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Mapping

the Trade

Teaching the transatlantic trade

integrating history and citizenship education

Jennifer Brouhard

Home Country: United States

Host Country: United Kingdom

Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching 2015-2016

June 30, 2016

This inquiry project is the result of a Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching Program

grant. The Fulbright Program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.

Introduction

Why teach the transatlantic trade and the system of slavery that resulted from this

trade? This topic of study poses many problems for the elementary and middle school

teacher. It is a painful and controversial part of U.S. history and, as teachers, we often shy

away from such controversy with younger students. Yet controversy and conflict is often

what is most engaging to our students. It is not a major focus of study in many state

history/social science standards, yet it was and continues to shape political, social and

economic power in the United States. The subject of the slave trade and the system of

slavery offers an excellent way to explore the citizenship themes of rights, responsibilities,

participation, power, justice and conflict within a historical context.

It is important to understand the transatlantic trade in a historical context. Students

need to understand cause and effect. That it was this massive global trade network known

as the transatlantic trade system that built export and import trade in the colonies.

Transatlantic trade provided markets for British colonists to sell hugely profitable goods like

tobacco and cotton in the South and ships and ship-related goods in the New England and

Mid-Atlantic colonies to England. This global network promoted the importation of

manufactured goods from England and other European countries. But the global network

also fostered the trade and enslavement of men, women, and children from the continent

of Africa. It was the human commodity that proved most profitable in terms of purchase,

trade, and labor. Therefore, in addition to cause and effect thinking, we are also looking at

the trade through the historical lenses of an ethical exploration of the decisions and actions

made during the time of the transatlantic trade, and continuity and change. (Seixas and

Morton, The Big Six Historical Thinking Concepts 1).

A strictly historical framework still keeps slavery as a topic of a past era, a painful and

terrible time in our nation’s history but integrating citizenship education allows students to

examine and question our national narrative of a nation built on the belief that all men are

created equal and have certain unalienable rights. References to slavery still remain in our

Constitution (Article 3, Section 9). The fifteenth amendment, which gave African American

men the right to vote, was passed in 1870 and almost 100 years later, Congress had to pass

the Voting Rights Act which protected the rights granted by the fifteenth amendment of

African American men and women to vote. And in 2015, the Voting Rights Act was

significantly altered by a Republican Congress, placing less emphasis on the protection on

the right for all Americans to vote. Slavery has shaped, and continues to shape political

participation in the United States.

This brings us to the infusion of citizenship education in the study of the transatlantic

trade and the institution of slavery. Citizenship education is much more than the study of

the constitution or the structure of a nation’s government. Citizenship education allows all

students to question and deepen their understanding of the world they live in and the

systems that govern their society so they can fully participate in social, political and

economic decision making. For example, in this unit on the slave trade, in order to

understand the lasting impact that slavery continues to have on the U.S., we must link the

study of the transatlantic trade to citizenship education, especially looking at the issues of

rights, responsibilities, participation, power, justice and conflict. For an older generation,

understanding the impact of slavery in a democratic society might have been linked to the

1960s Civil Rights Movement. For the students in my classroom, that was an ancient past

and has little connection to their daily lives. My students are growing up in an age of

organized social and political movements such as BlackLivesMatter. They are growing up in

a time of increased publicized incidents of police brutality and many of them want to know

what to do about it. It is the intent of the modules in this unit to help students construct for

themselves an understanding of how slavery shapes the lives of young people today. By

exploring how colonists chose to participate in the system of slavery as merchants and

consumers, students can understand the effect of their actions. Students will explore how

they make economic decisions and how these decisions shape a global market. By exploring

how people chose to oppose the system of slavery in Britain and the United States, students

will gain an understanding of how the abolitionist movement was organized, the actions

abolitionists took to end the system of slavery and the risks that abolitionists took in their

actions for change. Students will explore what a modern campaign for change might look

like understanding that we choose the level of participation in actions for change. Students

will also explore political compromise and how the delegates at the Constitutional

Convention were influenced by issues of slavery, economic stature, and moral and ethical

considerations. Slavery plays a key role in shaping democratic participation in American

society.

Although some history teachers may argue that the citizenship contribution to this

unit is not proper or real history and lends itself to presentism, I would agree that we have

to avoid presentism. I am not asking the students to use 21st century morality to judge the

colonists; I am asking students to think about historical factors that might have influenced

the decisions of the colonists. I do not want students to say whether the colonists were

right or wrong, I want them to understand given the time and place, why might certain

decisions have been made so that students can better understand the era. In one part of

the project, where students are asked to make decisions about whether to buy a product

where the workers who make the product may not be treated fairly, I want students to

understand not whether their own decisions about what to buy is wrong or right, but what

factors led them to make that decision. I am not going to ask my students, “What would

you have done if you had lived in Boston or Charleston in 1670?” That is an ahistorical

question. They did not live during this period and any decisions about what they would have

done would be made with a 21st century timeframe. I will not ask my students to look

“what if” questions, because we know what happened – we do not need to imagine any

other scenarios.

