingredients lists are in order from largest to smallest quantity, can let sugars appear spuriously lower on the ingredients list.

2016 US nutritional labelling changes

In 2016, the FDA enacted new requirements for US nutrition labels, which include calorie count in larger type and a separate line for added sugars. By July 2018 most manufacturers will need to use the new label.

The new FDA requirements were initially proposed in 2014, they met with strong opposition from sugar and sugary food producers. Industry claimed the new rule lacked any scientific justification. Many specific companies also wrote letters requesting certain products to be exempt from the rule. The head of Ocean Spray Cranberries wrote a letter to the FDA explaining that cranberries without sugar are "unpalatable" and claimed that they needed to be an exception to the bill. The American Beverage Association wanted the measurement on the back of their labels to be in grams instead of teaspoons, saying that teaspoon measurements would carry a negative connotation that misrepresents the factual nature of nutritional information.

The changes had bipartisan support; George W. Bush supported the FDA in its request for the legislation, and, after it was enacted under Barack Obama, said that the government had "got this right".

Campaigns to lower sugar consumption

A community campaign in Howard County, Maryland, used the media to influence the attitudes and behaviors about the relationship between sugary drinks and obesity. The "Howard County Unsweetened" campaign used social media, television ads, in-person marketing, and community organizations to encourage people to drink less sugary drinks, and promoted water as a substitute. This campaign was modeled after a study done in Portland, Oregon that found community based interventions were successful in influencing consumers likelihood of purchasing sugary drinks in supermarkets. Researchers associated sugary drinks with obesity, heart disease, and diabetes to influence the attitudes of the consumers and the purchasing behaviors of consumers.

Sugar taxes

Main article: Sugary drink tax

Sugar taxes have been used to reduce the consumption of sugary drinks, often in combination with public information campaigns.

A 2010 study of a sugar taxes in the US found that they decreased consumption of taxed drinks, but increased the consumption of untaxed high-calorie drinks, removing the benefit.

In Mexico, sugary drink consumption dropped after a public health campaign including a sugar tax came in in 2014, and dropped further a year later. A 2015 tax in Berkeley, California, had a similar effect, although overall grocery spending did not decline. In 2016, the far larger city of Philadelphia brought in a sugar tax to fund children's programs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_sugar

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_sugar 

 

A sugarloaf was the traditional shape of sugar in the eighteenth century: a semi-hard sugar cone, usually with a rounded top, that required a sugar axe or hammer to break up and sugar nips to reduce to usable pieces.

 

Sugar Prices 1962–2022

The history of sugar has five main phases:

1. The extraction of sugar cane juice from the sugarcane plant, and the subsequent domestication of the plant in tropical India and Southeast Asia sometime around 4,000 BC.
2. The invention of manufacture of cane sugar granules from sugarcane juice in India a little over two thousand years ago, followed by improvements in refining the crystal granules in India in the early centuries AD.
3. The spread of cultivation and manufacture of cane sugar to the medieval Islamic world together with some improvements in production methods.
4. The spread of cultivation and manufacture of cane sugar to the West Indies and tropical parts of the Americas beginning in the 16th century, followed by more intensive improvements in production in the 17th through 19th centuries in that part of the world.
5. The development of beet sugar, high-fructose corn syrup and other sweeteners in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Sugar was first produced from sugarcane plants in India sometime after the first century AD. The derivation of the word "sugar" is thought to be from Sanskrit शर्करा (śarkarā), meaning "ground or candied sugar," originally "grit, gravel". Sanskrit literature from ancient India, written between 1500 and 500 BC provides the first documentation of the cultivation of sugar cane and of the manufacture of sugar in the Bengal region of the Indian subcontinent.

Known worldwide by the end of the medieval period, sugar was very expensive and was considered a "fine spice", but from about the year 1500, technological improvements and New World sources began turning it into a much cheaper bulk commodity.

