Is Cane Sugar “Canadian”? The Disavowal of Global Lives and Lands within Canadian Sugar Marketing

ABSTRACT

This article considers the history of global supply chains in relation to Canadian sugar marketing. Now a dietary staple, refined sugar in Canada today is plentiful and affordable. Ninety percent of this sugar is made from imported cane. Yet within Canada little public awareness exists regarding cane sugars’ countries of origin. Inquiring into how Canadian refiners have portrayed their cane sugars’ provenance, this article sketches out the histories of land and labor disavowal within Canadian cane sugar marketing. Looking at advertising produced by the company Rogers Sugar between 1890 and 1931, it finds that during this time a tension existed between portraying Rogers’ sugars as sourced from within the British Empire and as emanating from Canada. As well, in most of its advertising, Rogers’ white Canadian refinery workers are highlighted. Due to these workers’ ubiquity, the omission of international contributors to Rogers’ sugars is especially noticeable.

KEYWORDS:

• Indenture
• supply chains
• cane sugars
• sugarcane
• Fiji
• Rogers sugar
• advertising
• country-of-origin

“Refined in Canada Since 1890.” So says the slogan of western Canada’s largest sugar brand, Rogers Sugar, on its packages of refined white cane sugar. Western Canadians are intimately familiar with this product, having used it in their homes throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Yet what is less familiar to Canadians are the international origins of Rogers’ cane sugars. On its sugar packages, Rogers does not indicate from where its cane sugars are sourced. This omission is not altogether surprising: under Canadian law, processed foods do not have to include country of origin labeling.¹ Still, it is salient. By emphasizing that Rogers’ cane sugars are “refined in Canada,” the current owner of this brand, Lantic Incorporated, is associating Rogers’ cane sugars with Canadian identity. In this way, it is also downplaying the international sources of the raw cane sugars that are processed at its Vancouver refinery.²

This article considers the history of global supply chains in relation to Canadian cane sugar marketing. Now considered a dietary staple, refined sugar in Canada today is plentiful and affordable. Ninety percent of this sugar is made from cane.³ Since sugarcane does not grow in Canada, the country’s largest sugar refiners have, since the middle of the 1800s, imported raw cane sugars from abroad, and have then processed and sold them.⁴ Raw cane sugars’ wide availability, in turn, has been made possible by the global histories of enslavement, indenture, imperialism, and colonialism, all of which have brought the price of raw sugars down to where they sit today.⁵ Yet within Canada, there exists little awareness of the agricultural origins of the cane sugars that are consumed in this country. By inquiring into how Canadian cane refiners have historically portrayed their sugars’ provenance, this article sketches out the histories of land and labor disavowal within Canadian cane sugar marketing.

To focus its inquiries, this article looks at the B.C. Sugar Company, known colloquially in Canada as Rogers Sugar or “Rogers,” which operated a cane refinery in Vancouver between 1890 and 2008. During its history, Rogers also operated sugarcane plantations in the British colony of Fiji (1905–1922), beet sugar refineries on the Canadian prairies (1931–2008), and sugarcane plantations in the Dominican Republic (1944–1955).⁶ Here the focus is on Rogers’ promotional campaigns that occurred in western Canada between 1890, when Rogers’ cane refinery opened, and 1931, when Rogers began processing beets.⁷ Thus, this article explores marketing that promoted cane sugars exclusively. Notably, however, after Rogers entered beet refining in Alberta it also began participating in a highly exploitative domestic industry, one that has since 1902 relied upon “temporary, non-citizen workers,” as Jane Komori points out.⁸ Conditions in the Alberta sugar beet fields remain atrocious, characterized by low pay, temporary work, and lack of access to “Canadian residency or citizenship and associated benefits and protections.”⁹

After explaining its methodology, this article situates Rogers Sugar within the broader histories of North American settler capitalism and global cane sugar production. From there it explores themes within Rogers Sugar marketing. It finds that before 1931 a tension existed between portraying Rogers’ cane sugars as sourced from within the British Empire, on the one hand, and as emanating from Canada, on the other. It also finds that within its imperialist campaigns Rogers played up its cane sugars’ international origins. In contrast, within its domestic campaigns these origins are omitted. As an additional offering, it finds that in both the imperialist and the domestic themed campaigns Rogers’ white Canadian refinery workers are highlighted. These workers served two main functions. First, they emphasized Rogers’ employment of British Columbia white labor. Second, and as Komori also demonstrates in her analysis of Rogers’ racist advertisements from this era, they associated Rogers’ cane sugars with racialized understandings of whiteness and food purity.¹⁰

The significances of these findings are discussed in the conclusion. Of special concern is the omnipresence of white Canadian workers within Rogers’ marketing. Due to these workers’ ubiquity , the omission of international contributors to Rogers’ sugar production becomes noticeable. Also of note is the erasure within Rogers’ nationalist advertising of its cane products’ global supply chains. This erasure reflects a broader disavowal of international lives and lands within Canada’s global food supply.

Given that it tracks both global sugar production and Canadian sugar history, this article has a wide scope. Yet this article’s main intention is to contribute to conversations about the agricultural origins of Canada’s refined sugars. It builds upon Komori’s analyses of sugar’s “racially stratified system of labour,” one which exists both in Canada and globally.¹¹ Since the early twentieth century, Canadian beet farmers have relied upon “migrant Indigenous families,” newly arrived immigrants from “Hungary and Southern Europe,” “incarcerated Japanese Canadians,” and, most recently, “Mexican and Caribbean workers employed through the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program” in Alberta’s sugar beet fields.¹² Today, conditions in Alberta’s sugar beet fields resemble those in cane fields globally. In both, “temporary, non-citizen workers [are] bearing the punishing weight of sugar cultivation.”¹³

This article is also indebted to Afua Cooper’s inquiries into Canadian sugar history. In a recent history of enslavement of people from Africa during the French and British colonial periods in what is now eastern and central Canada, Cooper examines northeastern North America’s dependence on cane sugars grown by enslaved people from Africa in the greater Caribbean. From the 1600s through the early 1800s, cane sugars produced by enslaved people appeared “on the table of every Canadian, whatever their social class.”¹⁴ Rum and molasses produced by enslaved people were also ubiquitous. These products’ availability was due to the activities of the French and British empires in northeastern North America, together with these empires’ involvements in the “Triangular Trade, dubbed the West India trade.”¹⁵ When Britain took possession of New France in 1763, this trade continued to connect the North American British colonies with the “thirteen American colonies” as well as with the “Caribbean, Europe, and West Africa.”¹⁶ According to Cooper, “there did not need to be sugar plantations installed all over Eastern and Central Canada for these places to be involved in the sugar trade.”¹⁷

