Read the passage and study the image from Sugar Changed the World.Slaves were given long, sharp machetes, which would be their equipment—but for some also their weapons—until the harvest was done. The cutters worked brutal, seemingly endless shifts during the harvest—for the hungry mills crushed cane from four in the afternoon to ten the next morning, stopping only in the midday heat. Slaves had to make sure there was just enough cane to feed the turning wheels during every one of those eighteen hours. They worked in teams, a man slashing the cane, a woman binding every twelve stalks into a bundle. According to one report from 1689, each pair of workers was expected to cut and bind 4,200 stalks a day. Exactly how much they cut depended on how much their mill could handle—the cutting must never get a day ahead of the grinding, for then the sugar cane would dry up.In this illustration by William Clark, enslaved people cut sugar cane.