for the importation of African slaves directly from Africa to the West Indies, and after 1518 the trade became more an institution and a part of the Spanish economy, with the kings living off the trade.
Sugar was rare in Europe, and once it had been introduced from the West Indies it became big business. For many European merchants sugar was the primary crop in the seventeenth century. Tobacco was also important, as was rum and West Indian coffee and cotton. Sugar, however, became the major consumer of slaves. Both sugar and tobacco required abundant field labor, and planters depended on the African slave trade for workers. The planters were also very wasteful of their workers so that whole slave populations had to be replaced from time to time. France and England were the primary beneficiaries of this new commercial system. Sugar was introduced into the French West Indies in 1
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