Tracking the origins of cane sugars imported through Vancouver between 1890 and 1931, this article reveals that cane sugars consumed by western Canadians during these years were also produced in coercive conditions, by people who could not access full citizenship protections or rights. Drawing upon research by Vinod Masih and John Schreiner, each of whom have studied the history of Rogers Sugar, as well as by scholars of indenture in Fiji including Rizwaan Abbas, Ahmed Ali, Farzana Gounder, Brij Lal, Margaret Mishra, Shaista Shameem, Vijay Naidu, and others, this article demonstrates that many of the cane sugars consumed in western Canada between 1902 and 1920 were grown by people from India who were serving five-year indenture contracts in Fiji’s sugarcane fields.¹⁸ Conditions in these fields were horrific, involving physical and sexual violence and other atrocities. Due to these conditions, people who served their indentures in colonial Fiji referred to their experiences as “narak,” meaning “hell.”¹⁹ Outside of Rogers’ private business records, however, this violence remained relatively unremarked in Canadian discourse both during the period under study here, and for decades thereafter.²⁰ The earliest non-corporate reference I have found to Rogers’ reliance upon indentured sugarcane labor was published in 1974. That year Al Fossen and Mordecai Briemberg published a scathing exposé of Rogers Sugar; this exposé included an indictment of Rogers’ activities in Fiji.²¹

This article, then, brings attention to the long-standing absence of international contributors to Rogers’ supply chains within its advertising. It may seem anachronistic to study this absence, for one could argue that it is impossible to study something that did not exist. However, when one reviews the history of this advertising between 1890 and 1931, this absence becomes apparent. It becomes a presence, in other words. Whereas Canadian refinery workers were readily referenced within Rogers’ advertising, international sugarcane harvesters were not.²² Thus although these latter people’s material contributions were represented, their bodily contributions were absent. Rogers’ advertising before 1931 thus indicates how one major sugar refiner obscured the global supply chains upon which it relied. Rogers Sugar profited from the affordability and availability of raw cane sugars produced by enslaved, indentured, and colonized people. Yet by not naming its sources of supply, it also mystified the imperial relations of extraction that made its enterprise possible.

Methodology

This article is based on a review of Rogers Sugar’s marketing campaigns that occurred between 1890 and 1931. It ends its study in 1931 because that year Rogers purchased the first of what became four beet sugar factories on the Canadian prairies.²³ Two types of sources were reviewed: the corporate records of the company that owned Rogers Sugar, BC Sugar, and digital newspaper advertisements. Both myself and my Research Assistants Brandi Adams, Kiera Mitchell, and Eric Schiffmann located the latter through searches in online newspaper databases.²⁴

Online searches are imperfect. Databases do not contain every serial published in a particular region. Even when specific newspapers are included, databases usually do not contain a full series . As well, optical character recognition may not pick up certain words.²⁵ We therefore cross-referenced advertisements across multiple locations. These comparisons determined that no major campaigns were missed. Moreover, Rogers tended to run identical advertisements across different newspapers. Therefore even if one newspaper or issue were missing, we picked up its advertisement elsewhere. Although this research may not be exhaustive, it is as thorough as possible and based on all of Rogers’ advertisements published before 1932 that are currently available.

Rogers and North American Settler Capitalism

In 1890, when Rogers Sugar was established, the country of Canada was 23 years old, having become a British Dominion in 1867. Rogers was situated in the growing settler city of Vancouver, on the northwest Pacific coast. Built on the unceded territories of the x^w məθk^w əy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples, Vancouver in 1891 had an official population of 13,709.²⁶ Indigenous Peoples as well as people of Chinese, African, and European ancestry lived in the area.²⁷

Rogers’ establishment was part of a broader expansion of settler capitalism in northwestern North America during this time. In the 1880s, an American named Benjamin Tingley (B.T.) Rogers visited Redpath’s in Montreal, where he learned that Vancouver offered opportunities for sugar refining. Having grown up in the sugar industry, Rogers was familiar with the ingredients necessary for successful cane refineries: port access, an expanding consumer market, and affordable freight charges. As Vancouver grew, it began to offer all three of these things. More than this, the City of Vancouver was hungry for industrial development; it thus offered a considerable discount on waterfront land and also gave Rogers a”fifteen-year tax holiday.”²⁸ Further, refined sugar was currently more expensive for consumers in British Columbia than it was in eastern Canada as well as in the United States; this was due to a combination of freight and tariff costs. Thus Rogers got busy finding investors and relocating himself to Vancouver.²⁹

Rogers had business acumen, but his company’s success was also due to the expansion of white settlement across northwestern North America. In 1869 the Canadian government purchased approximately eight million square kilometers of unceded Indigenous territory across the North American northwest, called the entire region the Northwest Territories, and claimed sovereignty over it. In 1871 Canada began negotiating treaties with Indigenous nations throughout the region so as to gain access to their lands; it also began sending hundreds of thousands of settlers to the area.³⁰ In 1911 the recorded population of what became known as the Canadian west – now composed of the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia as well as the Yukon and Northwest Territories – was 1,735,620 people.³¹ Most of these settlers, but not all, were of European background.³² Having already incorporated refined sugar into their diets prior to arriving, these settlers began purchasing all of the sugars that Rogers had to offer.³³

By 1919 Rogers Sugar had established itself as the main distributor of refined sugar in western Canada. In British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan, it captured 99 percent, 88 percent, and 73 percent, respectively, of each sugar market. In Manitoba, where it competed with eastern Canadian sugars, it captured 31 percent of sugar sales. Overall in 1919 Rogers earned 15 percent of all sugar sales across Canada. This figure is impressive given that most of Canada’s population lived in Ontario and Quebec during this period.³⁴