The spread of sugarcane cultivation

Map showing centers of origin of Saccharum officinarum in New Guinea, S. sinensis in southern China and Taiwan, and S. barberi in India; dotted arrows represent Austronesian introductions

There are two centers of domestication for sugarcane: one for Saccharum officinarum by Papuans in New Guinea and another for Saccharum sinense by Austronesians in Taiwan and southern China. Papuans and Austronesians originally primarily used sugarcane as food for domesticated pigs. The spread of both S. officinarum and S. sinense is closely linked to the migrations of the Austronesian peoples. Saccharum barberi was only cultivated in India after the introduction of S. officinarum.

Saccharum officinarum - sugar cane

Saccharum officinarum was first domesticated in New Guinea and the islands east of the Wallace Line by Papuans, where it is the modern center of diversity. Beginning at around 6,000 BP they were selectively bred from the native Saccharum robustum. From New Guinea it spread westwards to Island Southeast Asia after contact with Austronesians, where it hybridized with Saccharum spontaneum.

The second domestication center is mainland southern China and Taiwan where S. sinense was a primary cultigen of the Austronesian peoples. Words for sugarcane exist in the Proto-Austronesian languages in Taiwan, reconstructed as *təbuS or **CebuS, which became *tebuh in Proto-Malayo-Polynesian. It was one of the original major crops of the Austronesian peoples from at least 5,500 BP. Introduction of the sweeter S. officinarum may have gradually replaced it throughout its cultivated range in Island Southeast Asia.

From Island Southeast Asia, S. officinarum was spread eastward into Polynesia and Micronesia by Austronesian voyagers as a canoe plant by around 3,500 BP. It was also spread westward and northward by around 3,000 BP to China and India by Austronesian traders, where it further hybridized with Saccharum sinense and Saccharum barberi. From there it spread further into western Eurasia and the Mediterranean.

India, where the process of refining cane juice into granulated crystals was developed, was often visited by imperial convoys (such as those from China) to learn about cultivation and sugar refining. By the sixth century AD, sugar cultivation and processing had reached Persia, and from there that knowledge was brought into the Mediterranean by the Arab expansion. "Wherever they went, the [medieval] Arabs brought with them sugar, the product and the technology of its production."

Spanish and Portuguese exploration and conquest in the fifteenth century carried sugar south-west of Iberia. Henry the Navigator introduced cane to Madeira in 1425, while the Spanish, having eventually subdued the Canary Islands, introduced sugar cane to them. In 1493, on his second voyage, Christopher Columbus carried sugarcane seedlings to the New World, in particular Hispaniola.

Early use of sugarcane in India

Sugarcane originated in tropical Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. Different species likely originated in different locations with S. barberi originating in India and S. edule and S. officinarum coming from New Guinea. Originally, people chewed sugarcane raw to extract its sweetness. Indians discovered how to crystallize sugar during the Gupta dynasty, around 350 AD although literary evidence from Indian treatises such as Arthashastra in the 4th-3rd century BC indicates that refined sugar was already being produced in India.

Indian sailors, consumers of clarified butter and sugar, carried sugar by various trade routes. Travelling Buddhist monks brought sugar crystallization methods to China. During the reign of Harsha (r. 606–647) in North India, Indian envoys in Tang China taught sugarcane cultivation methods after Emperor Taizong of Tang (r. 626–649) made his interest in sugar known, and China soon established its first sugarcane cultivation in the seventh century. Chinese documents confirm at least two missions to India, initiated in 647 AD, for obtaining technology for sugar-refining. In India, the Middle East and China, sugar became a staple of cooking and desserts.

Early refining methods involved grinding or pounding the cane in order to extract the juice, and then boiling down the juice or drying it in the sun to yield sugary solids that looked like gravel. The Sanskrit word for "sugar" (sharkara) also means "gravel" or "sand". Similarly, the Chinese use the term "gravel sugar" (Traditional Chinese: 砂糖) for what the West knows as "table sugar".

