Answer:
The details about sugar's dependency on slavery help inform readers about why sugar was inexpensive.
Explanation:
In this text, the author explains that sugar was a cheap commodity during this time period. This was the case despite the fact that sugar was produced thousands of miles away. The main idea of this excerpt is that sugar was such an inexpensive good because it relied on slavery. By using free labor, production costs were kept extremely low, allowing for sugar to be inexpensive, and therefore, popular all over the world.
They stopped at a better location with grazing for cattle and shops for wagon repairs.
They planned on going to Fort Laramie but decided to stop at Fort Bernard instead (10 miles east of Fort Laramie) because they were warned that Indians were fighting ahead, the grazing for cattle was poor at Fort Laramie, and they could get wagon repairs at Fort Bernard.