Demand became so high that Rogers could hardly keep up. In 1895 Canadians were “among the leading consumers of sugar in the world,” consuming fifty-six pounds per capita” of refined sugar annually.³⁵ This was comparable to the United States, which “led global sugar consumption” at the “start of the twentieth century”; it was also comparable to England.³⁶ By 1921 Canadians were eating “between eighty-five and ninety-five pounds a year,” which was again on par with the United States, where people were consuming approximately 85 pounds per capita in 1920.³⁷

Enslavement, Indenture, and the Global Sugar Supply

In scouring the Pacific for sugars, Rogers sought the cheapest deals. Hence the sugars he purchased came from regions with extremely exploitative labor practices. These practices had their roots in the transatlantic trade in enslaved people, during which time the enslavement of approximately 15 million people from Africa by Europeans in the Americas and the Caribbean had made possible the capitalist development of Europe and, in time, Europe’s settler colonies.³⁸ Of the enslaved people forced to live and work in the so-called “New World,” between one half and two thirds were forced to live and work on sugarcane plantations.³⁹

After the ending of enslavement in the British Empire in 1833, planters and multinationals operating in this orbit continued to steal, appropriate, and exploit labor. By 1834 recruiters were searching in northern India for people to enter five-year indenture contracts to work on sugarcane plantations. Between 1834 and 1916 over one million people from India were sent to colonial plantations around the world to grow sugarcane.⁴⁰ Indentured people from China, the Pacific Islands, Africa, Indonesia, and Japan were also sent to colonial sugarcane fields.⁴¹ Since these plantations adopted the same coercive and violent practices as had been developed during the transatlantic enslavement era, the conditions in this industry were atrocious, involving physical and sexual violence, starvation, and other abuses.⁴²

Between 1905 and 1922 Rogers operated sugarcane plantations in Fiji. It did so through its subsidiary company, the Vancouver-Fiji Sugar Company, which was created for this purpose.⁴³ These plantations, located in the district of Navua, housed hundreds of indentured adults and children from India annually before the year 1920, which is when the colonial Fiji government canceled all indenture contracts. In the year 1915 for example 1,475 indentured adults and 288 children lived on Rogers’ plantations.⁴⁴ There, they grew, harvested, and milled sugarcane as well as performed other jobs. Conditions on these plantations as on Fiji’s other plantations were nightmarish, involving physical and sexual violence and other atrocities. Indentured people in Fiji tried to rectify these abuses, but due to the sugar companies’ power, and to the colonial government’s indifference, these violences continued.⁴⁵

When it came to importing cane from Fiji, Rogers sourced both from its own plantations and from the Australian-owned Colonial Sugar Refinery, which managed the largest plantations in Fiji. After Rogers left Fiji it still sourced cane from this colony. That said, both during its time in Fiji and afterward, Rogers also sourced from elsewhere. This was because (a) it sometimes sold its Fiji raised cane to the highest international bidders; (b) raw sugars from Java were often cheaper than those from Fiji; and (c) Rogers preferred to run its Vancouver refinery year-round, causing it to purchase from multiple locations.⁴⁶

Other places from which Rogers sourced between 1890 and 1931 included Indonesia, Cuba, Mauritius, Australia, Peru, Hawaii, and Taiwan. Less frequently, Rogers also purchased from the Philippines, Guatemala, and the greater Caribbean.⁴⁷ Labor practices in these regions varied, but according to Ulbe Bosma “much of the world’s sugar production” before the Second World War “relied on a variety of coercive conditions,” including “slavery, forced cultivation, indentured labor, anti-vagrancy laws, or outright starvation, as was the case in Barbados.”⁴⁸ In Indonesia and Cuba “coerced field labour” was the norm. Not coincidentally these regions were the world’s largest sugar exporters during this period.⁴⁹ They also were, after Fiji, Rogers’ two biggest suppliers.⁵⁰

Is Cane Sugar Canadian? Part I: Imperial Supply Chains

When it came to portraying its sugars’ countries of origin, Rogers’ advertising between 1890 and 1931 frequently alerted consumers of its sugars’ international sources. Usually it did so because it wanted customers to associate the company with imperialism. Though nearly self-governing by the early twentieth century, English Canadians at this time remained attached to Britain.⁵¹ Thus, within several of its ads, Rogers played up its sugars’ origins from within the British Empire.

The earliest ad to reference Rogers’ imperial supplies appeared in 1905. Announcing a new product called “Sugar Diamonds,” which were sugar cubes meant to be stirred into hot drinks, the company assured customers that the diamonds were delectable. Why? Because they had been “manufactured from CANE SUGAR produced on our own plantations.” Above this text was an image of a neatly groomed white woman. She was seated at a table and stirring a beverage; in front of her were a dish of sugar cubes on the one side, and a slice of cake on the other.⁵² Nowhere in this ad are the words “Empire” or “British” mentioned. However, given that the words “diamonds,” “cane sugar,” and “plantations” are featured, and given also that the white woman in this ad is seated upon atop an oval shape that mimics a globe, the connections between empire and sugar are apparent. In this ad, the woman is literally consuming the luxuries of Empire.⁵³

If the “Sugar Diamonds” ad is notable for its imperialism, so is it important for glossing over conditions on Rogers’ estates. Given the violence prevailing on these plantations, it is unsurprising that the “Sugar Diamonds” ads did not mention indentured people’s presence in Rogers’ enterprise. Doing so would have alerted customers as to the exploitative practices in which Rogers was engaged. Instead, in the “Sugar Diamonds” ad it is white Canadian women, and not indentured people from India in colonial Fiji, who benefit from sugar imperialism.

During the 1910s another imperialist campaign appeared, namely in the company’s annual exhibits that it entered in the Pacific National Exhibition in Vancouver. These exhibits showcased Rogers’ sugars. They also often displayed a sign with the words, “From Plantation to Consumer: These Sugars are the result of CANADIAN ENTERPRISE Produced and Refined on British Soil” (Figure 1 and 2).⁵⁴ Whereas the 1905 campaign trumpeted Rogers’ sugar estates, this sign did not make explicit reference to Rogers’ plantations. It did inform consumers that Rogers was a Canadian company operating in the imperial domain. Through this exhibit, Rogers indicated a view that both British supply chains and Canadian capitalism added value to its products. Notably, its sign omitted the people who grew Rogers’ cane.

