Sugarcane

By Heaven Anderson

General Context

According to Rachel Holland, as of 2025 sugarcane contributes $4 billion to Louisiana’s economy annually. As Kenneth Gravois summarizes, sugarcane has been a key component of Louisiana’s economy and culture for centuries. For many of those years, enslaved people cultivated and worked the fields.

During slavery, cultivating sugarcane was a brutal process. John Bardes highlights how accidents were common. Enslaved people were cut by cane knives, crushed by grinders, or burned by boiling juices for example. In sugar parishes, death rates exceeded birth rates, and plantation owners purchased more slaves to replace those who had died.

According to Matthew Reonas, after emancipation, former slaves continued to cultivate cane as sharecroppers, trading manpower in exchange for housing, food, and a share of the crop while landlords often maintained control over their lives. Sharecropping persisted from the 1860s until the 1950s. A newspaper article from 1940 states that cane production at the time was 3,824,000 tons, 40,000 more than the ten-year average.

Connection to Novel

The Black community on Pichot’s plantation live lives marked by the cultivation of sugarcane. Miss Emma has blisters from cane knives. The children are only taught for five and a half months because they are needed in the fields for the rest of the year. When Grant gets into a fight at the bar, he describes how his opponent has four generations of bricklaying in his genes while Grant only has cane cutting in his.

Grant’s family has been working on Pichot’s Plantation for years. When he shares his history with Vivian, both verbally and through the action of cutting her a stalk of cane, he highlights its significance in his life. A significance that is also seen in Jefferson’s life. Jefferson tells Grant how he’s been working the cane fields since he was six years old. Even, after Jefferson is executed, there is new cane growing.