How can I backup my video files from an external drive to my iCloud account?

I want to be able to back up my videos on my iCloud account; however, because of the ever increasing size of the data, I can't keep them on my Mac (i.e., in file on the Desktop or in the Documents folder), They are on an external drive. I have been backing them up by copying the drive to another external 1T drive, but that's a pain. How do I copy them to iCloud without going through the process of copying them (in groups) to my Desktop or Documents Folder, and then deleting the group and copying another. Is there a way to have iCloud automatically back them up?