Figure 1. Rogers Sugar (British Columbia Sugar Refining Company Limited) Exhibition at the Pacific National Exhibition in Vancouver, circa 1911. From: City of Vancouver Archives, AM1592-1-S2-F13-: 2011-092.0172. Public Domain.

Figure 2. Rogers Sugar (British Columbia Sugar Refining Company Limited) Exhibition at the Pacific National Exhibition in Vancouver, circa 1910-1920. City of Vancouver Archives, AM1592-1-S2-F13-: 2011-092.0935. Public Domain.

Until 1931 imperialism punctuated Rogers’ advertising. That September, Rogers launched a weekly series in the Vancouver Sun and the Vancouver Province; it was called “Interesting Facts about Sugar.”⁵⁵ In the first ad of this series, “From Sugar Cane to Crystal Cube,” a map showing sugar routes from Mauritius, Australia, Fiji, and the greater Caribbean was depicted. Underneath, it stated, “Raw sugar from Fiji, Australia, the British West Indies and other parts of the Empire is brought to Vancouver to be made into pure, wholesome products by British Columbia men and women.” It also proclaimed, “When you buy British Columbia sugar you are assured of obtaining the finest the world produces.”⁵⁶ A second ad offered similar themes. Called “Raw Cane Sugar Cargo Unloading at Vancouver,” it too referenced imperialism, stating that Rogers’ sugars came from “many parts of the British Empire.” Yet it was refinery workers, not cane workers, who were again foregrounded. “The sugar refining industry in Vancouver gives employment to a large number of British Columbia men and women,” it stated.⁵⁷

These ads indicate that some of the imperialist themes from the earlier campaigns remained salient in 1931. Their emphases on the transoceanic distances that Rogers’ orders traversed revealed that Rogers continued to be proud of its British supply chains. Yet the 1931 ads also omitted Rogers’ non-imperial sources. This omission demonstrates Rogers’ ongoing elevation of British supply chains.

The ads’ references to Canadian workers are significant, too. Stressing that “British Columbia men and women” took the sugars of Empire and made them “into pure, wholesome products,” the first ad implied that it was Canadians’ presence within Rogers’ supply chain that assured its sugars’ “purity.” Here, Rogers’ connected the Canadian workers’ bodies to the supposed quality of Rogers’ sugars.⁵⁸ These links played upon the same conflations of whiteness with virtue that also existed within many of Rogers’ other advertisements, as we will see in more detail below.

A few other ads distributed before the Second World War also referenced Rogers’ international supply chains. These ads played to the magnitude of Rogers’ global enterprise. A first ad of this sort appeared in 1927. Similar versions ran in 1928 and 1931.⁵⁹ Both Vancouver and all of “Western Canada,” the 1927 ad stated, benefited from Rogers’ initiatives. Rogers imported “raw sugar” from “all parts of the world – Fiji, Java, Peru, Mauritius, Queensland, Cuba and the British West Indies.” Sourcing from these locations – which, we will note, included non-Empire sources – enabled the company to confine “its refining operations exclusively to the use of cane sugar.”⁶⁰ Suggesting that cane was superior to other sucrose products, this ad played to audiences that saw cane as the best of the sugars.⁶¹ On a broader level, this ad highlighted the company’s vast operations. So big was the refinery that it needed to source from all over. It was a global operation.⁶²

One final ad is worth mentioning. Appearing in 1931, this ad referenced both Rogers’ international supply chain and the international people who grew cane. In September 1931 Rogers ran an ad called “Cutting Cane in Tropical Fields.” At the top, three men chop cane. A cane knife is portrayed underneath. Yet despite the presence of the cane harvesters, the ad does not provide any geographical information as to where they were located. Neither does it allude to conditions in the world’s sugar fields. Instead the cane harvesters here stand in for the global cane crop. According to the copy, “Stalks grow 10 to 15 feet in height and hand cutting is still found more satisfactory than machine reaping.” Further indicating the ad’s disinterest in sugar’s global labor force was a line that appeared at the bottom. “When you buy British Columbia products you help to keep British Columbia working men and women employed,” it stated. Through this line, Rogers repeated its earlier messaging as to who were the most important workers in its supply chain.⁶³

When it came to referencing its international sources, Rogers tended toward imperialist themes. In such ads, the company’s role in the British Empire was highlighted. This type of advertising equated colonial plantations with quality, even as it omitted the people who grew cane. Within Rogers’ imperialist and internationalist advertising, one group of workers took precedence over all others. These were the Canadians in the Vancouver refinery.

Is Cane Sugar Canadian? Part II: Made in Canada

Turning now toward the second set of advertisements under examination, those that portrayed Rogers’ products as Canadian, we will see that Rogers’ emphases on domestic workers was even more prevalent. At the heart of these portrayals was a desire to pander to English Canadians’ associations of white racialization with purity.⁶⁴

Sparking several campaigns behind these ads was the company’s reaction to the appearance in Canada of refined sugars from Hong Kong. In the years 1891, 1900, 1910, and 1914, these sugars appeared on the west coast.⁶⁵ Rogers, however, did not want to share its market.⁶⁶ As Komori argues, the company instead decided to publish highly offensive racist advertisements which argued that Hong Kong sugars, refined by Chinese workers, were impure.⁶⁷ One such ad appeared in 1910. It stated that “Each dollar spent in purchasing Chinese Sugar, goes abroad to assist [slur] in Hong Kong.”⁶⁸ It called upon consumers to “patriotically and loyally support a large local industry which distributes in Vancouver thousands of dollars weekly in labor and supplies.” Sidestepping the fact that its own sugars were sourced from across the Pacific, it portrayed Rogers’ products as emanating from Canada’s white settler community. As it said, they were “refined solely by white labor.” As did the imperial ads examined above, this ad erased agricultural cane workers from Rogers’ supply chain and linked this company’s products to white settlement.⁶⁹

In 1914, as Komori also demonstrates, the company took out another series of highly offensive ads.⁷⁰ After asking, “Why do certain dealers in Vancouver sell Chinese sugar and charge you just as much for Hongkong … sugar as other dealers charge for British Columbia refined sugar?” one said that “The answer is simple – they may make a slightly larger profit on the Hongkong sugar.”⁷¹ According to Rogers, it was more patriotic to buy “British Columbia Refined Sugar.” By purchasing such sugar, consumers would support “men who are paid $3.00 a day and up.” They would also receive “a pure wholesome article.”⁷² Here Rogers merged arguments for patriotic purchasing with ones that suggested that only its own products were safe. Following are further of the statements made:

