Sugar cultivation in the Caribbean – which served as catalyst for the Revolutionary and Civil wars – may again play a vital role in U.S. history, with its sugar ethanol helping rescue our economy from energy strangulation.

For most, the Caribbean conjures tranquil images of sun-drenched beaches and blue-green lagoons. However, the Caribbean basin was a bustling center of international commerce in the past, largely due to sugar, and it seems poised to re-emerge for the same reason.

Most cars in the United States can run on gasoline with up to 20 percent ethanol content, known as E20. But there is only enough ethanol to satisfy 5 percent of our gas demand – about 140 billion gallons of gasoline versus 7 billion gallons of ethanol annually. Ninety-five percent of it is made from U.S. corn.

Corn ethanol needs almost as much energy to produce as it yields, and there isn’t enough to meet demand. The most optimistic estimates place future production capacity at 15 billion gallons per-year, but this diversion of corn from food to fuel has already contributed to dramatic run-ups up in prices of processed foods and livestock feed.

Brazil, the world’s largest, lowest-cost producer and exporter of sugar, has a vibrant sugar ethanol industry, whose production cost, well below $1 a gallon, is less than half of American corn ethanol. Brazil is expected to export 15 billion gallons of ethanol per-year within a decade.

To date, Brazilian ethanol sales to the United States have been severely limited by American tariffs, duties and import quotas, as well as subsidies to domestic corn ethanol producers.

To avoid a 54-cent per-gallon duty on imports to the U.S., Brazil has exploited a tax loophole by entering into joint ventures with Caribbean nations to process ethanol from Brazilian sugar for American export. These countries also have the climate and soil to grow sugar, and, could produce significant quantities of ethanol independently.

The federal energy bill passed in 2007 called for the United States to use 36 billion gallons of biofuels each year by 2022, with 21 billion from non-corn sources like sugar or cellulose. Cellulosic ethanol (made from wood, grass, and non-edible portions of plants) is a promising domestic energy source, with several demonstration plants in operation or under construction, but still must overcome technological hurdles to become commercially viable.

To bridge the biofuel gap, Brazilian and Caribbean ethanol must almost certainly flow into the United States. When this happens, the Caribbean should again be a commercial force.

Because of the lucrative sugar trade that began in the 1600s, the Caribbean became an arena of intense military, political and mercantile rivalry, which peaked in the 1700s with a long war between Britain and France.

France lost in 1763 and was squeezed out of all but a small portion of the Caribbean. Success, however, came at a steep price for the winner.

Britain tried to recoup the heavy costs of war by levying taxes on items purchased by American colonists, like stamps, tea and sugar. It also tried to stop American merchants from trading with non-British Caribbean colonies, particularly for sugar and molasses. These measures sparked smoldering resentment that flared into rebellion in 1775.

To even the score, France aided the American revolutionaries with money, arms and troops, and by threatening Britain’s Caribbean possessions, causing London to strip troops from the continental campaign to shore island defenses.

In a sense, then, the Revolutionary War started and ended in the Caribbean as a result of the sugar trade.

The economics of commercial sugar cultivation also led to the creation of large plantations in the West Indies by the 1700s, with gangs of slaves shipped from West Africa for the backbreaking work of clearing land, planting and cutting cane. This brutal system was the model for southern cotton plantations in the 1800. Conflict over expansion of plantation slavery would ultimately lead to the Civil War.

As the importance of Caribbean sugar diminished over the past 200 years, the region went into a long economic and political decline. This will likely change in the ethanol era.

Brazil – a Latin American colossus with rich natural resources and a land area and population almost as large as the United States – may become a rival for influence in this hemisphere. Sugar-producing Cuba, ostracized since 1960 when Fidel Castro came to power, could become an ethanol trading partner – even if the relationship is as abrasive as what now exists with Venezuela under its outspoken president, Hugo Chavez.

America’s destiny seems inextricably linked to Caribbean sugar.

Yet its taste, in the future as in the past, will likely be bittersweet.

Elliott L. Epstein, a local attorney, is founder and board president of Museum L-A and an adjunct history instructor at Central Maine Community College. He can be reached at [email protected].