In 1792, sugar prices soared in Great Britain. On 15 March 1792, his Majesty's Ministers to the British parliament presented a report related to the production of refined sugar in British India. Lieutenant J. Paterson, of the Bengal Presidency, reported that refined sugar could be produced in India with many superior advantages, and a lot more cheaply than in the West Indies.

Cane sugar in the medieval era in the Muslim World and Europe

The westward diffusion of sugarcane in pre-Islamic times (shown in red), in the medieval Muslim world (green), and in the 15th century by the Portuguese on the Madeira archipelago, and by the Spanish on the Canary Islands archipelago (islands west of Africa, circled by violet lines)

There are records of knowledge of sugar among the ancient Greeks and Romans, but only as an imported medicine, and not as a food. For example, the Greek physician Dioscorides in the 1st century (AD) wrote: "There is a kind of coalesced honey called sakcharon [i.e. sugar] found in reeds in India and Eudaimon Arabia [i.e. Yemen] similar in consistency to salt and brittle enough to be broken between the teeth like salt. It is good dissolved in water for the intestines and stomach, and [can be] taken as a drink to help [relieve] a painful bladder and kidneys." Pliny the Elder, a 1st-century (AD) Roman, also described sugar as medicinal: "Sugar is made in Arabia as well, but Indian sugar is better. It is a kind of honey found in cane, white as gum, and it crunches between the teeth. It comes in lumps the size of a hazelnut. Sugar is used only for medical purposes."

During the medieval era, Arab entrepreneurs adopted sugar production techniques from India and expanded the industry. Medieval Arabs in some cases set up large plantations equipped with on-site sugar mills or refineries. The cane sugar plant, which is native to a tropical climate, requires both a lot of water and a lot of heat to thrive. The cultivation of the plant spread throughout the medieval Arab world using artificial irrigation. Sugar cane was first grown extensively in medieval Southern Europe during the period of Arab rule in Sicily beginning around the 9th century. In addition to Sicily, Al-Andalus (in what is currently southern Spain) was an important center of sugar production, beginning by the tenth century.

From the Arab world, sugar was exported throughout Europe. The volume of imports increased in the later medieval centuries as indicated by the increasing references to sugar consumption in late medieval Western writings. But cane sugar remained an expensive import. Its price per pound in 14th and 15th century England was about equally as high as imported spices from tropical Asia such as mace (nutmeg), ginger, cloves, and pepper, which had to be transported across the Indian Ocean in that era.

Ponting traces the spread of the cultivation of sugarcane from its introduction into Mesopotamia, then the Levant and the islands of the eastern Mediterranean, especially Cyprus, by the 10th century. He also notes that it spread along the coast of East Africa to reach Zanzibar.

Crusaders brought sugar home with them to Europe after their campaigns in the Holy Land, where they encountered caravans carrying what they called "sweet salt". Early in the 12th century, Venice acquired some villages near Tyre and set up estates to produce sugar for export to Europe, where it supplemented honey as the only other available sweetener. Crusade chronicler William of Tyre, writing in the late 12th century, described sugar as "a most precious product, very necessary for the use and health of mankind". The first record of sugar in English is in the late 13th century.

Ponting recounts the reliance on slavery of the early European sugar entrepreneurs:

The crucial problem with sugar production was that it was highly labour-intensive in both growing and processing. Because of the huge weight and bulk of the raw cane it was very costly to transport, especially by land, and therefore each estate had to have its own factory. There the cane had to be crushed to extract the juices, which were boiled to concentrate them, in a series of backbreaking and intensive operations lasting many hours. However, once it had been processed and concentrated, the sugar had a very high value for its bulk and could be traded over long distances by ship at a considerable profit. The [European sugar] industry only began on a major scale after the loss of the Levant to a resurgent Islam and the shift of production to Cyprus under a mixture of Crusader aristocrats and Venetian merchants. The local population on Cyprus spent most of their time growing their own food and few would work on the sugar estates. The owners therefore brought in slaves from the Black Sea area (and a few from Africa) to do most of the work. The level of demand and production was low and therefore so was the trade in slaves — no more than about a thousand people a year. It was not much larger when sugar production began in Sicily.

