Maple syrup is a familiar staple in many households, with the United States producing 5.86 million gallons last year alone. While its culinary use extends far beyond pancakes and waffles, maple sugar and syrup was once a choice that spoke to deeper personal morality.
From the late 1700s to the Civil War, anti-slavery advocates used maple as a statement about their morality and views on human rights. Choosing to tap or purchase maple products meant one less purchase of cane sugar, an industry supported entirely by enslaved labor.
During the 1790s, the convergence of local production, agricultural development, and abolitionist ideals brought maple sugar to the forefront of political discourse. Early efforts to promote maple sugar in the United States were driven not only by ethical concerns but also by economic and nationalistic motivations.
After American independence, maple sugar gained popularity as an alternative to cane sugar, which was largely controlled by British plantation owners in the Caribbean. For abolitionists, it was a moral choice; for patriots, a means of economic self-sufficiency and resistance against British influence; for landowners, a potential new source of income.
Foreign investors also saw potential in maple production. The Holland Land Company, a private corporation backed by Dutch banks, purchased over three-million acres in central and western New York, partially to encourage large-scale maple sugar production.
However, the widespread commercialization of maple sugar failed to occur. The harvesting process was labor-intensive and time-consuming, yields were inconsistent, and transportation of the final product across rugged terrain proved difficult.
Additionally, the increasing demand for farmland led many to clear maple forests for crop cultivation, further limiting production.
Among the most notable maple sugar advocates was William Cooper, founder of Cooperstown and father of novelist James Fenimore Cooper. Cooper sought to establish a thriving maple sugar industry as a distinctly American enterprise, for Americans and by Americans.
Thomas Jefferson was also a strong supporter of adopting maple sugar over cane sugar to undercut British profits. Jefferson’s advocating for maple sugar production was more than words. He made attempts to grow maple trees at his home, Monticello in Albemarle County, Virginia.
For many years, he continued to use and endorse maple sugar as a replacement for cane. His motivations for doing so likely rested more in denying profits to the British over anti-slavery beliefs, since he continued to benefit directly from slavery, despite the influence of many prominent abolitionist friends like Benjamin Rush.
Rush, the Philadelphia physician and abolitionist, was among those who linked maple sugar to the anti-slavery movement. In his 1791 pamphlet, An Account of the Sugar Maple-Tree of the United States, Rush and his Quaker associates supported the use of maple sugar as an ethical alternative to cane sugar, which was inextricably tied to the exploitation of enslaved labor. By choosing maple sugar, consumers could actively resist the financial structures that sustained slavery.
Sugar plantation operations generated tremendous wealth for families who owned plantations but lived in the northeast or Great Britain. Maple was presented as an alternative to avoid supporting a product produced by the labor of the enslaved.
Then, as now, people with strong political beliefs saw their buying power as a statement of their personal ethics. Buying cane sugar made them complicit in the horror of slavery. Maple sugar provided an ethical, locally produced alternative. Reducing the demand for cane sugar was a way to strike at the profit of slaveholders.
Abolitionists encouraged a widespread boycott of cane sugar, viewing consumer choices as a powerful means of resistance. While this movement did not gain broad traction, it reflected the abolitionist strategy of rejecting goods produced by enslaved labor, a stance that extended to cotton and other commodities.
British and American abolitionists alike condemned the hypocrisy of opposing slavery while consuming products derived from it. An 1830 British anti-slavery pamphlet underscored this sentiment, stating, “Is it not then most palpably inconsistent in those who protest against the injustice and the guilt of slavery, and profess themselves anxious for its abolition, thus to contribute to its support by purchasing the produce of the slaves’ labor?”
Notable anti-slavery figures such as Gerrit Smith — who provided land for the Black settlement of Timbuctoo in Essex County — advocated for the use of maple sugar as part of this ethical consumption movement. The Maple Grove Trail, which runs through a maple forest near John Brown’s farm, offers a tangible connection to this history.
Given Brown’s self-sufficient lifestyle, militant abolitionist views, and proximity to the maple groves, it is highly likely that maple products were a staple in the households of both the Browns and their neighbors, the Black pioneers of the Timbuctoo settlement.
While the moral and political implications surrounding maple sugar no longer exist, its legacy remains. Across New York’s North Country, from large-scale operations to small sugar houses, maple syrup, candy, and sugar continue to be produced with pride, carrying forward a tradition that once stood at the intersection of economics, ethics, and the fight for human rights. Maple still has a home in New York State.
Read more about maple sugaring and its history in New York.
A version of this by NYS State Parks’ Community Engagement Coordinator Cordell Reaves first appeared in the New York State Parks and Historic Sites Blog.
Illustrations, from above: A Caribbean sugar plantation in ca 1823 shown in William Clark’s “Slaves Cutting The Cane In Antigua”; Gathering Sap at a Maple Sugar Camp, Vermont; and an illustration from New York’s sugar trade.
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