As to the criticism that students are not thinking like historians or engaged in

rigorous historical methodology, I would argue that my task as a fifth grade teacher is to

teach my students to question sources, peers, teachers and systems and after questioning,

analyse the effectiveness or the benefit of what they are questioning. Are these systems

that need to be changed? Do the ideas of my peers and teachers make sense? History is

often taught as if the past facts are important enough and yet so much of our history has

shaped who we are today and the integration of history and citizenship education helps our

students make these connections. I am not training academic historians; I am hopefully

preparing my students to enter a world where they will make complex decisions through

actions like voting. In order to fully participate in their world, they will need to understand

multiple perspectives and cause and effect as well as conflict resolution.

For the unit final assessment, students will take all that they have learned as they

explore the issue of remembering the transatlantic trade in the United States. In this

project students will select compelling evidence and using text and graphics tell what they

think students of their generation need to remember about the legacy of the transatlantic

trade.

This unit is meant to be a one-marking-period exploration, however, it is broken into

lessons or modules that can stand alone and supplement other units that are taught

throughout the year. For a unit on the Constitution, for example, teachers may want to use

Lesson 4 on government and laws. Each unit has text passages, primary sources, and

graphic organizers for reading and examining primary sources, and scenarios which are

activities to allow the exploration of the lesson topic through current-day examples of

situations that students might face. In order to develop scenarios that truly exemplify issues

of interest to students, you may want to brainstorm some of these issues at the beginning

of the unit, and write scenarios that could be generated from this list. Please feel free to

change any of the material in this unit, it is only meant to be a guide.

Source

1 Seixas, Peter and Tom Morton, The Big Six Historical Thinking Concepts, Nelson

Education Ltd., 2013.

Unit Question: Why was the transatlantic trade important to the political and economic growth of the United States? The unit question is the overarching question. Each of the lesson questions will help the students explore parts of the unit question.

Lesson 2: (4 days)

Resistance

What was the impact of slave

resistance?

Students will understand that

there were many ways that

enslaved Africans resisted slavery

and that, although work

slowdowns were most often used

to resist inhumane conditions,

there were also significant

uprisings in the U.S. as well as the

most successful uprising in Haiti.

What factors influenced decisions

about how to participate or

support these rebellions? Were

the rebellions successful? If not,

what was the impact on the

enslaved community?

Lesson 3: (11 days)

The Movements to Abolish Slavery

How did men and women in

Britain and the U.S. organize

movements to abolish slavery?

Students will explore how

abolition movements in both

Britain and the U.S. were

organized, who participated, and

the effectiveness of the actions

taken.

Students will explore how some

people chose to organize against

slavery. They will explore why

some opposed abolition. They will

explore what motivates people to

become active and how we all

choose our levels of activism.

Lesson 1: (11 days)

Economics of the Transatlantic

Trade

What was the transatlantic trade

and how did it shape the

economic growth of the 13

British colonies?

Students will understand who

participated in the trade and who

gained economic power.

Students will explore what

choices consumers, merchants

and builders had to make

regarding their participation in

the trade and what motivated

them to make those decisions.

Students will explore their own

consumer choices.

Lesson 4: (10 days)

Government and Laws

How did the transatlantic trade

shape the political growth of the

U.S.?

Students will analyze the

significance of compromise in

writing the Constitution. Were

these compromises fair? Was

there a balance of power? Were

imbalances of unfairness

corrected with future

constitutional amendments?

Students will understand these

issues historically as well as their

applicability in current laws and

practices.

Teaching thesis: The transatlantic trade had a significant impact on the political and economic growth of the U.S. The transatlantic trade was important because it

provided markets for colonial-produced goods and later fostered markets independent from the control of the British Parliament. However, the trade included the

buying and selling of African men, women and children which plantation farmers in the South became dependent upon slave labor to produce their extremely

profitable agricultural goods. After the American Revolution, which many enslaved Africans fought in because they thought the new government would promise

freedom, delegates to the Constitutional Congress voted to delay any discussion of the slave trade for another 20 years. The institution of slavery was therefore

codified in the U.S. Constitution. Additionally, delegates had to decide how to balance power between the smaller states and the larger states and slavery played a

huge role in this decision. Although the transatlantic slave trade was officially ended in 1808, slavery was not outlawed until 1865. There were many movements in

the U.S., some patterned after the British abolitionist movement, to end slavery before the Civil War.

Lesson 1

ECONOMICS OF THE

TRANSATLANTIC TRADE

Unit Question:

Why was the transatlantic trade important to the

political and economic growth of the United States?