[Our] processes are operated by cleanly, well paid, white workingmen.⁷³

It is British Columbia sugar that you want; sugar that is refined right here in Vancouver by white workmen.⁷⁴

White Labor British Columbia Refined Sugar in sanitary packages … is clean, refined by clean methods, by clean white men and put up in clean packages which keep it clean.⁷⁵

The sugar made by the British Columbia Sugar Refinery in Vancouver is the purest in the world. It is made by good, honest, hard-working white men, residents of Vancouver.⁷⁶

It is pure, clean, it is refined by the most sanitary, modern methods by cleanly white labor.⁷⁷

“Think … Is the sugar you are now using … refined in British Columbia by clean white workmen, who live a sanitary, healthy life in clean and proper surroundings?”⁷⁸

“British Columbia sugar is refined by sanitary processes, by clean white men properly clothed, put up in dirt-excluding sacks and cartons.”⁷⁹

Rogers here connected “clean” sugar with white labor. White people’s presence in Rogers’ refinery, it argued, ensured that its products were physically and morally “pure.” As Komori writes in her analysis of this campaign, “Canadian labour, which is, in the imagination of the advertisements, definitionally white, is the only labour adequate to produce ‘clean, healthful, sanitary’ refined sugar.”⁸⁰

Such arguments continued into the 1930s. Triggered by the appearance of imported refined sugars in Vancouver, in 1930 and 1931 Rogers ran more ads than usual.⁸¹ Messages in these campaigns were similar to those expressed previously. However, in these ads, Rogers’ racism was latent rather than blatant. That is, the ads drew on binaries that constructed whites as “clean” and Chinese people as “unclean.” But they did not articulate the half of those binaries that portrayed Chinese people as such. These campaigns therefore provide an example of how discursive binaries of race persist into later periods. They also reveal how, when white advertisers became possibly aware of movements against racism, such as were occurring among Chinese Canadians on the west coast during this time, they could subsume their blatant racism in favor of more insidious forms.⁸²

According to this advertising campaign, buying sugars refined outside of Canada supported “foreign” workers.⁸³ One called “Be Certain It’s ‘Made in BC’ Sugar” said, “Why Buy Un-Named Bulk Sugar Made by Foreign Labor.”⁸⁴ Here, Rogers reminded consumers that they could purchase Rogers’ sugars “at the same low price as sugar sold in bulk.”⁸⁵ Rogers also lashed out at shoppers for buying “foreign” sugars.⁸⁶ When consumers purchased them, they poured money into “foreign countries.”⁸⁷ Such a move was apparently bad, but it was made worse by the fact that such countries’ products were made by “native labor.”⁸⁸ Rogers never defined who it meant by “native labor.” However it made clear that “native labor” products were inferior to those made in BC. According to the company, its goods were “made by British Columbia men and women in a refinery where sanitation and painstaking care are rigidly upheld.”⁸⁹ These statements hearkened back to the earlier racist campaigns.

Notably, the word “white” did not appear in the 1930 and 1931 campaigns. That Rogers meant to imply that its sugars were clean because they were refined by whites is nevertheless clear. Following are samples of statements made:

Made By BC Men and Women Under Sanitary Conditions[.]⁹⁰

You get a finer quality sugar, made by British Columbia men and women in a refinery where sanitation and painstaking care are rigidly maintained.⁹¹

British Columbia Sugar is made in a sanitary Canadian plant under conditions far above the standards of cleanliness of foreign countries using native labor.⁹²

You are … getting the highest grade of sugar, made in a spotlessly clean refinery, under British Columbia’s sanitary working conditions, by Canadian working men and women.⁹³

Accompanying such statements were illustrations of white workers. The “Be Certain It’s ‘Made in BC’ Sugar” advertisement, referenced above, included a drawing of white men and women bringing their lunch to Rogers’ refinery.⁹⁴

Repeating the messages of earlier campaigns, these ads built on existing racist discourses. As another ad stated, “Made in a sanitary British Columbia refinery by Canadians, British Columbia Brown Sugar is absolutely pure and wholesome.” This wording makes clear that Rogers sugars’ healthfulness derived from the Canadian bodies at the company’s refinery. To drive this point home, this ad included an illustration of white men and women going to work. The copy encouraged buyers to order Rogers’ sugar “by name and help keep BC men and women employed.”⁹⁵

Conclusion

Refined cane sugar is ubiquitous in Canada today, representing 90 percent of the refined sugars manufactured and sold in this country. Despite its ubiquity, however, little public Canadian discourse exists regarding this country’s refined cane sugars’ countries of origin. This article has inquired into why this might be the case. Recognizing that sugar marketing represents one avenue by which consumers may be informed of their sugars’ provenance, it looks at how one major cane refiner has historically portrayed its cane sugars. It finds that between 1890 and 1931, Rogers Sugar represented its cane sugars as both sourced from within the British Empire and as made in Canada. At the same time, and throughout this period, racist and nativist messaging dominated Rogers’ campaigns. This kind of advertising indicated that since its sugars were refined by white Canadians, Rogers sugars were Canadian made.

Rogers’ emphases on its cane sugars’ place of refinement helped obfuscate the global supply chains through which its sugars were sourced. So did they help mystify, for Canadian audiences, the workers that grew and milled raw cane sugars. Within Rogers’ advertising, there was a notable emphasis upon white Canadian refinery workers. Due to these workers’ contributions, claimed Rogers, its sugars were supposedly clean and healthful. More than this, since Rogers employed such workers, it was contributing to the development of white British Columbia. As Komori writes of the 1914 campaign, “the advertisements represent the white workman as the virtuous but vulnerable foundation of the Western Canadian economy, who stands against the dangers of cheap and dirty Asian labour and its products.”⁹⁶

By inquiring into how Rogers Sugar has historically portrayed its cane sugars’ supply chains, this article has highlighted the absence of international lives and lands within Canadian cane sugar marketing. Emphasizing its cane sugars’ place of manufacture, Rogers’ advertising between 1890 and 1931 made lasting associations between white Canadian nationalism and Canadian refined cane sugar. Missing from these representations were the people and lands that grew the raw cane sugars that were refined in Canada. By omitting this provenance from its publicity, Rogers devalued contributions that people and lands outside of Canada made to its enterprise. By obfuscating its cane sugars’ global origins, Rogers contributed to the historical erasure both within its own marketing, and within Canadian public discourse more generally, of people and lands in Fiji, Indonesia, Cuba, Mauritius, Australia, Peru, Hawaii, Taiwan, the Philippines, Guatemala, and the greater Caribbean who grew Canadians’ cane sugars.

