Read the passage, then answer the questions that follow. Which sentence best states the central idea of the
By the turn of the twentieth century, the colonies were
passage?
changing. Sugar still dominated the local economy. But
now there were more and more "free" workers-those Which quotation from the passage is a detail that best
who had moved off the estates and lived in their own
supports the central idea?
houses, splitting their time between sugar work and their
own businesses. There were Indian shopkeepers, traders,
and rice growers. The Africans, too, had migrated to the
cities, where they became clerks, teachers, or servants in
wealthy households. A new society was emerging-one
that had its roots in the dark history of slavery but was
also moving into the future.
-Sugar Changed the World,
Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos