How does this image support the claim that monarchs of the 1700s had wealth and influence? Select three options.
Read the passage from Sugar Changed the World.Not only were Russian farms run on unfree labor, but they used very simple, old-fashioned methods of farming. Like the English back in the time of Henry III, all Russians aside from the very wealthy still lived in the Age of Honey—sugar was a luxury taken out only when special guests came to visit. Indeed, as late as 1894, when the average English person was eating close to ninety pounds of sugar a year, the average Russian used just eight pounds.
Read the passage from Sugar Changed the World.No one could have seen it at the time, but the invention of beet sugar was not just a challenge to cane. It was a hint—just a glimpse, like a twist that comes about two thirds of the way through a movie—that the end of the Age of Sugar was in sight. For beet sugar showed that in order to create that perfect sweetness you did not need slaves, you did not need plantations, in fact you did not even need cane. Beet sugar was a foreshadowing of what we have today: the Age of Science, in which sweetness is a product of chemistry, not whips.In 1854 only 11 percent of world sugar production came from beets. By 1899 the percentage had risen to about 65 percent. And beet sugar was just the first challenge to cane. By 1879 chemists discovered saccharine—a laboratory-created substance that is several hundred times sweeter than natural sugar. Today the sweeteners used in the foods you eat may come from corn (high-fructose corn syrup), from fruit (fructose), or directly from the lab (for example, aspartame, invented in 1965, or sucralose—Splenda—created in 1976). Brazil is the land that imported more Africans than any other to work on sugar plantations, and in Brazil the soil is still perfect for sugar. Cane grows in Brazil today, but not always for sugar. Instead, cane is often used to create ethanol, much as corn farmers in America now convert their harvest into fuel.
Read the passage from Sugar Changed the World.You could date a great change in the world to a visit one Madame Villeneuve made to France in 1714. That year, Pauline, an enslaved woman from the Caribbean, arrived in France as the personal servant of her mistress. When Madame Villeneuve set off from the coast to visit Paris, she left Pauline in a convent. The young woman spent her time studying with the nuns and went so far in her training that she asked to become a nun herself and remain in the convent. The nuns agreed, which enraged Madame Villeneuve. She rushed to a judge, demanding to have her property back. Was Pauline a free woman, a bride of Christ, or an item to be bought, sold, and warehoused when she was not in use?Twenty-three years earlier, King Louis XIV had issued a set of rules that defined slavery as legal in the French sugar islands. But when two slaves managed to reach France, he freed them—saying they became free "as soon as they [touched] the soil" of France. The judges sided with Pauline—she was real to them, human, not a piece of property. For Pauline's judges, as for King Louis, slavery far off across the seas was completely different from enslaved individuals in France.Slave owners fought back, arguing that owners should be able to list their slaves as property when they arrived in France and take them with them when they left. Though most parts of France agreed to this, lawmakers in Paris hesitated. Pierre Lemerre the Younger made the case for the slaves. "All men are equal," he insisted in 1716—exactly sixty years before the Declaration of Independence.To say that "all men are equal" in 1716, when slavery was flourishing in every corner of the world and most eastern Europeans themselves were farmers who could be sold along with the land they worked, was like announcing that there was a new sun in the sky. In the Age of Sugar, when slavery was more brutal than ever before, the idea that all humans are equal began to spread—toppling kings, overturning governments, transforming the entire world.
Read the passage from Sugar Changed the World.We all crave sweetness, now more than ever since there are so many ways to satisfy that need. And there are still sugar plantations where the work is brutal. In places like the Dominican Republic (Haiti's island neighbor), some sugar work is not very different from what it was for Marina's Indian ancestors in British Guiana: hard, poorly paid labor by people who are often mistreated. But for most of us, chemists have more to say about how we satisfy that taste than do overseers. When sugar is in the headlines, critics speak about how much of it we eat, not who picked the crop. Doctors warn that young people are gaining too much weight from eating sugary snacks; parents learn that kids who drink too many sweet sodas can cycle between manic sugar "highs" and grinding sugar "crashes." No one worries about where the sweetness comes from. Our diet was transformed by the Age of Sugar, but that era is over.