Acknowledgments

Thank you to Brandi Adams, Kiera Mitchell, Eric Schiffmann, and Varun Singh for their superb research assistance. Thank you to the staff at the City of Vancouver Archives, including Chak Yung Hi, Kira Baker, and Bronywn Smith. This article is indebted to the attendees at the “Celebrating Girmitiya Lives” conference in Suva in 2023 including Ganesh Chand, Farzana Gounder, Jasmine Ali, Shwetanshu Bhushan, Praneil Chandra, Pravind Kumar, and Ravindra Prajapati; and to the attendees at the “Imperial Foodways” Conference in Santa Barbara (virtual) in 2021 including Erika Rappaport and Elizabeth Schmidt. For their interest and support, I am grateful to Philip Charrier, Jonathan Crago, Marie-France Duhamel, Nicolas Halter, Dallas Harrison, Arif Khan, Margaret Mishra, Bryan Palmer, Jeffrey Pilcher, Shobha Rae, Nikhat Shameem, Susan Witte, the anonymous reviewers of this piece, and many others. This article could not have been written without the support of my family, especially David Taylor. All errors are my own.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Donica Belisle

Donica Belisle is Professor of History at the University of Regina in Treaty 4 Territory, Saskatchewan, Canada. She is a settler Canadian of Belgian, French, German, and Scottish descent. She is the author of two books and several articles in labor and consumer history. She is currently revising a book about the Vancouver-Fiji Sugar Company, which operated plantations in Fiji from 1905 to 1922.

Notes

1. Lantic Incorporated, which now owns the Rogers brand, sells both cane and beet sugars as Rogers Sugar. Sugars manufactured in its Vancouver plant are made from imported cane sugars. Sugars manufactured in its Taber plant are made from domestic sugar beets. As far as I am aware, both the Vancouver and the Taber plants package their refined white sugars in identical packages. This may be a further reason causing Rogers to downplay its sugars’ origins. See Lantic Inc., “History” On the history of Alberta beet sugar production, see Komori, “The Canadian ‘War of the Two Sugars.’” On country-of-origin labeling in Canada, see Government of Canada, “Country of Origin Labeling.”

2. Importantly, this slogan also disavows agricultural labor in Alberta’s beet fields. As Komori points out, Lantic also processes beet sugars under the Rogers’ label. These beet sugars are currently grown in highly exploitative conditions in southern Alberta by migrant workers from Mexico and the Caribbean. See Komori, “The Canadian ‘War of the Two Sugars,’” 17.

3. Morrison, That Beet, 11. Beet sugars have never come close to competing with cane’s dominance in this country. Their peak of total Canadian market share was in the 1950s, when they reached almost 25 percent of sugars refined nation-wide. See Morrison, That Beet, 7; Canadian Sugar Beet Producers Association, “Sugar Beet,” 2.

4. Cruikshank, “Taking the Bitter with the Sweet,” 370.

5. For starting points please consult Berlin, Many Thousands Gone; Williams, Capitalism and Slavery; Lal, Chalo Jahaji; Mintz, Sweetness and Power, 32–73; and Manjapra, “Plantation Dispossessions.”

6. Schreiner, The Refiners, 36–43, 92–96, 147–157; Moynagh, Brown or White? 80–1; Masih, “The Operations;” LeGrand, “Informal Resistance.”

7. In 1931, Rogers purchased the first of what eventually became four beet sugar factories in the Canadian prairies. See Schreiner, The Refiners, 36–43.

8. Komori, “The Canadian ‘War of the Two Sugars,’” 2.

9. Ibid.

10. Also ibid.

11. Ibid., 20.

12. Ibid., 1, 11.

13. Ibid., 4.

14. Cooper, The Enslavement of Africans in Canada, 7.

15. Ibid., 6.

16. Ibid.

17. Ibid., 7. Also Tillotson, “Importing the Plantation”

18. Masih, “The Operations;” Schreiner, The Refiners, 36–43; Abbas, “Indo-Fijians: Our long journey Home,” 138–46; Ali, From Plantation to Politics; Lal, Chalo Jahaji; Gounder, Indentured Identities; Mishra, “Between Women;” Shameem, “Migration, Labour and Plantation Women;” Naidu, The Violence of Indenture.

19. Lal, Chalo Jahaji, 149.

20. Insiders within Rogers Sugar were well aware of indentured people’s presence on the Vancouver-Fiji Sugar Company’s plantations. Moreover, in her history of B.C. Sugar, published in 1958, B.T. Rogers’ wife Isabella includes numerous references to the Fiji operation’s indentured community. See Rogers, B.C. Sugar, 24–5.

21. Fossen and Briemberg, “The riches to riches story of the Rogers sugar empire.”

22. Beginning in 1931, after Rogers moved into beet sugar refining, the company also failed to depict agricultural beet workers workers in Alberta within its campaigns. This failure was the result of the “stratification” of sugar’s labor force “along the lines of citizenship,” as Komori argues. Within this stratification, Rogers saw white refinery workers as “Canadian” and as therefore adding value to its company’s sugars. In contrast, it viewed beet workers through a racialized lens, one that saw them as non-citizens. See Komori, “The Canadian ‘War of the Two Sugars’” 1–24, quote 1.

23. Schreiner, The Refiners, 92–96.

24. Specific databases under review were Newspapers.com, Peel’s Prairie Provinces, the Internet Archive, the University of Victoria Libraries, and the University of Manitoba Libraries.

25. Milligan, “Illusionary Order.”

26. Francis, Becoming Vancouver, 49.

27. Barman, “Erasing Indigenous Indigeneity;” Kilian, Go Do Some Great Thing; Yu, “Conceiving a Pacific Canada.” People of Japanese and South Asian background began arriving early in the twentieth century. See Francis, Becoming Vancouver, 105; and Price, Orienting Canada, 7.

28. Schreiner, The Refiners, 15.

29. Schreiner, The Refiners, 17.

30. Krasowski, No Surrender, kindle loc 208–1191.

31. Statistics Canada, “Estimated Population of Canada, 1867–1977.”

32. Walker, “Immigration Policy.”

33. Cruikshank, “Taking,” 367, 370.

34. Cruikshank, “Taking the Bitter with the Sweet,” Table 3, 374. In 1921, Ontario and Quebec had a combined population of 4,533,068 people. In contrast, the four western provinces had 1,720,601 people. See Statistics Canada, “Estimated Population of Canada.”

35. Cruikshank, “Taking the Bitter with the Sweet,” 369.

36. Bosma, The World of Sugar, 311.

37. Cruikshank, “Taking the Bitter with the Sweet,” 369. US statistics are drawn from Bosma, who calculates US sugar consumption per capita in 1920 at just under 40 kilograms per capita: Bosma, The World of Sugar, 311.

38. As a starting point for these topics, please see Williams, Capitalism and Slavery; Cooper, The Enslavement, 4–8; Berlin, Many Thousands Gone; Kimball, “‘What have we to do with Slavery?;’” Scanlan, Slave Empire.

39. Bosma, The World of Sugar, 56; also Deerr, The History of Sugar, 2:284.

40. Lal, Chalo Jahaji, 74. Also see, for example, Kumar, Coolies of the Empire; Bahadur, Coolie Woman; Ali, From Plantation to Politics; Tinker, A New System of Slavery.

41. Northrup, Indentured Labour, 44.

42. Manjapra, “Plantation Dispossessions,” 372–4.

43. Masih, “The Operations”

44. “Annual Reports to 28 February 1915,” BC Sugar fonds, AM 1592-S17-F04, City of Vancouver Archives.

45. Lal and Munro, “Non-Resistance in Fiji;” Nicole, Disturbing History, 159–86; Gillion, Fiji’s Indian Migrants, 176–8, 181; Lal, “Kunti’s Cry,” 207–8; Singh, “Indentured Women and Resistance.”

46. W.F. Johnson, President, to the Right Honourable W.L. Mackenzie King, MP, Premier of Canada, 13 February 1923, in “Letter Book 1915–1925,” CVA, AM 1592-S27-G-03, folder 02.

47. “List of Sugar Cargoes,” 1890–1953, BC Sugar fonds, AM 1592–1-S1-F2, City of Vancouver Archives.

48. Bosma, The World of Sugar, 149.

49. Ibid.

50. “List of Sugar Cargoes,” 1890–1953, BC Sugar fonds, AM 1592–1-S1-F2, City of Vancouver Archives.

51. See Buckner, “The Long Goodbye.”

52. “Sugar Diamonds” Advertisement. From: Vancouver Daily World (28 December 1905), 4.

53. Due to copyright restrictions, an image of this ad is not included here. Readers might note, however, that in portraying a white woman as a consumer of Empire, the ad was similar to other imperialist themed ads that similarly promoted Empire products, such as Ceylon tea, to female European purchasers. See Ramamurthy, Imperial Persuaders, 119–123.

54. “Item: 2011–092.0935—PNE [Pacific National Exhibition] Exhibit Booth,” City of Vancouver Archives; “Item: 2011–092.0172—PNE [Pacific National Exhibition] Exhibit Booth,” City of Vancouver Archives.

55. “From Sugar Cane to Crystal Cube,” Vancouver Province, September 13, 1931, 3; “From Sugar Cane to Crystal Cube,” Vancouver Sun, September 17, 1931, 3; “Cutting Sugar Cane in Tropical Fields,” Vancouver Sun, October 22, 1931, 9; “Cutting Sugar Cane in Tropical Fields,” Vancouver Province, October 11, 1931, 7; “Hauling Sugar Cane to Plantation Mill,” Vancouver Province, November 8, 1931, 16; “Hauling Sugar Cane to Plantation Mill,” Vancouver Sun, November 19, 1931, 3; “Raw Cane Sugar Cargo Unloading at Vancouver,” Vancouver Province, December 6, 1931, 5; “Raw Cane Sugar Cargo Unloading at Vancouver,” Vancouver Sun, December 17, 1931, 11; “Storing, Crushing, and Washing Raw Sugar,” Vancouver Sun, January 21, 1932, 3; “Storing, Crushing, and Washing Raw Sugar,” Vancouver Province, January 10, 1932, 3; “Dissolving – Purifying[,] Clarifying – Crystallizing,” Vancouver Province, February 7, 1932, 10; “Dissolving – Purifying[,] Clarifying – Crystallizing,” Vancouver Sun, February 18, 1932, 11; “Laboratory Tests Guarantee Purity,” Vancouver Province, March 6, 1932, 3; “Laboratory Tests Guarantee Purity,” Vancouver Sun, March 18, 1932, 3; “Filling, Capping and Packing Rogers’ Golden Syrup,” Vancouver Province, April 3, 1932, 20; “Filling, Capping and Packing Rogers’ Golden Syrup,” Vancouver Sun, April 16, 1932, 3; “Accurate Weighing and Packing of Refined Pure Cane Sugar,” Vancouver Sun, May 14, 1932, 3; “Sugar Industry Renders an Unfailing Service!,” Vancouver Province, June 5, 1932, 10; “Sugar Industry Renders an Unfailing Service!,” Vancouver Sun, June 11, 1932, 3; “Make the Meal Complete with BC Products,” Vancouver Province, August 7, 1932, 2; “Make the Meal Complete with BC Products,” Vancouver Province, August 13, 1932, 12.

56. “From Sugar Cane to Crystal Cube,” Vancouver Province, September 13, 1931, 3; “From Sugar Cane to Crystal Cube,” Vancouver Sun, September 17, 1931, 3.

57. “Raw Cane Sugar Cargo Unloading at Vancouver,” Vancouver Province, December 6, 1931, 5; “Raw Cane Sugar Cargo Unloading at Vancouver,” Vancouver Sun, December 17, 1931, 11.

