The British produced large amounts of opium in the 18th and 19th centuries in Afghanistan and British India. They exported large quantities of the drug to China, Europe, and North America.

Opium in china: Importing the drug into China for opium smoking gave the British a trade advantage. With so many Chinese addicted to opium, the British now exported more to China than they bought from China for the first time. When the Chinese attempted to shut down the opium trade, the British invaded. In the mid-19th century, China and Britain fought two wars called the Opium Wars.

Opium in Europe and America: In Europe and the Americas, opium was used in medicines sold without a prescription, with the same addictive side effects seen in China for the people who consumed them. 

Guano is droppings from bats and seabirds used as agricultural fertilizer. During this period, much of the world’s guano came from Peru. The guano trade declined in the 1870s as nitrate fertilizers replaced guano as the preferred crop fertilizer.

Copper has been an essential metal for human civilizations for thousands of years. The use of copper increased with the start of the Industrial Revolution. Industrialists first used copper to manufacture machine parts. Electrification also increased the need for highly conductive copper for use in wiring. 

During the late 19th century, much of the world’s copper came from Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, and Chile. The Cananea mine in northern Mexico became one of the world’s top-producing copper mines.

Wheat first came to the Americas through the Colombian Exchange. In the mid-19th century, Argentina became one of the largest wheat producers in the world. Wheat was exported from Argentina to Europe and the United States, helping lower the price of wheat, making it one of the west’s most affordable food crops. As wheat became cheaper, calorie consumption in industrial nations increased.

Sugar has been a prized food additive for much of history. Outside of sugar-producing regions, sugar was a luxury item that only the wealthy could afford. Sugar production first came to the Americas with Columbus in 1492. Referred to as “white gold,” the sugar cane plant brought to the Americas thrived in the warm and humid climate of the Caribbean and South American regions. Sugar production quickly expanded in these areas of the new world.                        

Trans-national sugar: North America and Europe imported much of the sugar produced in the Caribbean. As sugar production increased, it became more affordable and part of the everyday diet. By the second half of the 19th century, much of the world’s sugar production was produced and owned by transnational sugar production companies such as Imperial Sugar of Sugarland, Texas. 

Sugar and slavery: Sugar production was “the engine of the Atlantic slave trade.” The first enslaved people were imported into the Americas for sugar production in 1505. After the abolition of slavery, indentured servant migrants from Africa and Asia formed the backbone of the sugar production workforce.

The earliest industrialization happened in the textile factories in Great Britain and the early industrial powers. As cotton textile and garment production increased, the demand for raw cotton increased. The Southern United States, Egypt, and India became the three of the world’s most crucial cotton-producing regions.

Cotton and slavery and forced labor: Like sugar production, cotton production required lots of labor to produce. As a result, cotton became an industry that used a lot of forced labor and slavery to produce the commodity. In the Southern United States, entire slave plantations arose to produce cotton for export. In Egypt and India, forced labor was common in cotton production.    

Banana production became a significant export commodity for Latin America.  The United Fruit Company, now Chiquita Brands International, was an American corporation that traded in tropical fruit (primarily bananas). The company maintained a near-monopoly over banana production in certain regions, such as Costa Rica, Honduras, and Guatemala. Their monopoly extended to banana exports to the United States and Western Europe.

Palm oil demand increased due to the industrial revolution. Initially, the product was used to make candles and machine lubricants. Western investors set up plantations across Central Africa and Southeast Asia. Many of these plantations used systems of ford labor in their production. Palm oil remains one of the words top export commodities and is responsible for significant amounts of deforestation in the areas where it is grown.

Rubber was invented by accident by Charles Goodyear in the 1830s by dropping rubber and sulfur on a hot stove—Charles Goodyear is the same Goodyear of the modern Goodyear tire company. Rubber demand and production skyrocketed in the late 19th century with the invention of the automobile. Brazil, the Belgian Congo, and Southeast Asia produced large quantities of rubber.

Brutal production: Before synthetic (fake) rubber, rubber trees provided the world’s rubber supply. Rubber production companies used brutal forced labor systems to maximize profits in many places where rubber was harvested. In the Belgian Congo, exploitation of laborers led to a population decline of at least a million individuals within just a few decades. Individuals who did not meet their rubber collection quota often had their hands chopped off.

The expansion of silver, gold, and diamonds as forms of wealth and minerals needed in industrial products led to new global mining centers. The British colony of South Africa quickly established itself as one of the world’s leading producers of gold and diamonds. The Belgian city of Antwerp became the top destination for South African diamonds, where they were cut and set before being sold to wealthy consumers. 

De Beers Diamonds (a diamond is forever): The diamond company De Beers opened in 1888 in South Africa. De Beers Consolidated Mines dominated the entire South African diamond mining industry and nearly all international trade in diamonds. While De Beers no longer holds a total monopoly on the Diamond trade, they still account for about 35% of global diamond production.