Lesson Question:

What was the transatlantic trade and how did it shape

the economic growth of the 13 British colonies?

Students will understand who participated in the transatlantic trade and what goods were

traded. Students will also be able to explain who gained economic power from the

transatlantic trade.

Historical content skills: 5.4 Students understand the political, religious, social, and

economic institutions that evolved in the colonial era. (5.4) Describe the introduction of

slavery into America (5.4.6).

Historical thinking skills: Cause and effect, historical perspectives (understanding

how and why people made the decisions that were made).

Citizenship education skills: Students will explore what choices consumers,

merchants and builders had to make regarding the transatlantic trade and what

motivated them to make those decisions. Students will explore choices they

must make today regarding how products are made and whether to support

those production methods.

Day 1: Introduction

What do students know about the transatlantic trade?

Each student will list ten things they know about the topic. Many will

not know anything and some may only know one or two things about

it, that is ok. Give the students about 3-4 minutes to do this. When

the time is up, each student will share out in their groups what they

know about the slave trade. The group will then compile a list of the

questions they have about the transatlantic trade. I want each

student to keep their list of what they know and I want them to refer

to the list as we research the topic in class. It is possible that what

they know is incorrect and I want them to make changes to this list as

they get more information. Some of the questions will drive their

research so we will talk about these questions as a whole class. As

the students share their questions, we will write them on a sheet of

poster paper which will be posted and remain on the wall throughout

the unit. As part of helping students to sharpen their questioning

skills, we will analyse and revise a few of these questions.

Days 2-3: Timeline

Since part of the unit looks at how events, actions, and ideas

influenced the implementation of the transatlantic trade and how

people responded to it, I want the students to build a timeline

showing when these things happened. We will set up the timeline as a

whole class and I will give them some events to include, but they will

be free to add events that they think are significant throughout the

unit. This will take some time to set up. I want the students to

measure time increments in a standardized way so they can really get

a sense of how long the trade lasted and how much changed in the

colonies during this time.

Day 4: Mapping the Trade

The purpose of this activity is to see how many places were involved

in the trade, generally what goods were traded and to understand

how messy the trade was. Many textbooks refer to this as the

Triangle Trade but what the students should see is that although

there are many triangles, the key vortices are England and the West

Indies. Students are not drawing an actual map, they are drawing a

representation. This teaches them how to visualize and organize what

they read.

Activity:

Take a sheet of 8 ½” x 11” paper. Fold it in quarters. Title the map,

Mapping the Trade.

Pick 4 pencils of different colors. They will need these pencils to show

the goods that are exported from England, the American colonies, the

West Indies, and the continent of Africa.

In the top right quadrant, draw a smallish circle representing England

and just below it draw a larger circle for the continent of Europe.

In the bottom right and upper right quadrants, draw the continent of

Africa.

In the lower middle, draw the islands of the West Indies.

In the left upper quadrant, draw the thirteen American colonies.

These are not drawn to scale but the students needed more space to

draw the lines from the colonies. You can adjust if the scale is

distracting.

Mapping the Trade worksheet

Read the passage from Joy Hakim. As you read and students hear a

commodity mentioned, stop and draw a line in pencil starting at the

location of export and continue to the location of import. Students

can trace the line later using the color for the location of export.

Have the students independently look at their map and list everything

they see. They will not draw conclusions at this point. Give them

about four minutes to do this. Once the time is up, ask them to share

their list with the students in their group. They are free to add from

what other students discussed and they are free to erase things on

their list that no longer make sense to them. If they need more space,

they write in the margins on the front page. Give the students about

ten minutes so that everyone has a chance to share out. It is

important that each student shares something because, as they will

discover throughout the unit, the more they talk this through, the

easier it will be for them to complete the final writing project.

Through discussion, they are working out what makes sense to them

and what they still do not understand. They are linking information

that will help them develop and present evidence of historical

thinking.

Days 5-7: Slavery in the American colonies

Keep It or Junk It

To see how Keep It or Junk It works in a classroom, refer to this link

www.teachingchannel.org/videos/help-students-analyze-text

Keep It or Junk It procedures:

1. Read the lesson question first. Circle the key words in the lesson

question. Talk about what the students might find out in what

they are about to read that might help them answer the lesson

question.

2. Students read the entire passage independently. For students

who struggle with reading you can ask them to circle problem

words or phrases as they read and you can help them define

those words or phrases once they have completed the reading.

You can modify and use any reading strategies that you already

use with your students. But you do want them to try and read

this independently as much as they can.

3. At the bottom of the text page, ask the students to jot down in a

very few words what they think is the main idea of the passage.

4. Students read the passage again, this time, circling the key words

that they think will help them answer the lesson question.

5. Once they have completed circling the words, they will write the

words down in the first box on the worksheet. It is important

that students write the words down before they do the group

work. If they don’t do this step, it is (1) difficult for them to find

the words in the text during group discussion and (2) there are a

few students who will just listen to other students in the group

and not participate.

6. Once everyone in the group has their word list, give each group a

large sheet of paper and a marker. The students will discuss all

the words that every member of the group listed and decide

http://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/help-students-analyze-text

which words are important to keep because they help to answer

the lesson question.

7. Post the lists on the walls (you will need a lot of room for this).

The students take a piece of paper, walk around the room and

write down the words that they want to junk.

8. Do the whole class Keep It or Junk It activity for all the words on

the paper. You can see a good example of this on the Teacher

Channel video. I usually run the Keep It or Junk It activity early in

the year and turn it over to the students to run it themselves later

on. It’s best if the students do learn to do it themselves because

it does promote student engagement and ownership of the task.

9. Once the words have been chosen, the students work

collaboratively in their groups to sort and categorize the words

we have chosen. They cannot use words we have junked. They

name the categories and the category names become the

foundational words for their supporting evidence. The actual

words become the supporting details.

10. The students then work independently to complete the main idea

of the passage and the evidence and details to support their main

idea claim.

Days 8-9: Primary source examination

Students should work in their groups to examine the primary sources.

Directions

1. Give students about 3-4 minutes to just look at the source.

2. Give them 3-4 minutes to write down everything they see (nouns

only) in the first box. There are three columns just to give them

more space to list the words in an orderly manner.

3. Have the each student share what they noticed with other

students in their groups. Students are free to borrow words from

other students and add to and take away words from their

original list.

4. Students then work independently to sort and categorize the

words they used in the first box. They do not need to use all of

the words, but they do need to come up with one or two words

that describe the theme of the category.

5. Students work independently to write about what this source

tells them about the transatlantic trade.

6. The last box will help guide their future inquiry. Work with each

student to make sure they are coming up with good questions

and talk with them about good sources to help them answer their

questions.

Days 10 Scenarios

and 11: Give lots of time for student discussion and share outs.

Lesson 1

GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS

Timeline Organizer

Use this organizer to collect important dates. Add these dates to the student-made

timeline.

Year Pre-Revolutionary War Revolutionary War Post-Revolutionary War

Mapping the Trade Map

Mapping the Trade Name:

Homeroom Teacher:

Date:

List everything you see on this map. List only nouns.

Using the words from the list above, sort the words into at least three categories, but you can use four categories if you want. Name the categories.

Category name: Category name: Category name: Category name:

What does this map tell you about the Transatlantic Trade?

What questions do you have about the Transatlantic Trade?

Questions Where will I go to answer these questions?

Keep It or Junk It Name:

Passage Title: Homeroom Teacher:

Date:

List all the words that you circled in the text.

Use the words that we kept from our class Keep It or Junk It to sort and categorize each word that you think helps to answer the focus

question. You do not have to use all of the words, you make junk words that do not fit into your category. But, you cannot use words that we

have already agreed to junk. Name the categories with one or two words that you think best describe the theme of the category.

What is the main idea of the passage and how does the author support this main idea?

Examining a Primary Source Name:

Homeroom Teacher:

Date:

Primary source title: Date the source was produced:

Date of the event:

Where did the source come from: Who produced the source:

In the space below, list everything you see in the source. Do not draw any conclusions, just list. Do not organize your list, just list everything you see.

Working with students in your group, do a group Keep It or Junk It. Write the words that your group decides to keep on a sheet of paper. Working with your group, sort and categorize the words that the group decided to keep. Name the categories.

Category 1:

Category 2: Category 3:

What does this source tell you about the transatlantic trade?

I still have questions about Here is where I will go to find more information

Lesson 1

TEXT PASSAGES

Milestones in the History of Blacks in Colonial America Now is Your Time: The Struggle for Freedom, Walter Dean Myers, Harper Trophy, 1992

1526 A Spanish settlement near present-day Georgetown, South Carolina, includes the first African

slaves to settle in the New World.

1607 First permanent British settlement established in Jamestown, Virginia.

1612 Merchants from Holland arrive on Manhattan Island and build a fort and a trading post that will

become New Amsterdam.

1619 Twenty African captives arrive at Jamestown on a Dutch ship. (Note: Although all Africans were

brought against their will, not all Africans were initially enslaved. Some were indentured and were

freed after they worked their contracted time.)

1621 First record of record of Anthony Johnson, a slave known as Antonio, in Jamestown.

1626 Slavery is introduced to New Netherlands when a Dutch ship arrives with twenty-six African men.

1638 Slave traders bring the first Africans to Boston, Massachusetts.

1641 The Province of Massachusetts enacts a statute establishing slavery – the first in New England.

1644 A dozen enslaved Africans are manumitted (freed) and granted land in New Amsterdam.

1650 Connecticut recognizes slavery as a legal institution.

1651 Virginia grants Anthony Johnson 250 acres of land.

1657 A group of Africans and Indians invades Hartford, Connecticut.

1661 Virginia recognizes slavery as a legal institution.

1663 Maryland recognizes slavery as a legal institution.

1664 New Jersey and New York recognize slavery as a legal institution.

1681 The British crown grants William Penn proprietary rights to the land that will become the Colony

of Pennsylvania; its constitution guarantees freedom for slaves.

1682 Virginia enacts major slave codes.

South Carolina recognizes slavery as a legal institution.

1686 New York City prohibits blacks from working with goods either imported into or exported from the

city.

1689 The Seven Years’ War begins.

1690 Slave revolts in Newbury, Massachusetts.

1693 Pennsylvania Quaker George Keith publishes the first anti-slavery pamphlet in the colonies.

1700 The European population of the British colonies in North America is 250,000; the slave population

is one-tenth of that number.

Rhode Island and Pennsylvania recognize slavery as a legal institution.

1703 Massachusetts requires masters who free slaves to pay a fee to the colony.

1705 Virginia adopts a more restrictive slave code which includes the law that children born of enslaved

mothers are also born into slavery. This makes slavery for life inheritable and legal.

1712 Twenty-seven slaves revolt in New York City.

1715 North Carolina recognizes slavery as a legal institution.

1717 New London, Connecticut, denies free black Robert Jacklin the right to buy land.

1721 A series of suspicious fires in Boston arouses fears of a slave plot.

1727 Africans and Indians work together to threaten several Virginia settlements.

1728 A group of runaway slaves establishes a community near present-day Lexington, Virginia.

1734 Georgia passes a law banning the importation of slaves into the colony.

A South Carolina law requires any newly freed person to leave the state within six months.

1738 The Spanish governor of Florida grants land near St. Augustine to escaped slaves from the British

colonies.

1739 The Stono Rebellion occurs in South Carolina.

1741 A suspected slave conspiracy in New York City leads to executions of twenty-nine blacks and six

whites.

1746 One in every five people in New York City is of African descent.

1750 Georgia recognizes slavery as a legal institution.

1763 The Treaty of Paris is signed ending the Seven Years’ War.

A Nasty Triangle Joy Hakim, A History of US, Vol. 2, Oxford Press, pgs. 142-144

This passage is excerpted from the complete text on the next page. Use this passage with the mapping

activity.

Soon Yankees were trading all kinds of things. They might take their salted cod to Barbados and

trade it for cane sugar. Then they’d go to Virginia and pick up tobacco. They’d take the tobacco

and sugar to England and trade them for cash, guns, and English cloth. Then on to Africa, where

they exchanged the guns and cloth for men, women and children and gold. From there it was

back across the Atlantic Ocean to the West Indies, where the people were sold into slavery.

Finally they sailed home to New England (or sometimes, New York or Annapolis). All that was

called the “triangular trade.” It made some people very rich.

Let’s start at Newport, Rhode Island (near Boston). A ship is loaded with rum and guns.

The ship heads for Africa, where the rum and guns will be traded for African people.

A Nasty Triangle Joy Hakim, A History of US, Vol. 2, pgs. 142-144

South Carolina wasn’t like Pennsylvania, and Maryland wasn’t like Connecticut. The

people who founded the colonies had a lot to do with those differences, and so did the

conditions of the land.

Massachusetts had a special problem because of its rocky soil and cold climate. It was

tough being a farmer in New England, but New Englanders were a tough people who liked

challenges. So they did farm, although for many it was “subsistence farming.” That means they

grew enough for themselves; they didn’t usually have extra crops to sell. A few New England

farmers were able to sell their farm products abroad but, mostly, New England’s land just wasn’t

right for large farms – or plantations – like those in the South.

And when it came to industry, the British made things difficult. They wouldn’t let the

colonists manufacture goods that competed with English goods. You can understand why that

caused some grumbling.

New Englanders had to find ways to earn a living. Fishing was one way. Cod became New

England’s gold, just as tobacco was Virginia’s. The Puritan settlers caught codfish and then salted

and whipped and sold the fish in Europe or the Caribbean Islands. In order to do that, they

needed lumber. So they harvested timber and began selling wood and wood products. They

became merchants in Singapore and Rangoon and Bristol. And New England boys, who hung

around the wharfs, got a chance to touch Dutch coins, Chinese silks, or fruit from Spain. They

hear tales of adventures in Tripoli and Jamaica and dreamed of becoming skippers and going to

faraway places themselves.

Soon Yankees were trading all kinds of things. They might take their salted cod to

Barbados and trade it for cane sugar. Then they’d go to Virginia and pick up tobacco. They’d take

the tobacco and sugar to England and trade them for cash, guns, and English cloth. Then on to

Africa, where they exchanged the guns and cloth for men, women and children. From there it

was back across the Atlantic Ocean to the West Indies, where the people were sold into slavery.