58. Also Komori, “The Canadian ‘War of the Two Sugars,’” 1–9.

59. “BUY BC PRODUCTS – IT PAYS YOU,” Vancouver Sun, March 10, 1928, 11; “PLANT OF THE BRITISH COLUMBIA SUGAR REFINING COMPANY LIMITED,” Vancouver Province, March 26, 1928, 36; “BUY BC PRODUCTS – IT PAYS,” Vancouver Sun, April 11, 1931, 20; “Established in 1890,” Vancouver Province, June 1, 1931, 23.

60. For example, “Established in 1890,” Vancouver Province, June 1, 1931, 23.

61. Western Canadian consumers saw cane sugar as superior to beet sugar well into the 1950s. See Schreiner, The Refiners, 114.

62. “BUY BC PRODUCTS – IT PAYS YOU,” Vancouver Sun, March 10, 1928, 11; “PLANT OF THE BRITISH COLUMBIA SUGAR REFINING COMPANY LIMITED,” Vancouver Province, March 26, 1928, 36; “BUY BC PRODUCTS – IT PAYS,” Vancouver Sun, April 11, 1931, 20; “Established in 1890,” Vancouver Province, June 1, 1931, 23.

63. “Cutting Sugar Cane in Tropical Fields,” Vancouver Sun, October 22, 1931, 9; “Cutting Sugar Cane in Tropical Fields,” Vancouver Province, October 11, 1931, 7.

64. Also Komori, “The Canadian ‘War of the Two Sugars,’” 1–9. On purity and whiteness in English Canadian culture, also see Valverde, The Age of Light, Soap, and Water. For a broader discussion of whiteness, please see Richard Dyer, White.

65. Schreiner, The Refiners, 32.

66. Ibid.

67. See also Komori, “The Canadian ‘War of the Two Sugars,’” 1–9. For example, see “Chinese Sugars – What It Is We May Be Eating!,” Vancouver Daily World, September 18, 1891, 2; “Chinese Sugars – What It Is We May Be Eating!,” Victoria Daily Times, September 21, 1891, 6; “Chinese Sugars – What It Is We May Be Eating!,” Nanaimo Daily News, September 25, 1891, 2.

68. This advertisement ran on July 9, 12, 13, 14, and 15: see “Chinese Sugar,” Vancouver Province, July 9, 1910, 15; “Chinese Sugar,” Vancouver Daily World, July 12, 1910, 17; “Chinese Sugar,” Vancouver Province, July 12, 1910, 15; “Chinese Sugar,” Vancouver Daily World, July 13, 1910, 26; “Chinese Sugar,” Vancouver Province, July 13, 1910, 13; “Chinese Sugar,” Vancouver Daily World, July 14, 1910, 16; “Chinese Sugar,” Vancouver Province, July 15, 1910, 24.

69. See “Chinese Sugar,” Vancouver Province, July 15, 1910, 24.

70. Komori, “The Canadian ‘War of the Two Sugars,’” 4–9.

71. “Why Chinese Sugar?,” Vancouver Province, May 29, 1914, 20.

72. Ibid.

73. “[Expletive] or Clean Sugar?,” Vancouver Province, May 28, 1914, 5.

74. “Don’t Let Your Dealer Substitute,” Vancouver World, July 18, 1914, 21.

75. “White Labor British Columbia Refined Sugar,” Vancouver World, May 27, 1914, 4.

76. “A Local Product – Safe to Use,” Vancouver Province, July 4, 1914, 21.

77. “A Local Product – Safe to Use,” Vancouver Province, July 4, 1914, 21.

78. “THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS,” Western Call, July 14, 1917, 5.

79. “Some Dealers Are Shortsighted,” Vancouver Province, June 6, 1914, 14.

80. Also Komori, “The Canadian ‘War of the Two Sugars,’” 4–9.

81. Evidence of foreign sugars appears in the ads themselves. For example, a September 1930 ad that appeared in the Vancouver Sun and Vancouver Province instructed shoppers to “Be Certain to Ask for British Columbia Sugar by Name.” It also included the following: “To enable you to identify British Columbia granulated sugar, and as a special inducement for you to purchase packages bearing our trade mark, we are supplying our convenient 10-pound cotton bag at the same price as sugar sold in bulk.” Such statements indicate that BC Sugar had to lower prices so as to compete with bulk granulated sugar in the marketplace. See “Her Buying Decisions Keep Them Employed,” Vancouver Sun, September 11, 1930, 2; “Her Buying Decisions Keep Them Employed,” Vancouver Province, September 14, 1930, 24.

82. Thank you to one of this article’s anonymous reviewers for pointing this out. Movements against anti-Chinese racism existed on the Canadian west coast throughout the period under inquiry, including for example the movement against Chinese Canadian exclusion from Victoria’s public schools. See Stanley, Contesting White Supremacy, 145–224. For wider discussions of movements against anti-Chinese and anti-Asian racism in British Columbia, please see Yu, “A Provocation” and Nicholas XEMŦOLTW̱ Claxton et. al., Challenging Racist “British Columbia,” 43–54, among other works.

83. “Be Certain It’s ‘Made in BC’ Sugar,” Vancouver Province, September 28, 1930, 13.

84. Ibid.

85. Ibid.

86. See, for example, ibid.

87. Ibid.

88. “Your Market Basket Plays an Important Part in British Columbia Prosperity,” Vancouver Province, October 19, 1930, 32.

89. “Your Market Basket Plays an Important Part in British Columbia Prosperity,” Vancouver Sun, October 30, 1930, 32.

90. “Be Certain It’s ‘Made in BC’ Sugar,” Vancouver Province, September 28, 1930, 13.

91. “There Is Work in Your Market Basket for British Columbia Men and Women,” Vancouver Province, March 1, 1931, 9.

92. “Your Boy’s Future,” Vancouver Province, September 21, 1930, 7.

93. “Her Buying Decisions Keep Them Employed,” Vancouver Sun, September 11, 1930, 2.

94. “Be Certain It’s ‘Made in BC’ Sugar,” Vancouver Province, September 28, 1930, 13. See also “Her Buying Decisions Keep Them Employed,” Vancouver Sun, September 11, 1930, 2.

95. “BROWN SUGAR Gives Extra Flavor to Cereals,” Vancouver Province, December 7, 1930, 20.

96. Komori, “The Canadian ‘War of the Two Sugars,’” 7.