View/Download PDF
Slavery in the American Colonies
Heather Brooks
This lesson focuses on the origins of slavery in the American colonies. It will examine the economic conditions that created the need for a cheap labor supply, the agriculture of the South, the plantation life, the rural slave, and the urban slave. By investigating documents of the era, students will gain an understanding of slavery during the colonial period.
1. Transparency of Frayer Diagram. It can be obtained from www.seaford.k12.de.us/it/frayer.htm
2. Classroom text - We use The Americans by McDougal Littell. Cited below:
Danzer, Gerald A., J. Jorge Klore de Alva, Nancy Woloch, and Louis E. Wilson. The Americans. Evanston, IL: McDougal Littell, 2006.
3. Display of image of slave ship from http://www2.wwnorton.com/college/history/ralph/resource/22slaves.htm
4. Samples of graphic organizers for the instructional activity can be found at:
www.edhelper.com/teachers/Graphs_and_Charts_graphic_organizers.htm
www.edhelper.com/teachers/Sorting_graphic_organizers.htm
www.edhelper.com/teachers/General_graphic_organizers.htm
5. Display of Olaudah Equiano's journals can be found at: http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/Equiano.html
This document (Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano) can be found in its entirety in the Library of America Volume titled Slave Narratives.
Library of America. Slave Narratives. New York: Library of America, 2000.
6. Copies of worksheet linked to the lesson. Titled: worksheet - The Origins of Colonial Slavery
7. Materials about slavery on reserve from school media center.
8. Copies of student made graphic organizers for the rest of the class upon completion of the task.
Two 90 minute blocks
5
How did slavery develop in the British colonies of North America and what were its characteristics?
The students will use a Frayer Diagram in order to gain an understanding of the Triangle Trade Route. An example of a Frayer Diagram can be found at www.seaford.k12.de.us/it/frayer.htm
1. As students enter the room, display a transparency of a Frayer Diagram up with the term "Triangle Trade" in the circle.
2. Allow students time to fill in each of the four boxes.
3. Discuss student responses.
Example of Triangle Trade diagram:
a. Definition - This term refers to a three way trading process that developed between North America, Africa, and the West Indies during the 17th and 18th centuries.
b. Characteristics - (I require my students to have two characteristics.) Complicated trade networks developed that also included the Northern and Southern colonies, the West Indies, England, Europe, and Africa. They traded rum, slaves, sugar, molasses, furs, fruit, tar, and tobacco.
Examples of The Middle Passage: - route between Africa and the West Indies that carried slaves from Africa to the New World. The three main goods of the triangle trade were rum, slaves, sugar (or molasses).
***Characteristics and Examples can be interchanged for this term.
d. Non-examples - Banning of the importation of slaves in 1808 as part of the commerce clause of Article I of the Constitution.
The example used here is taken from The Americans by McDougal Littell and is cited below:
Danzer, Gerald A., J. Jorge Klore de Alva, Nancy Woloch, and Louis E. Wilson. The Americans. Evanston, IL: McDougal Littell, 2006.
To begin the lesson the students will look at a diagram of a slave ship.
1. Display to students the diagram of the slave ship Brooks without displaying the caption underneath the picture. It can be found at www2.wwnorton.com/college/history/ralph/resource/22slaves.htm
2. Ask the students to get out a sheet of paper and write down 5 observations/questions about the diagram.
3. Go around the room to monitor the students' progress.
4. After about five minutes, ask students to volunteer to share at least one observation/question that they made about the ship.
Examples: Why are the people in the middle smaller? Where are the bathrooms? How much room did they have? What were they allowed to do? Why are they laying down? How long did they have to stay like that?
5. Tell the students to retain their sheets of paper, they will serve (in addition to another assignment) as their ticket out the door.
For the instructional portion of the lesson, students will create a graphic organizer that describes colonial slavery.
1. Divide the class into five teams. The teacher should determine the placement of students within the various teams.
2. The students should create graphic organizers to answer questions for whichever group they are assigned. The questions are group specific. The worksheet of questions is linked to this lesson.
Samples of graphic organizers can be found at:
www.edhelper.com/teachers/Graphs_and_Charts_graphic_organizers.htm
www.edhelper.com/teachers/Sorting_graphic_organizers.htm
www.edhelper.com/teachers/General_graphic_organizers.htm
3. The students' class text should be enough to answer the questions, but if not, the teacher needs to bring in additional resources from the school media center.
4. As the students complete their graphic organizers by answering each of their questions, they need to present the information to their fellow students. If possible, the teacher should make copies of each of the graphic organizers to give out to the students.
For the summarizing activity, the students will read segments of Olaudah Equiano journals describing his captivity and voyage to the West Indies. This document can be displayed using the website http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/Equiano.html I would suggest using paragraphs 1, 2, 4, and 8 of "the life of gustavus vassa, chapter 2, The Atlantic Voyage."
As the students read, ask them the following questions:
1. Describe what life was like aboard the slave ship?
2. How was Equiano treated by the slave traders while on board?
3. What happened to the slaves when they reached the West Indies?
4. What role did Equiano's journals play in shaping public opinion regarding slavery in the North and abroad after their publication?
To tie the three activities of the lesson together, have the students to take out their answers to the activating strategy. On that sheet of paper, have them to list five things that they learned from this lesson that they did not know prior to studying colonial slavery. Then, refer them back to the essential question for the lesson. Ask them how slavery developed in North America and to describe its characteristics in a basic paragraph answer. As they finish, ask each student to tell one example of something they did not know. Collect these sheets as the students exit class as their ticket out the door.
An entire account of Olaudah Equiano journals can be found in the Library of America volume titled Slave Narratives.
Library of America. Slave Narratives. New York: Library of America, 2000.
Additional Sources of information for teachers and students:
Belmonte, Laura A. Speaking of American: Volume I: To 1877.Belmont, CA:Thomson Wadsworth, 2007.
Brinkley, Alan. American History: A Survey. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1995.
Hakim, Joy. A History of US: Making Thirteen Colonies: 1600-1740. New York, Oxford University Press, 2003.
Library of America. Slave Narratives. New York: Library of America, 2000.
***The works from Save Narratives includes:
Narrative of the Most Remarkable Particulars in the Life of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw
Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
The Confessions of Nat Turner
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Narrative of William W. Brown
Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb
Narrative of Sojourner Truth
Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Narrative of the Life of J.D. Green
None