Question

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
How do the authors use historical evidence to support their claim in this passage?

They argue that youth and gender are advantages when inventing entirely new forms of music.

They argue that plantation owners acted against their own economic interests when they selected enslaved young men.

They argue that different forms of music, such as jazz and bomba, came out of different types of hardship.

They argue that extremely difficult conditions inspired enslaved young men to invent new forms of music.

Answer 1

Among the options given on the question the correct answer is option D.

They argue that extremely difficult conditions inspired enslaved young men to invent new forms of music.

Explanation:The passage is from the book "Sugar Changed the World" by Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos. This couple were inspired to write about the bitter lives laid in the sweetness of sugar. In the given passage there is a description of the enslaved workers of Louisiana where they were employed in the sugar plants.

They were forced to work in the hard condition of the sugar plants and most of the workers were late teenagers to thirty years old. They were selected as they were strong for work. The female were only give birth of enslaved child so the labor force can be produced.

This critical condition of the young enslaved workers inspired them to form a new kind of music to express their feeling which was Jazz music.This music gave them the ability to think more than their struggling life of slavery.

Same as the music Bomba from Puerto Rico, Maculele from Brazil were the invention of the people from difficult and harder situation. They found these musics as their way to express feeling.

So, the authors used historical evidence to support their claim by arguing that extremely difficult conditions inspired enslaved young men to invent new forms of music.