Answer:
Sugar became one of the most important Brazilian colonial products until the early 18th century and the time is known as sugar age.
Sugar production shaped the racial categories Brazilian officials used to sort the local population in the following ways:
- Availability of black African slaves increases as Amerindians were affected with epidemics.
- Africans were enslaved as they belong to agricultural family and do not need much training, so, black Africans began to import for sugar production.
- Africans were imported to other regions from their homelands so they were not able to flee and it increased the number of black Africans slaves.
Hence, sugar production shaped the racial categories brazilian officials in such way that increased the number of black Africans slaves and decreases the local Amerindians slaves.