Sugar Changed the World Section 2

Which statement best describes the purpose of Marc Aronson and Maria Budhos in writing this text?

• The authors seek to convey the widespread negative impacts of the rise of sugar production and trade around the world.

• The authors seek to convey the widespread negative and positive impacts of the rise of sugar production and trade around the world.

• The authors seek to convey the widespread positive impacts of the rise of sugar production and trade around the world.

• The authors seek to convey the limited negative and positive impacts of the rise of sugar production and trade around the world.

Which of the following pieces of text evidence best support the idea that the purpose of the text is to convey the widespread negative and positive impacts of the rise of sugar production and trade around the world?

• "In fact, while sugar was the direct cause of the expansion of slavery, the global connections that sugar brought about also fostered the most powerful ideas of human freedom."

• "Sugar created a hunger, a need, which swept from one corner of the world to another, brining the most terrible misery and destruction."

• “A perfect taste made possible by the most brutal labor: That is the history of sugar.”

• "Information about sugar spread as human knowledge expanded, as great civilizations and cultures exchanged ideas."

Select two effects of the increase of the sugar trade during the Age of Sugar.

• Nearly one million Africans were enslaved and taken to sugar islands, Brazil, and other sugar producing regions.

• The Champagne fairs began and encouraged trade throughout Europe.

• The amount of tea consumed in both North America and England remained stable, even as more workers begin to work in factories.

• The spherical trade of slaves, sugar, and manufactured goods drove the world economy from the 1600s through the 1800s.

• Sugar was used at Jundi Shapur as medicine, and professors from around the world gathered to study its healing properties.

From the 1750s on sugar transformed the way Europeans ate. Chefs who served the wealthy began to divide meals up. Where sugar had perviously been either used as a decoration...or as a spice to flavor all course, now it was removed from recipes for meat, fish and vegetables and given its own place -- desserts. Desserts as the extremely sweet end to the meal was invented because so much sugar was available. But the wealthy were not the only ones whose meals were changing. Sugar became a food, a necessity, and the foundation of the diet for England's poorest workers.

How is this section of the text organized?

• The authors begin with a claim, provide evidence to support the claim, and then expand the claim to include not just the wealthy but the poor as well.

• The authors begin with a question then provide an answer to the question, including evidence and reasoning.

• The authors begin with a claim, then present reasoning and evidence, and conclude by presenting and responding to a conflicting viewpoint.

• The authors begin with a summary statement and then provide chronological details in support of this statement.

To understand the slavery that brought Africans to the New World you must begin with the death rate on the sugar plantations. Though we often think of slavery as a problem peculiar to the United States, only 4 percent of the slaves taken from Africa were brought to North America -- which means that 96 percent went to the Caribbean, Brazil, and the rest of South America, mostly to work with sugar. The slave population in North America grew over time as parents lived long enough to have children. Some 500,000 slaves were brought here and there were four million enslaved African Americans at the time of emancipation. But on the sugar islands, while more than two million people were brought over from Africa, there were only 670,000 at emancipation. Sugar, with its demand for relentless labor, was a killer.

How does the excerpt contribute to the reader's understanding of an African slave’s experience on a plantation?

• The reader understands how all slaves lived a similarly difficult and brutal experience.

• The reader understands how especially horrific and dangerous conditions were for slaves on sugar plantations.

• The reader understands the similarities of experiences of slaves on sugar plantations and slaves who worked on other types of plantations.

• The reader understands why the Atlantic slave trade was so profitable.

Sugar was the product of the slave and the addiction of the poor factory worker--the meeting place of the barbarism of the overseers...and the rigid new economy. And yet, for that very reason, sugar also became the lynchpin of the struggle for freedom.

What is the meaning of lynchpin as it is used in the excerpt?

• relevant

• unimportant

• essential

• transition