Finally they sailed home to New England (or sometimes, New York or Annapolis). All that was

called the “triangular trade.” It made some people very rich.

Let’s start at Newport, Rhode Island (near Boston). A ship is loaded with rum and guns.

The ship heads for Africa, where the rum and guns will be traded for African people.

Now is Your Time: The African American Struggle for Freedom Walter Dean Myers, Harper Trophy, 1992. (Excerpt) The land was plentiful and rich, but who would work it? It didn’t make sense for a

colonist to work for somebody else when land down the road could be had for practically

nothing. It became clear that what was needed in the new colonies was a new supply of laborers

whose ambitions could be limited.

One of the first solutions was to bring more people from Great Britain. Poor people in

England and Ireland who owed money they could not repay were forced to come to the colonies

and work for nothing until their debts were paid off. Occasionally people would agree to work for

a certain amount of time in return for their passage to the new world and their chance at

America’s wealth. Prisoners, as well, were often sent on the ships that left Liverpool and other

English ports for the east coast of America.

How long people had to work depended on their circumstances. A criminal might have to

work for fourteen or more years, while a person just paying for passage might have to work for

only four years before the passage was paid for.

When the amount of time was settled, a contract was drawn up and then carefully torn in

half. The worker took one half and the person for whom he or she had to work took the other.

The pieces could be matched where the paper was torn or “indented,” and these workers were

called “indentured servants.” When their time was up, the servants – men, women, and often

children – were given the other half of the indenture and were free to go their own way.

Indentures could be bought and sold. Wealthier colonists, looking for laborers, would go

to the docks when a ship arrived to buy the indentures by paying the original contract holder the

value of the passage plus a small bonus.

The European traders eyed the captives they saw among the Africans. Seeing an

opportunity to solve the labor problem in the colonies, they began to trade their goods for

African prisoners, and in 1619 the first African captives were brought to Virginia.

At first, when both Africans and indentured whites were being brought to the colonies,

there was little difference in the attitudes toward them. But the laws of Great Britain, under

which the most populous colonies lived, protected the indentured servants by clearly stating how

much time they had to serve and declaring their children to be free. No such system protected

African captives.

Some of the first Africans brought to this country were eventually freed under laws similar

to indenture laws; most were not. Gradually those areas of the country that used the labor of

African captives made laws saying that they would have to serve for as long as they lived; what’s

more, their “increase,” or children, would also have to serve forever. In other words, the Africans

“belonged” to whoever held them captive.

Once the trade in Africans started, it increased quickly. There was an enormous profit to

be made in sending ships to Africa and transporting a human cargo across the Atlantic Ocean to

the West Indies and the southern colonies, and some of the colonists were eager to exploit it.

The raids on West Africa that supplied North America with labor would last for many

years, from 1619 until 1808 when the transatlantic trade was abolished in the United States.

(Slavery was not ended in the United States until 1865 at the end of the Civil War.) During that

time the terrible trade in human beings plunged West Africa into chaos. Europeans brought their

guns into the ports of Africa and attacked small villages. They provided weapons for Africans who

were willing – sometimes to avoid slavery themselves– to start wars against their neighbors in

order to supply captives for the waiting ships. Local governments fell, unable to defend their

people against European guns. Entire villages were forced to leave their traditional lands to avoid

the manufactured wars.

America was a land where people who had been poor could become rich. All that was

needed was land from the Native Americans and the labor from the African captives.

North American Slavery in 1700 Building a New Land: African Americans in Colonial America, James Haskins and Kathleen Benson,

HarperCollins Publishers, 2005, pgs. 18-19

Note: This is the entire article, however, I am going to break this article to meet the needs of each

lesson. In Lesson 1, I am only to have the students read paragraph 3.

By 1700, the European-American population in the colonies had reached a quarter of a

million. At twenty-eight thousand, the enslaved population totaled a little more than one-tenth

that number; some twenty-three thousand lived in the South. (1)

Although there were barely one thousand slaves in the New England colonies, and about

four thousand in the colonies of the Middle Atlantic, the institution of slavery was by that time

widely recognized by law. As early as 1641, the Puritan authorities in the Province of

Massachusetts established a Body of Liberties that included the first statute (law) to establish

slavery in New England. Connecticut recognized slavery as a legal institution in 1650; Virginia did

so in 1661; Maryland, in 1663; New York and New Jersey, in 1665; South Carolina, in 1682; Rhode

Island and Pennsylvania, in 1700; and North Carolina, in 1715. (2)