Read the passage from the All Men Are Created Equal section of Sugar Changed the World.To say that "all men are equal" in 1716, when slavery was flourishing in every corner of the world and most eastern Europeans themselves were farmers who could be sold along with the land they worked, was like announcing that there was a new sun in the sky. In the Age of Sugar, when slavery was more brutal than ever before, the idea that all humans are equal began to spread—toppling kings, overturning governments, transforming the entire world.Sugar was the connection, the tie, between slavery and freedom. In order to create sugar, Europeans and colonists in the Americas destroyed Africans, turned them into objects. Just at that very same moment, Europeans—at home and across the Atlantic—decided that they could no longer stand being objects themselves. They each needed to vote, to speak out, to challenge the rules of crowned kings and royal princes. How could that be? Why did people keep speaking of equality while profiting from slaves? In fact, the global hunger for slave-grown sugar led directly to the end of slavery. Following the strand of sugar and slavery leads directly into the tumult of the Age of Revolutions. For in North America, then England, France, Haiti, and once again North America, the Age of Sugar brought about the great, final clash between freedom and slavery.Read the passage from the Serfs and Sweetness section of Sugar Changed the World.In the 1800s, the Russian czars controlled the largest empire in the world, and yet their land was caught in a kind of time warp. While the English were building factories, drinking tea, and organizing against the slave trade, the vast majority of Russians were serfs. Serfs were in a position very similar to slaves’—they could not choose where to live, they could not choose their work, and the person who owned their land and labor was free to punish and abuse them as he saw fit. In Russia, serfdom only finally ended in 1861, two years before Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.Not only were Russian farms run on unfree labor, but they used very simple, old-fashioned methods of farming. Like the English back in the time of Henry III, all Russians aside from the very wealthy still lived in the Age of Honey—sugar was a luxury taken out only when special guests came to visit. Indeed, as late as 1894, when the average English person was eating close to ninety pounds of sugar a year, the average Russian used just eight pounds.In one part of Russia, though, the nobles who owned the land were interested in trying out new tools, new equipment, and new ideas about how to improve the soil. This area was in the northern Ukraine just crossing into the Russian regions of Voronigh and Hurst. When word of the breakthrough in making sugar reached the landowners in that one more advanced part of Russia, they knew just what to do: plant beets.Cane sugar had brought millions of Africans into slavery, then helped foster the movement to abolish the slave trade. In Cuba large-scale sugar planting began in the 1800s, brought by new owners interested in using modern technology. Some of these planters led the way in freeing Cuban slaves. Now beet sugar set an example of modern farming that helped convince Russian nobles that it was time to free their millions of serfs.
Read the passage from Sugar Changed the World.Knowing that their slaves were likely to die by the time they reached their thirties, Louisiana sugar planters were extremely selective—they bought only healthy-looking young men in their late teens. On average, the men purchased in Louisiana were an inch taller than the people bought in the other slave states. Those teenagers made up seven to eight out of every ten slaves brought to America's sugar Hell. The others were younger teenage girls, around fifteen to sixteen years old. Their job, for the rest of their short lives, was to have children. Elizabeth Ross Hite knew that, for sure, "all de master wanted was fo' dem wimmen to hav children." Enslaved children would be put to work or sold. The overseer S.B. Raby explained, "Rachel had a 'fine boy' last Sunday. Our crop of negroes will I think make up any deficiencies there may be in the cane crop." That is, a master could sell any slaves who managed to live, if he needed more money than he could make from sugar.Jazz was born in Louisiana. Could it be that a population of teenagers, almost all of them male, were inspired to develop their own music as a way to speak, to compete, to announce who they were to the world? Bomba in Puerto Rico, Maculelê in Brazil, jazz in Louisiana—all gave people a chance to be alive, to be human, to have ideas, and dreams, and passions when their owners claimed they were just cogs in machinery built to produce sugar.