In the Atlantic ocean [the Canaries, Madeira, and the Cape Verde Islands], once the initial exploitation of the timber and raw materials was over, it rapidly became clear that sugar production would be the most profitable way of getting money from the new territories. The problem was the heavy labour involved because the Europeans refused to work except as supervisors. The solution was to bring in slaves from Africa. The crucial developments in this trade began in the 1440's...

During the 1390s, a better press was developed, which doubled the amount of juice that was obtained from the sugarcane and helped to cause the economic expansion of sugar plantations to Andalusia and to the Algarve. It started in Madeira in 1455, using advisers from Sicily and (largely) Genoese capital for the mills. The accessibility of Madeira attracted Genoese and Flemish traders keen to bypass Venetian monopolies. "By 1480 Antwerp had some seventy ships engaged in the Madeira sugar trade, with the refining and distribution concentrated in Antwerp. The 1480's saw sugar production extended to the Canary Islands. By the 1490's Madeira had overtaken Cyprus as a producer of sugar." African slaves also worked in the sugar plantations of the Kingdom of Castile around Valencia.

Sugar cultivation in the New World

The Triangular trade - enslaved people were imported into the Caribbean Islands to plant and harvest sugar cane.

 

See also: Slavery in the British and French Caribbean and Slavery in the colonial United States

The Portuguese took sugar to Brazil. By 1540, there were 800 cane sugar mills in Santa Catarina Island and there were another 2,000 on the north coast of Brazil, Demarara, and Surinam. The first sugar harvest happened in Hispaniola in 1501; and many sugar mills had been constructed in Cuba and Jamaica by the 1520s.

The approximately 3,000 small sugar mills that were built before 1550 in the New World created an unprecedented demand for cast iron gears, levers, axles and other implements. Specialist trades in mold-making and iron casting developed in Europe due to the expansion of sugar production. Sugar mill construction sparked development of the technological skills needed for a nascent industrial revolution in the early 17th century.

After 1625, the Dutch transported sugarcane from South America to the Caribbean islands, where it was grown from Barbados to the Virgin Islands.

Contemporaries often compared the worth of sugar with valuable commodities including musk, pearls, and spices. Sugar prices declined slowly as its production became multi-sourced throughout the European colonies. Once an indulgence only of the rich, the consumption of sugar also became increasingly common among the poor as well. Sugar production increased in the mainland North American colonies, in Cuba, and in Brazil. The labour force at first included European indentured servants and local Native American enslaved people. However, European diseases such as smallpox and African ones such as malaria and yellow fever soon reduced the numbers of local Native Americans. Europeans were also very susceptible to malaria and yellow fever, and the supply of indentured servants was limited. African slaves became the dominant source of plantation workers, because they were more resistant to malaria and yellow fever, and because the supply of enslaved people was abundant on the African coast.

"When we work at the sugar-canes, and the mill snatches hold of a finger, they cut off the hand; and when we attempt to run away, they cut off the leg; both cases have happened to me. This is the price at which you eat sugar in Europe."

—Voltaire, Candide, Chap. 19

In the process of whitening sugar, the charred bones of dead enslaved people were commonly substituted for the traditionally used animal bones.

During the 18th century, sugar became enormously popular. Great Britain, for example, consumed five times as much sugar in 1770 as in 1710. By 1750, sugar surpassed grain as "the most valuable commodity in European trade — it made up a fifth of all European imports and in the last decades of the century four-fifths of the sugar came from the British and French colonies in the West Indies." From the 1740s until the 1820s, sugar was Britain's most valuable import.

The sugar market went through a series of booms. The heightened demand and production of sugar came about to a large extent due to a great change in the eating habits of many Europeans. For example, they began consuming jams, candy, tea, coffee, cocoa, processed foods, and other sweet victuals in much greater amounts. Reacting to this increasing trend, the Caribbean islands took advantage of the situation and set about producing still more sugar. In fact, they produced up to ninety percent of the sugar that the western Europeans consumed. Some islands proved more successful than others when it came to producing the product. In Barbados and the British Leeward Islands, sugar provided 93% and 97% respectively of exports.

