Sugar production is highly labor-intensive in both growing and processing.

The huge weight and bulk of raw cane makes it very costly to transport, especially by land, and therefore each estate has to have its own factory.

Here the cane has to be crushed to extract the juices, which are boiled to concentrate them, in a series of back-breaking and intensive operations lasting many hours.

The concentrated sugar, once processed, has a very high value for its bulk and can be traded over long distances by ship at a considerable profit.

A mixture of Crusader aristocrats and Venetian merchants shift production to Cyprus following the loss of the Levant to a resurgent Islam, beginning the European sugar industry on a major scale.

The local population on Cyprus spends most of their time growing their own food and few will work on the sugar estates.

The owners therefore bring in enslaved people from the Black Sea area (and a few from Africa) to do most of the work.

The level of demand and production is low and therefore so is the trade in slaves—no more than about a thousand people a year.

It is little greater when sugar production begins in Sicily.