Question

In North America, farmers plowing the rocky New England soil, or even the proud Virginians with their slave-run tobacco farms, did not have the luxury of turning their work over to others and moving to London. The Americans wanted cheap sugar and to be able to buy it anywhere, but they had no voice in Parliament. That made it extremely hard to take when Parliament sided with the sugar planters. Americans felt they were being cheated, silenced—in fact, enslaved.

In 1733, Parliament ruled that an extra six cents must be added to the price of every gallon of molasses that did not come from an English source. If the colonists actually followed the rules of the Molasses Act, it would have terrible consequences. Molasses from French islands would now be too expensive—merchants could never make a profit. So they would have to turn to the English, who would surely raise their prices. This one law could cripple the entire North American trade with the sugar islands—if, that is, the colonists or the French followed the rules. But of course they did just the opposite.

–Sugar Changed the World,
Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos

How do the authors use historical details to support the claim that the sugar trade led to the end of slavery?

by demonstrating how taxation drove the abolitionist movement in America
by illustrating Americans’ belief that all people should be free
by emphasizing Parliament’s bias toward plantation owners
by showing that Americans feared being enslaved by the English king

Answer 1

by emphasizing Parliament’s bias toward plantation owners

The passage highlights Parliament siding with sugar planters (the Molasses Act) and imposing taxes that favored plantations, showing how colonial resentment toward that bias helped fuel opposition that eventually undermined slavery.