Planters later began developing ways to boost production even more. For example, they began using more farming methods when growing their crops. They also developed more advanced mills and began using better types of sugarcane. In the eighteenth century "the French colonies were the most successful, especially Saint-Domingue, where better irrigation, water-power and machinery, together with concentration on newer types of sugar, increased profits." Despite these and other improvements, the price of sugar reached soaring heights, especially during events such as the revolt against the Dutch and the Napoleonic Wars. Sugar remained in high demand, and the islands' planters knew exactly how to take advantage of the situation.

A 19th-century lithograph by Theodore Bray showing a sugarcane plantation. On right is "white officer", the European overseer. Enslaved workers toil during the harvest. To the left is a flat-bottomed vessel for cane transportation.

As Europeans established sugar plantations on the larger Caribbean islands, prices fell in Europe. By the 18th century all levels of society had become common consumers of the former luxury product. At first most sugar in Britain went into tea, but later confectionery and chocolates became extremely popular. Many Britons (especially children) also ate jams. Suppliers commonly sold sugar in the form of a sugarloaf and consumers required sugar nips, a pliers-like tool, to break off pieces.

Sugarcane quickly exhausts the soil in which it grows, and planters pressed larger islands with fresher soil into production in the nineteenth century as demand for sugar in Europe continued to increase: "average consumption in Britain rose from four pounds per head in 1700 to eighteen pounds in 1800, thirty-six pounds by 1850 and over one hundred pounds by the twentieth century." In the 19th century Cuba rose to become the richest land in the Caribbean (with sugar as its dominant crop) because it formed the only major island landmass free of mountainous terrain. Instead, nearly three-quarters of its land formed a rolling plain — ideal for planting crops. Cuba also prospered above other islands because Cubans used better methods when harvesting the sugar crops: they adopted modern milling methods such as watermills, enclosed furnaces, steam engines, and vacuum pans. All these technologies increased productivity. Cuba also retained slavery longer than the most of the rest of the Caribbean islands.

Hacienda La Fortuna. A sugar mill complex in Puerto Rico, painted by Francisco Oller in 1885. Brooklyn Museum

After the Haitian Revolution established the independent state of Haiti, sugar production in that country declined and Cuba replaced Saint-Domingue as the world's largest producer.

Long established in Brazil, sugar production spread to other parts of South America, as well as to newer European colonies in Africa and in the Pacific, where it became especially important in Fiji. Mauritius, Natal and Queensland in Australia started growing sugar. The older and newer sugar production areas now tended to use indentured labour rather than enslaved people, with workers "shipped across the world ... [and] ... held in conditions of near slavery for up to ten years... In the second half of the nineteenth century over 450,000 indentured labourers went from India to the British West Indies, others went to Natal, Mauritius and Fiji (where they became a majority of the population). In Queensland workers from the Pacific islands were moved in. On Hawaii, they came from China and Japan. The Dutch transferred large numbers of people from Java to Surinam." It is said that the sugar plantations would not have thrived without the aid of the African enslaved people. In Colombia, the planting of sugar started very early on, and entrepreneurs imported many African enslaved people to cultivate the fields. The industrialization of the Colombian industry started in 1901 with the establishment of Manuelita, the first steam-powered sugar mill in South America, by Latvian Jewish immigrant James Martin Eder.

The rise of beet sugar

Further information: Sugar beet § History

 

German chemists Andreas Sigismund Marggraf and Franz Karl Achard (pictured) both laid the foundation of the modern sugar industry

Sugar was a luxury in Europe until the early 19th century, when it became more widely available, due to the rise of beet sugar in Prussia, and later in France under Napoleon. Beet sugar was a German invention, since, in 1747, Andreas Sigismund Marggraf announced the discovery of sugar in beets and devised a method using alcohol to extract it. Marggraf's student, Franz Karl Achard, devised an economical industrial method to extract the sugar in its pure form in the late 18th century. Achard first produced beet sugar in 1783 in Kaulsdorf. In 1801, under the patronage of King Frederick William III of Prussia (reigned 1797–1840), the world's first beet sugar production facility was established in Cunern, Silesia (then part of Prussia). While never profitable, this plant operated from 1801 until its destruction during the Napoleonic Wars (ca. 1802–1815).

