Vice
Vice
@VICE·19.1M subscribers·4.4K videos

Sugar & Slavery: The Building Blocks of Bristol’s 1% | Empires of Dirt

Posted

November 12, 2020

Views

226,901

Likes

7,082

Comments

1,901

Engagement

3.96%

Search the Record

Indexed

Every word spoken in this episode is indexed. Type any phrase to jump straight to the moment it was said.

Type any word or phrase that may have been spoken. Click a result to seek the player to that exact moment.

Try a name, a topic, or a quoted line

YouTube Description

as posted by the channel

Sugar was once so lucrative they called it ‘white gold’. For centuries our love of the sweet stuff drove the world economy and helped Britain develop into a global colonial superpower.

But the nation’s sweet tooth came at the expense of millions of slaves who were shipped from Africa and forced to work on plantations in the West Indies and America. At the centre of the sugar trade was the city of Bristol, where men like Edward Colston grew rich from investments. VICE World News host Zing Tsjeng travels there to tell the not-so-sweet story of the human cost that lurks behind our addiction to sugar.

Empires of Dirt is a show about Europeans getting rich at the expense of everyone else. We uncover the ugly history of the European colonial empires that they don’t teach us in school.

Countries around the world were looted for their treasures, people were oppressed and exploited while European powers relentlessly profited. The far-reaching repercussions of colonialism are all around us; from our financial institutions to the way we travel to the food we have in our cupboards at home – and it’s about time we took notice.

Watch more from this series:

How Banks Made Money From Slavery

How Britain Stole $45 Trillion from India with Trains

How Britain Got China Hooked on Opium

Click here to subscribe to VICE

About VICE:

The Definitive Guide To Enlightening Information. From every corner of the planet, our immersive, caustic, ground-breaking and often bizarre stories have changed the way people think about culture, crime, art, parties, fashion, protest, the internet and other subjects that don't even have names yet. Browse the growing library and discover corners of the world you never knew existed. Welcome to VICE.

Connect with VICE:

Check out our full video catalog

Videos, daily editorial and more

More videos from the VICE network

Click here to get the best of VICE daily

Like VICE on Facebook

Follow VICE on Twitter

Follow us on Instagram

The VICE YouTube Network:

Motherboard

VICE Sports

Guests & Subjects Covered

Sugar & SlaveryWest IndiesAmerica AtEdward ColstonVICE World NewsZing TsjengOpium ClickVICE Connect

Sentinel Indexing in Progress

Metadata and chapters are available. Claim extraction for this episode is pending.

All video content is delivered via YouTube embedded players in accordance with the YouTube Terms of Service. Sentinel provides research tools that promote discovery and accountability across political media.

Sugar & Slavery: The Building Blocks of Bristol’s 1% | Empires of Dirt · Vice · Sentinel