Read the passage from Sugar Changed the World.Workers could not leave the plantation unless they had a pass. And if they did decide to explore on their own, without permission, they could be thrown in jail, sentenced to hard labor, or lose some of their hard-earned wages. A charge of "idling" in the fields could result in the loss of a whole week's wages. Worse, if they dared rebel or protest, their contract could be transferred to another estate. And there were still complaints of flogging or mysterious deaths. Life, as the historian Hugh Tinker noted, was like being a prisoner on parole.
Read the passage from Sugar Changed the World.Mohandas K. Gandhi (later known as the Mahatma or Great One) was born in India to a traditional Hindu family. When he was given the opportunity to study law in England, he faced the same problem as the indentured sugar workers: He would lose caste if he crossed the black water. His family arranged a special ceremony that allowed him to make the trip without giving up his place in society. Thus, in 1894, freshly educated in England, Gandhi made a second journey. He began practicing law in Natal, a region in what is now South Africa. He moved there because many Indians were already in Natal, laboring as indentured sugar workers.One day, Gandhi later explained, "a man in tattered clothes, headgear in hand, two front teeth broken and his mouth bleeding, stood before me trembling and weeping." The indentured worker, whose name was Balasumdaram, had been badly beaten by his employer. Gandhi knew that Balasumdaram was trapped. For no matter how poorly he had been treated by his boss, if he left the plantation, he could be prosecuted and jailed. Gandhi saw indenture for what it was: "almost as bad as slavery. Like the slave the indentured labourer was the property of his master."
Read the passage from Sugar Changed the World.On the day the coolies were to depart, each one was given a "tin ticket,” an identification disk, hung around the neck or strapped to the arm. The enslaved Africans who were taken to the sugar plantations lost their names; they were meant to be pure property. The Indian indentures were lied to, they were tricked, they were no more than cheap labor to keep the plantations running—but they were still individuals. Each of their names was carefully recorded in account books.
Read the passage from Sugar Changed the World.Underneath the clash over rights, laws, and work rules, there was a deeper truth that the planters were sensing: The Age of Sugar was ending. On the one hand, the work on the plantations was now guided by a web of laws and rules that even an Indian coolie like Bechu could use to challenge the owners. Workers were individuals, not property. On the other hand, world sugar prices were plummeting. Owners no longer had the economic clout of being a mainstay of the economy. Instead, smaller plantations were going bankrupt. The old ways were simply not working anymore. Why were sugar prices falling? Because of competition from another part of the world.
Which type of evidence would most likely include a testimonial?
Which question should a reader ask to identify an author's purpose?
What is an author's claim?
Read the passage from Sugar Changed the World.Sugar has left a bloody trail through human history. Sugar plantations from Africa to the Caribbean and Louisiana and as far as Hawaii are haunted by stories of brutality, torture, rape, and murder. When slaves rebelled, they often took gruesome revenge on their masters, only to face even more horrific reprisals when the owners and overseers regained control. Indenture was a step better than slavery, but masters did their best to intimidate workers to keep wages low and silence critics. Violence was the very soil from which sugar sprang. The only way to fight sugar masters, it seemed, was for the workers to be harder, tougher, and more willing to accept bloodshed than the owners.Gandhi began to see that there was a way for the indentured Indians to strengthen themselves without having to rely on machetes and guns. Freedom, he realized, did not come only from rising up against oppressors or tyrants. It could also be found in oneself. The mere fact that the sugar masters treated their workers as some form of property did not mean the Indians had to accept that definition. In fact, it was up to them to claim, to assert, their own worth, their own value. A man who had his inner, personal dignity was free—no matter how a boss tried to bully him. Gandhi’s years in South Africa became a laboratory, as he experimented with how to be a truthful, free person. Finally, he was ready to put his ideas into practice.
Read the passage from Sugar Changed the World.The arkatis (recruiters) who were hired by shipping companies were Indians themselves; they knew villagers would not want to cross the water. But they also knew where there were hungry, desperate people. So they fanned out to the countryside and began to look for strong men. Bharath, who was about to leave for Trinidad, later explained how that happened. His version of English is hard to understand, but it is how the Indians began to speak on the islands. "E no tell e I go chinedad you know . . . e no tell e no come back, e no greet mumma fadder again." ("He did not tell me I was going to Trinidad, you know. He didn't tell me I would never come back, or never see my mother and father again.")
Read the passage from Sugar Changed the World.And yet, for all the hardships and prejudice, most Indians decided to stay in the colonies even after their contracts ended. By the end of the 1800s, only a quarter of the indentures sailed back to India after their five years were over. Sometimes this was because they were still too poor. Others told tales of returning only to be spurned by their villages for having broken caste or to be preyed upon by relatives who stole their money. Most of those who stayed in the New World, though, chose to do so because it offered a new life. And in the late 1800s, the authorities began to make a new offer to Indian workers. If they remained in the Caribbean, they could get a small plot of land of their own. After putting in their time in sugar, they could begin to farm for themselves.
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