The Import of European Sugar Machinery to Offset the Sugar Crisis in Bahia, 1875-1914

The construction of central sugar factories in Bahia (1880-1914) using imported sugarprocessing machinery was undertaken to solve the province’s sugar crisis by moving from the system of engenho/slave labor to factory wage/labor. The initiative succeeded in creating a commodity chain linking impoverished workers in Bahia’s usinas with the traditional European working class in Paris, Lille, Glasgow and Liverpool. The output of sugar in Bahia increased markedly but it was sold in the protected markets of Brazil’s Center-South