Sugar refinery in Šurany (Slovakia), founded in 1854 (picture from 1900).

The works of Marggraf and Achard were the starting point for the sugar industry in Europe, and for the modern sugar industry in general, since sugar was no longer a luxury product and a product almost only produced in warmer climates.

In France, Napoleon cut off from Caribbean imports by a British blockade, and at any rate not wanting to fund British merchants, banned imports of sugar in 1813 and ordered the planting of 32,000 hectares with beetroot. A beet sugar industry emerged, especially after Jean-Baptiste Quéruel industrialized the operation of Benjamin Delessert.

The United Kingdom Beetroot Sugar Association was established in 1832 but efforts to establish sugar beet in the UK were not very successful. Sugar beets provided approximately 2/3 of world sugar production in 1899. 46% of British sugar came from Germany and Austria. Sugar prices in Britain collapsed towards the end of the 19th century. The British Sugar Beet Society was set up in 1915 and by 1930 there were 17 factories in England and one in Scotland, supported under the provisions of the British Sugar (Subsidy) Act 1925. By 1935 homegrown sugar was 27.6% of British consumption. By 1929 109,201 people were employed in the British sugar beet industry, with about 25,000 more casual labourers.

Mechanization

Beginning in the late 18th century, the production of sugar became increasingly mechanized. The steam engine first powered a sugar mill in Jamaica in 1768, and soon after, steam replaced direct firing as the source of process heat.

In 1813 the British chemist Edward Charles Howard invented a method of refining sugar that involved boiling the cane juice not in an open kettle, but in a closed vessel heated by steam and held under partial vacuum. At reduced pressure, water boils at a lower temperature, and this development both saved fuel and reduced the amount of sugar lost through caramelization. Further gains in fuel-efficiency came from the multiple-effect evaporator, designed by the United States engineer Norbert Rillieux (perhaps as early as the 1820s, although the first working model dates from 1845). This system consisted of a series of vacuum pans, each held at a lower pressure than the previous one. The vapors from each pan served to heat the next, with minimal heat wasted. Modern industries use multiple-effect evaporators for evaporating water.

The process of separating sugar from molasses also received mechanical attention: David Weston first applied the centrifuge to this task in Hawaii in 1852.

Other sweeteners

See also: Sugar substitute

 

Cyclamate-based sugar substitute sold in Canada.

In the United States and Japan, high-fructose corn syrup has replaced sugar in some uses, particularly in soft drinks and processed foods.

The process by which high-fructose corn syrup is produced was first developed by Richard O. Marshall and Earl R. Kooi in 1957. The industrial production process was refined by Dr. Y. Takasaki at Agency of Industrial Science and Technology of Ministry of International Trade and Industry of Japan in 1965–1970. High-fructose corn syrup was rapidly introduced to many processed foods and soft drinks in the United States from around 1975 to 1985.

A system of sugar tariffs and sugar quotas imposed in 1977 in the United States significantly increased the cost of imported sugar and U.S. producers sought cheaper sources. High-fructose corn syrup, derived from corn, is more economical because the domestic U.S. price of sugar is twice the global price and the price of corn is kept low through government subsidies paid to growers. High-fructose corn syrup became an attractive substitute, and is preferred over cane sugar among the vast majority of American food and beverage manufacturers. Soft drink makers such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi use sugar in other nations, but switched to high-fructose corn syrup in the United States in 1984.

The average American consumed approximately 37.8 lb (17.1 kg) of high-fructose corn syrup in 2008, versus 46.7 lb (21.2 kg) of sucrose.