Many factors contributed to this change in the slaves’ legal status, including the growing

need for a cheap labor force. By 1700, the triangular trading voyage was an established

institution: European slave traders sailed to Africa with cargoes of woollen or cotton goods, rum,

brandy, iron bars, and glass beads. They traded these goods for slaves, whom they transported to

the West Indies, Newport, New York, Boston, and Charleston in what has become known as the

Middle Passage. The ships then loaded up with sugar, tobacco, coffee, and timber and headed

back to Europe. It was an extremely profitable business. (3)

As more African slaves arrived in North America, people of European heritage began to

fear alliances among Indians, Africans, and white indentured servants that might lead to slave

revolts. This fear led to the creation of additional laws in every colony. As the years passed, slaves

saw more and more of their rights taken away. (4)

In the meantime, the first antislavery pamphlets were published by men who believed

that slavery was against the laws of God. In 1693, a Quaker named George Keith published the

first, entitled “An Exhortation and Caution to Friends Concerning Buying or Keeping of Negroes.”

The second, “The Selling of Joseph,” by an English-born Bostonian named Samuel Sewall, was

published in 1700. But these pamphlets were like cries in the wilderness. The vast majority of

European Americans considered slavery part of the natural scheme. (5)

Acceptance of slavery gave rise to laws that would be the basis for racial prejudice and

oppression for the next two centuries. Soon all blacks were subjected to the same restrictions

that governed slaves. In 1703, a law was passed in Massachusetts that required a master who

freed a slave to pay a fee to the colony; another prohibited Indian and black servants from being

on the streets after 9:00 p.m. In 1705, Virginia adopted a slave code that limited the number of

slaves who could meet together at one time, restricted their travel, and forbade them to strike

white persons or escape. That same code denied free blacks the right to testify in court against

anyone but other blacks, and it forbade them to hold any office, “ecclesiastical, civil or military.”

(6)

North American Slavery in 1700 Building a New Land: African Americans in Colonial America, James Haskins and Kathleen Benson,

HarperCollins Publishers, 2005, pgs. 18-19

Note: In Lesson 1, I am only to have the students read paragraph 3. Students will do a quick Keep

It or Junk and they will goods that mentioned in this article to their Mapping the Trade map.

Many factors contributed to this change in the slaves’ legal status, including

the growing need for a cheap labor force. By 1700, the triangular trading voyage

was an established institution: European slave traders sailed to Africa with cargoes

of woollen or cotton goods, rum, brandy, iron bars, and glass beads. They traded

these goods for slaves, whom they transported to the West Indies, Newport, New

York, Boston, and Charleston in what has become known as the Middle Passage.

The ships then loaded up with sugar, tobacco, coffee, and timber and headed back

to Europe. It was an extremely profitable business. (3)

Africans in South Carolina Building a New Land: African Americans in Colonial America, James Haskins and Kathleen Benson,

HarperCollins Publishers, 2005, p. 15

The British claimed an area called Carolina as early as 1629. The northern

and southern sections developed separately, and in 1729, Carolina was divided into

North and South Carolina. Partly because of its longer growing season South

Carolina became the more prosperous of the two.

As in other colonies, for many years the terms slave and servant seem to

have been used interchangeably in South Carolina. Both Indians and Africans, as

well as whites, could serve indentures; it was not uncommon for a master to own

all three. Merchant-planter John Smyth’s South Carolina estate included nine

Negroes, four Indians, and three whites in 1682. Nevertheless, between 1660 and

1710, planters slowly abandoned Indians and European indentured servants in

favor of a labor force made up almost exclusively of slaves from Africa.

South Carolina’s first cash crop was beef, and the industry was built on the

labor of slave cattle herders. Slaves also established the colony’s next cash crop –

rice. Rice was not native to Europe or the Americas. The first rice seeds were

brought from Africa, possibly by slaves. Slaves dug the rice fields and did the

laborious work of planting, tending, and threshing the crop. By the Early 1720s, rice

cultivation had become the colony’s leading occupation.

Butter, Milk, and a “Spare Ribb”: Women’s Work and the

Transatlantic Economic Transition in Seventeenth-Century

Massachusetts James E. McWilliams, The New England Quarterly, Vol. 82, No. 1, March 2009, pp. 5-24.

Robert Gibbs, a Boston merchant, was even more adept at tapping local

economies for goods vital to his transatlantic trade. He purchased leftover quintals

of cod from a range of fishing companies, and from individuals living in the heavily

wooded northern towns of New England, he accumulated extensive cargoes of

timber. In exchange for these products, both of which were in heavy demand in

Barbados and the Iberian Peninsula by the 1670s, Gibbs offered, largely through a

general store he maintained, locally produced goods to his sea- and land-based

suppliers who were too fully employed to furnish those necessities for themselves.