Read the passage from Sugar Changed the World.The English public, now consuming some eighteen pounds of sugar a year, knew little about the lives of the enslaved Africans whose labor sweetened their meals. Worse yet, every Englishman who hammered the wood, sewed the sails, manufactured the rope for slave ships, or built the barrels to hold slave-harvested sugar made his money from the slave trade. The English were getting richer because Africans were being turned into property. Clarkson and others who believed as he did, who in the coming decades would be called abolitionists, realized that while that link gave the English a stake in slavery, it also gave the antislavery forces an opportunity. If they could reverse the flow—make the horrors of slavery visible to those who benefited from it—they might be able to end the vile practice forever.The abolitionists were brilliant. They created the most effective public relations campaign in history, inventing techniques that we use to this day. When he spoke, Clarkson brandished whips and handcuffs used on slaves; he published testimonials from sailors and ship doctors who described the atrocities and punishments on slave ships. When Olaudah Equiano published his memoir, he educated his readers about the horrors of the slave trade. And then, when the English began to understand what slavery really was, Clarkson and others organized what we would call a boycott of "the blood-sweetened beverage."
Read the passage from Sugar Changed the World.The traders who came up from Italy offered items they had bought [from] Muslims, which were not available in Europe: fruits such as oranges, apricots, and figs; dyes such as cochineal, which produces a rich red; rare fabrics such as cotton and raw silk. Many of the fabrics that we know of today came to Europe via the Muslims, and their names still show their origins: damask from Damascus, muslin from Mosul, gauzes from Gaza.
Read the passage from Sugar Changed the World.In the 1100s, the richest Europeans slowly began to add more flavor to their food—because of a series of fairs and wars. A smart count in the Champagne region of France guaranteed the safety of any merchant coming to sell or trade at the markets in the lord's lands. Soon word spread, and the fairs flourished. Starting around 1150, the six Champagne fairs became the one place where Europeans could buy and sell products from the surrounding world—a first step in connecting them to the riches and tastes beyond. Fortress Europe was slowly opening up.
Which text features would be most helpful to support the central idea of the passage? Select two options.
Read the passage from Sugar Changed the World.Sugar was the connection, the tie, between slavery and freedom. In order to create sugar, Europeans and colonists in the Americas destroyed Africans, turned them into objects. Just at that very same moment, Europeans—at home and across the Atlantic—decided that they could no longer stand being objects themselves. They each needed to vote, to speak out, to challenge the rules of crowned kings and royal princes. How could that be? Why did people keep speaking of equality while profiting from slaves? In fact, the global hunger for slave-grown sugar led directly to the end of slavery. Following the strand of sugar and slavery leads directly into the tumult of the Age of Revolutions. For in North America, then England, France, Haiti, and once again North America, the Age of Sugar brought about the great, final clash between freedom and slavery.
Read the passage from Sugar Changed the World.The Hindu writings tell us of a religion in which fire was extremely important. People believed that the gods gave fire to human beings. Yet fire was also a way for humans to reach the gods. By placing offerings in a special fire, a priest could turn them into smoke and send them on to the gods. Five ingredients were selected for this special burning: milk, cheese, butter, honey, and sugar cane.
In this passage, how do the authors use historical details to support the claim that US political leaders’ positions on slavery impacted the relations between the United States and Haiti? Select three options.
Read the passage from Sugar Changed the World.When knowledge of sugar was just beginning to spread from India, from Persia, from Greece, from the great school of Jundi Shapur, cooks working for the wealthiest people treated it as a spice, blending it with other tastes. They continued to do that for another thousand years.
Read the two passages from Sugar Changed the World.England had begun talking about ending slavery, but then it saw the chaos in France and sent an army to try to defeat the Haitians. Now Napoleon's France followed in the footsteps of the English.Napoleon's 35,000-man army was led by his brother-in-law and soon scored an amazing success: They captured Toussaint in 1802 and brought him to France, where he died in prison in 1803. But the former slaves fought on. In two years of fighting, nearly 50,000 French soldiers died. And on January 1, 1804, the victorious Republic of Haiti was born. Fighting for freedom, the former slaves defeated the armies of first England, then France: Europe's two most powerful nations.Haiti was born free; human rights won over property rights.In 1807 a bill to ban all English involvement in slave trading passed the House of Commons, then the House of Lords. At precisely noon on March 25, King George III signed the law. We should mark that date, honor it, to this day. For while no slaves were freed by the bill, it marked a great change in the world. More slaves from Africa had been shipped by the British than by any other nation. That part of the grim history of sugar and slavery was over. Indeed, that very same year Congress passed a law forbidding Americans from being involved in importing slaves. In the great contest over whether a human, any human, could ever be property; the tide was turning.
