COFFEE
Originating in Ethiopia in the 1600s, coffee is now one of the most heavily traded agricultural products in the world. Historically, coffee’s energizing powers have been both feared and embraced. Its consumption has been prohibited for religious reasons and its sale banned for economic reasons. As a statement against British tea, coffee became the beverage of choice for American colonists, and coffeehouses developed as sites of social and political activity.
Less savory aspects of coffee relate to its production. Today’s fair-trade regulations do important work in prohibiting the forced labor of adults and children and promoting sustainable cultivation practices and equitable trading standards.
Born in Bristol in 1764 and elected a Rhode Island state senator in 1821, James DeWolf became one of the wealthiest men in the US by participating in the slave trade and investing in Cuban coffee and sugar plantations. From the late 1700s to the early 1800s, members of the DeWolf family funded nearly 90 sea voyages that brought more than 10,000 enslaved Africans to the US and the Caribbean. More than a hundred of these people were forced to cultivate and harvest coffee on DeWolf’s plantation in Cuba.
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