CORONADO

Wikipedia summarizes the history of cane sugar thusly:

Wikipedia retrieved and paraphrased 11/11/2008:

It’s like I said: Originally, people living where sugar cane was native, India and New Guinea, chewed the cane raw to extract its sweetness [the same way Aura showed Sine how to taste the yucca stems.] Around AD 350, Indians of Africa discovered how to crystallize sugar. Arab entrepreneurs later adopted the Indian techniques of sugar production and then set up the first large scale sugar mills, refineries, factories and plantations relying on African slave labor. The 1390s saw the development of a better press, which doubled the juice obtained from the cane. This permitted economic expansion of sugar plantations to places as far removed as the Canary Islands in the 1420s.

Since it was Cabeza de Vaca’s father who conquered the Canary Islands near Spain, it’s easy to see that Spanish involvement in growing sugar cane was a very recent development, so that Columbus taking it to the New World was one more step in a very rapid expansion. Sugar cane’s domination of the sugar market is a product of the (Conquistador) military/industrial (plantation slave labor/sugar mill) complex of the day. The fact is, all plants produce sugar. In modern times, processes have been developed to extract it from beets and corn.

AURA

That’s not to say the American Indian never had sweets before Columbus and Cortes. One thing I read said the Aztec king Montezuma drank cocoa made of coca, vanilla, and agave honey, all ingredients not found outside of the Americas until after 1492.

KakawaChocolates retrieved 11 11 2008:

Honey and agave nectar were highly valued and traded extensively throughout Mesoamerica. The amount of honey or agave nectar put into chocolate was minimal, only enough to make a bittersweet drink. This was probably due to the fact that both sweeteners were highly valued.

American natives elsewhere had maple syrup, honey, as well as other plants native to the Americas such as Stevia rebaudiana, a small shrub in the same family as lettuce.

Querycat retrieved and paraphrased 11 11 2008:

Natives of the area now known as Paraguay and Brazil used Stevia, but it’s worth considering today because it’s ten times sweeter than sugar and can be grown in climates as cold as Canada.

For more on the cultivation and processing of these other sources of sugar that are, as it happens, healthier for us than the sugar we’re accustomed to, see the links in this note’s text.