Read the passage and study the image from Sugar Changed the World.
How does the illustration best help the reader
understand the text?
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.
O The illustration helps the reader recognize how
teams cut and bundled sugar cane.
O The illustration helps the reader determine why
sugar cane had to be cut so quickly.
The illustration helps the reader observe the hot
weather on sugar plantations.
The illustration helps the reader identify sugar-
harvesting techniques still used today.