In recent years it has been hypothesized that the increase of high-fructose corn syrup usage in processed foods may be linked to various health conditions, including metabolic syndrome, hypertension, dyslipidemia, hepatic steatosis, insulin resistance, and obesity. However, there is to date little evidence that high-fructose corn syrup is any unhealthier, calorie for calorie, than sucrose or other simple sugars. The fructose content and fructose:glucose ratio of high-fructose corn syrup do not differ markedly from clarified apple juice. Some researchers hypothesize that fructose may trigger the process by which fats are formed, to a greater extent than other simple sugars. However, most commonly used blends of high-fructose corn syrup contain a nearly one-to-one ratio of fructose and glucose, just like common sucrose, and should therefore be metabolically identical after the first steps of sucrose metabolism, in which the sucrose is split into fructose and glucose components. At the very least, the increasing prevalence of high-fructose corn syrup has certainly led to an increase in added sugar calories in food, which may reasonably increase the incidence of these and other diseases.

Humanity (virtue)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanity_(virtue) 

 

A man and a woman illustrated on the Pioneer plaque sent into space

Humanity is a virtue linked with basic ethics of altruism derived from the human condition. It also symbolises human love and compassion towards each other. Humanity differs from mere justice in that there is a level of altruism towards individuals included in humanity more so than the fairness found in justice. That is, humanity, and the acts of love, altruism, and social intelligence are typically individual strengths while fairness is generally expanded to all. Humanity can be classed as one of six virtues that are consistent across all cultures.

The concept goes back to the development of "humane" or "humanist" philosophy during the Renaissance (with predecessors in 13th-century scholasticism stressing a concept of basic human dignity inspired by Aristotelianism) and the concept of humanitarianism in the early modern period, and resulted in modern notions such as "human rights".

Historical perspectives

Confucian philosophy

Main article: Ren (Confucianism)

Confucius said that humanity, or “Ren”(仁), is a “love of people” stating “if you want to make a stand, help others make a stand.” That is, the Confucian theory of humanity exemplifies the golden rule. It is so central to Confucian thought that it appears 58 times in the Analects. Similar to the Christian process of seeking God, Confucius teaches seeking Ren to a point of seemingly divine mastery until you are equal to, or better than, your teacher. The Confucian concept of Ren encompasses both love and altruism.

Greek philosophy

Plato and Aristotle both wrote extensively on the subject of virtues, though neither ever wrote on humanity as a virtue, despite highly valuing love and kindness, two of the strengths of humanity. Plato and Aristotle considered "courage, justice, temperance" and "generosity, wit, friendliness, truthfulness, magnificence, and greatness of soul" to be the sole virtues, respectively.

Abrahamic religion

Abraham is a central figure in both Christianity, Islam and Judaism

Kindness, altruism and love are all mentioned in the Bible. Proverbs 19:22 states "the desire of a man is his kindness." On the topic of altruism, emphasis is placed on helping strangers (Hebrews 13:1) and the biblical adage "it is better to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35).

Humanity is one of Thomas Aquinas' "Seven Heavenly Virtues". Beyond that, humanity was so important in some positivist Christian cultures that it was to be capitalized like God.

Strengths of humanity

Love

Love has many different definitions ranging from a set of purely biological and chemical processes to a religious concept. As a character strength, love is a mutual feeling between two people characterized by attachment, comfort, and generally positive feelings. It can be broken down into 3 categories: love between a child and their parents, love for your friends, and romantic love. Having love as a strength is not about the capacity to love, as such, it is about being involved in a loving relationship.

Love, in the psychological sense, is most often studied in terms of attachment to others. A degree of controversy surrounds defining and researching love in this way, as it takes away the “mystery of love.” Because love is mysterious, to an extent, it is most often studied in terms of attachment theory, because it can be studied in the way across ages. In infants, attachment is studied through the Strange Situation Test. Attachment to an individual, usually the mother, is determined by how distressed the infant becomes when the mother is taken out of the experimental setting. There are several models of adult attachment including the Adult Attachment Interviews, Adult Attachment Prototypes and more. Generally adult attachment models focus on the mental representation of the visible signs of attachment seen in infants.

