<P> Known worldwide through the end of the medieval period, sugar was very expensive and was considered a "fine spice", but from about the year 1500, technological improvements and New World sources began turning it into a much cheaper bulk commodity . </P> <P> The people of New Guinea were probably the first to domesticate sugarcane, sometime around 8,000 BC . After domestication, its cultivation spread rapidly to Southeast Asia and southern China . India, where the process of refining cane juice into granulated crystals was developed, was often visited by imperial convoys (such as those from China) to learn about cultivation and sugar refining . By the sixth century AD, sugar cultivation and processing had reached Persia; and, from there that knowledge was brought into the Mediterranean by the Arab expansion . "Wherever they went, the (medieval) Arabs brought with them sugar, the product and the technology of its production ." </P> <P> Spanish and Portuguese exploration and conquest in the fifteenth century carried sugar south - west of Iberia . Henry the Navigator introduced cane to Madeira in 1425, while the Spanish, having eventually subdued the Canary Islands, introduced sugar cane to them . In 1493, on his second voyage, Christopher Columbus carried sugarcane seedlings to the New World, in particular Hispaniola . </P> <P> Sugarcane originated in tropical South Asia and Southeast Asia . Different species likely originated in different locations with S. barberi originating in India and S. edule and S. officinarum coming from New Guinea . </P>

When did sugar come to the united states