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Connecticut, that the slaving ships set sail for the coast of West Africa, their holds laden with barrels of rum. Once they arrived, they traded the rum to African coast merchants in exchange for black slaves, whom they sold, in turn, in the West Indies for local products—most notably, molasses. These ships then transported molasses to New England to be used as a cheap sugar substitute, and to distill into rum. The cycle then began all over again. The “Triangle Trade” was born and became the backbone of New England’s economy and prosperity before the American Revolution.
    The first American-built vessel to carry slaves was the
Desire
, sailing out of Salem, Massachusetts, in 1638, and the trade continued to enrich New England merchants for nearly two centuries. One historian said it was probably “not an exaggeration to say that the slave trade was the lubricating oil that kept the machinery of the colonial New England economy moving smoothly.” Another added: “Indeed, one of the grievances of white Southerners in the nineteenth century—probably even a covert grievance still today—was that the Yankees who had become so vociferously humanitarian over the evils of slavery were the direct descendants of the chief American traders in slaves.”
    Up and down the West Coast of Africa, New England traders purchased slaves with rum made from molasses. Early records show that African men fetched 115 gallons of rum each and African women ninety-five gallons apiece. Most New England ships took their slaves to sell in the West Indies, many of whom were later sent to the colonies in America. Boston was by far the most important slaving port in the first half of the eighteenth century, and many of her leading merchants sent vessels to Guinea, on the African coast. New England merchants plunged into the rum trade with such enthusiasm that they often created a glut of rum on the Guinea Coast. This, in turn, created an overabundance of slaves in the West Indies, men and women shipped from Africa to the islands, as part of the “middle passage” of the slave trade.
    To alleviate the excess, many slaves were imported into the Southern colonies to support the plantation system that had begun to spread throughout the region. By the early 1700s, the average Southern plantation covered more than seven hundred acres, and many of the Virginia and South Carolina plantations were much larger. Thus, the New England-Africa-West Indies triangle slave trade formed the genesis of the “peculiar institution” in the Southern colonies and states, a way of life which would tear the country apart and plunge it into Civil War a century and a half later.
    Molasses was at the center of it all.
    Beyond its role in the commercial distillation of rum, certainly its most important contribution to the colonial economy, molasses was a staple among families. A cheap sugar substitute, molasses is a by-product extracted during the sugar refining process. Sugar cane is crushed to remove the juice, which is then boiled to extract sugar. The remaining syrup, after the sugar has been crystallized, becomes known as “first molasses,” the sweetest variety. The leftover syrup from the second boiling is called second molasses—less sweet and cheaper—and the syrup remaining after the third extraction of sugar from sugar cane is known as “blackstrap molasses,” a dark, bittersweet, unpleasant-tasting liquid that was used in the production of industrial alcohol by USIA and other companies.
    Colonists not only used molasses to produce their own beer and rum, they considered it a vital part of their diet. New Englanders made baked beans, brown bread, and pumpkin pie with it. The German communities in Pennsylvania used molasses in shoofly pie and pandowdy, a baked apple-and-spice dish. In colonial Carolina, molasses went by the name of “long sugar” and was said to “serve all the purposes of sugar, both in eating and drinking.” Historian John J.