Evidence in support of the benefits of love are seen in the negative affect states that result from lacking love. Orphaned children have been targeted in studies about negative attributes resulting from lack of attachment. A study by Smyke and others found that children raised in an environment that didn't allow children to become attached to their preferred caregivers experienced attachment disorders. Additionally, individuals who develop securely attached have a lower likelihood of depression, high-self esteem, and less likelihood of divorce.

Kindness

Giving alms to poor children can be considered an act of altruism or generosity

The strength kindness encompasses most related terms that evoke feelings of altruism, generosity, helpfulness and a general desire to help people. That is, a disposition for helping humanity. The following statements are from the Values in Action (VIA) psychological assessment, aimed at determining people's strengths in kindness: others are just as important to me, giving is more important than receiving, I care for the ungrateful as well as the grateful. Kindness, as a part of humanity, is deeply rooted in philosophical and religious traditions, each having words for the altruistic love aspect of kindness, such as agape in Greek, chesed in Hebrew, and the Latin word philantropia, the root of the word "philanthropy." Kindness is so valued as a strength beyond religious and theoretical concepts that it is advocated through school community service programs and national programs like AmeriCorps. Additionally, while gender differences in kindness are statistically significant, they are minimal, and the methods of testing used may not always have construct validity.

Kindness is most often measured on a case by case measure and not usually as a trait. The Self-Report Altruism Scale and the Altruism Facet Scale for Agreeableness Measure of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) psychological assessment are often used to ask people how often they engage in altruistic behaviors and gauge their concern for others. The former, however, only asks about 20 specific altruistic acts, leaving out a wide range of altruistic behaviors.

There are numerous benefits from kindness and altruism on both sides of the action. For some, the motivation to be kind comes from a place of egoistic motivation, and thus the benefit to them is the positive affect state they receive from the action. Another study found that the process of being kind develops pro-social skills in children, which positively effects their attachments and relationships. Additionally, volunteerism in the elderly has shown to lead to decreased risk of early death, and mental health benefits. One thing to note is the difference between altruism as a trait and as an act.

Social intelligence

Being able to actively engage in a conversation is often considered a sign of social intelligence

Social intelligence is the most modern of the three strengths associated with humanity. The Character Strengths and Virtues (CSV) psychological assessment defines social intelligence as the ability to understand “relationships with other people, including the social relationships involved in intimacy and trust, persuasion, group membership, and political power.”

Intelligence has many psychological definitions from Weschler's intelligence to the various theories of multiple intelligence. The CSV divides intelligence into hot and cold, hot intelligence being those intelligences related to active emotional processes. (338) Individuals with high social intelligence are very self-aware, and effective organizers and leaders. Additionally, it combines elements of the other two hot intelligences, personal and emotional intelligence. Personal intelligence being the internal counterpart to social intelligence and emotional intelligence being the capacity to understand emotions. The CSV highlights three social intelligence measurement scales: Factor Based Social Intelligence Tasks, Psychological Mindedness Assessment Procedure, and Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional intelligence Test.

Social Intelligence research is limited, however, there is much literature on the characteristics associated with social intelligence. Zaccaro et al. found social intelligence and perceptiveness to be integral to effective leadership; that is, good leaders are “social experts.” Emotional intelligence, too, plays a role in leadership. Another study found that emotional intelligence enables leaders to better understand their followers, thereby enhancing their ability to influence them.

Psychological research on humanity as a virtue

Virtue and wellbeing

Although only a relatively new field of inquiry for psychological researchers, character strengths and virtues have been consistently measured in psychometric surveys and have been shown to be positively associated with psychological and subjective wellbeing. What is more, even among those who endorse a spiritual/theistic worldview, these salutary associations appear to be better explained by humanity/civility rather than endorsing a faith in a supernatural being.