Read the passage from Sugar Changed the World.One of these early Hindu writings, the Atharva Veda, speaks of an archer's bow made of sugar cane. It tells of growing a circle of sugar cane as a kind of sweet protection for a lover, and it includes specific instructions on how to use sugar cane.
Read the passage from Sugar Changed the World.The vast Muslim world was wonderful for the growth of knowledge. The Greeks had developed a level of practical experience and technical understanding a thousand years more advanced than anyone else nearby. The Muslims began to translate some of these ancient Greek texts. From India, Muslims learned of the zero, which allowed them to invent what we still call "Arabic” numerals. And because the Koran, the sacred book of Islam, is written in Arabic, scholars throughout the Muslim world learned to read Arabic and to share their knowledge. The Muslims swept past Jundi Shapur and learned the secrets of sugar. As they conquered lands around the Mediterranean Sea, they spread word of how to grow, mill, and refine the sweet reed.
Read the passage from Sugar Changed the World.To say that "all men are equal" in 1716, when slavery was flourishing in every corner of the world and most eastern Europeans themselves were farmers who could be sold along with the land they worked, was like announcing that there was a new sun in the sky. In the Age of Sugar, when slavery was more brutal than ever before, the idea that all humans are equal began to spread—toppling kings, overturning governments, transforming the entire world.Sugar was the connection, the tie, between slavery and freedom. In order to create sugar, Europeans and colonists in the Americas destroyed Africans, turned them into objects. Just at that very same moment, Europeans—at home and across the Atlantic—decided that they could no longer stand being objects themselves. They each needed to vote, to speak out, to challenge the rules of crowned kings and royal princes. How could that be? Why did people keep speaking of equality while profiting from slaves? In fact, the global hunger for slave-grown sugar led directly to the end of slavery. Following the strand of sugar and slavery leads directly into the tumult of the Age of Revolutions. For in North America, then England, France, Haiti, and once again North America, the Age of Sugar brought about the great, final clash between freedom and slavery.
Which text features would be most helpful to support the central idea of the passage? Select two options.
What evidence from the passage best supports the inference that sugar cane had special significance in the ancient era? Select three options.
Read the passage from Sugar Changed the World.The year is 326 B.C. Alexander the Great stands at the Indus River in what is now Pakistan. For a decade he and his Greek soldiers have been battling their way across the known world, defeating even the mighty Persians, rulers of Asia. Alexander's string of victories only feeds his hunger to conquer all, to know all. But his men balk. Tired of fighting, homesick, they refuse to go on. Alexander realizes he cannot continue to conquer Asia, but he is too curious to stop exploring. He has already built a fleet of eight hundred ships, appointed his close friend Nearchus captain, and sent them to investigate the coast of lndia by sea.
Read the passage from Sugar Changed the World.In 1806, the antislavery forces brought a new bill before Parliament that would limit British involvement in the slave trade. Some of the most powerful testimony in favor of the bill came from former army officers who had been to the Caribbean and had seen the courage of the former slaves and the horrors of slavery. The slaves spoke through the testimony of the very men who had gone to fight them. One member of Parliament told his colleagues of the tortures he had seen in the islands. Slavery was not an abstraction, an economic force, a counter in the game of world politics—it was the suffering of men and women. Members of Parliament were being confronted with the reality of slavery, just as audiences at Clarkson's lectures were when he showed shackles and whips.While Parliament debated the new bill, Clarkson and his allies went on lecturing, talking, changing minds all across England. They succeeded. Newspapers reported that even in Bristol, a port city with a harbor filled with slave ships, "the popular sentiment has been very strongly expressed against the continuance of that traffick in human flesh."William Wilberforce, another leader of the abolitionist cause, felt the new mood in his country. "God can turn the hearts of men," he marveled. Many members of Parliament recognized the same change in the "sense of the nation." In 1807 a bill to ban all English involvement in slave trading passed the House of Commons, then the House of Lords. At precisely noon on March 25, King George III signed the law.
How do the authors use historical evidence to support their claim? Select two options.
What evidence from the passage best supports the inference that white sugar was rarer and more valuable than brown sugar? Select two options.
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