As economic opportunities broadened and Gibbs’ stocks swelled – stocks, that is, of

the imported textiles, foreign manufactured goods, and luxury goods (tableware,

chairs, tablecloths, clocks, and silver tankards) gaining vogue among the merchant

class – his means of acquiring the goods that would feed slaves in the West Indies

and power the mills that reinforced their enslavement flourished, thus launching

him into the ranks of New England’s merchant elite. (p. 19)

(Merchants) also relied on local produce, much of it crafted by women’s

hands, to procure catches from individual fishermen. When acquiring a parcel of

fish from William Henfield, for example, John Higginson paid part of his bill in

locally obtained butter and pork. (p. 19-20)

Slave Trading Centers The Slave Trade in America, Richard Worth, Enslow Publishers, 2004, pg. 47-48

In addition to Newport, there were other slave trading centers in New England. These

included Boston, Massachusetts; New London, Connecticut; and Bristol, Rhode Island. Another

important slave port was New York City, which sent out over one hundred trading missions to

Africa during the middle of the eighteenth century. Besides the triangular trade, merchants in

New York and elsewhere traded directly with the West Indies. They bought slaves and

transported them to North America. Between 1700 and 1730, for example, 70% of the slaves

being transported to New York came from the Caribbean. Many of these slaves went to work on

the large estates located outside the city.

Another major port for the slave trade was Charleston, South Carolina. Among the

important traders in this city was Henry Laurens, a leader in the Revolutionary War and one of

the signers of the Articles of Confederation. Laurens traded in a variety of goods including wine,

rice, and indigo. But slaves were probably the most profitable.

Slaves in the Urban North http://teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian

Although the largest percentages of slaves were found in the South, slavery

did exist in the middle and Northern colonies. The overall percentage of slaves in

New England was only 2-3%, but in cities such as Boston and Newport, 20-25%

percent of the population consisted of enslaved laborers. Other large cities, such as

Philadelphia and New York, also supported significant enslaved populations.

Although enslaved people in cities and towns were not needed as agricultural

workers, they were employed in a variety of other capacities: domestic servants,

artisans, craftsmen, sailors, dock workers, laundresses, and coachmen. Particularly

in urban areas, owners often hired out their skilled enslaved workers and collected

their wages. Others were used as household servants and demonstrated high social

status. Whatever the case, slaves were considered property that could be bought

and sold. Slaves thus constituted a portion of the owners' overall wealth. Although

Southern slaveholders had a deeper investment in slaves than Northerners, many

Northerners, too, had significant portions of their wealth tied up in their ownership

of enslaved people.

http://teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian

Lesson 1

PRIMARY SOURCES

Destinations and average annual value (£) of commodity exports from New England

The Economy of British America: 1607-1775, J. J. McCusker and R. Menard, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press

Commodity Britain Ireland Southern Europe West Indies Africa Total

Fish 206 0 57,195 94,754 0 152,155

Beef 0 0 0 0 0 0

Pork 374 0 461 89,118 0 89,953

Wood products 5,983 167 1,352 57,769 0 65,271

Grain products 117 23 3,998 15,764 0 19,902

Rum 471 44 1,497 0 16,754 18,766

Other 6,991 1,018 296 247 0 8,552

Total 76,975 1,261 65,603 278,068 17,194 439,101

Imports to London from North America: 1686

London port books in “London and the Colonial Consumer in the Late Seventeenth Century,” N. Zahedieh, The Economic History Review, New

Series, Vol. 47, No. 2, May 199), pgs. 239-261

VALUE (£) PERCENT OF TOTAL VALUE

Tobacco 141,606 68.4

Skins 20,588 9.9

Molasses 20,171 9.7

Sugar 16,675 8.1

Dye woods 1,982 1.0

Others 6,109 3.0

Total 207,131 100.0

Origin of ships carrying slaves to Virginia, 1727-1769

Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade to America, Elizabeth Donnan, 1965, Vol. 4, pgs. 188-234

Port and region No. of ships Total no. of slaves

New England and Middle Atlantic colonies

New Hampshire, Piscataway, Massachusetts, Boston, Rhode

Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia

40 335

Southern colonies

Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia

23 1,082

England

Liverpool, Bristol, London

4 544

British West Indies

Bermuda, Barbados, Jamaica, Antigua, St. Christopher,

Montserrat, Anguila, St. Kitts, Granada, Nevis, Turks Island, St.

Eustatius, New Providence Island

411 4,983

Africa

Senegal, Gambia, Guinea, Gold Coast, Calabar, New Calabar, Old

Calabar, Bonny, Angola

158 31,770

Port of construction of slave ships arriving in Virginia, 1727-1769

Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade to America, Elizabeth Donnan, 1965, Vol. 4, 188-234

Port and region No. of ships

New England and Middle Atlantic colonies

New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Falmouth, Boston, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New

York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

111

Southern colonies

Maryland, Virginia, Williamsburg, Charleston

124

Shipping Tobacco, Virginia, ca. 1755

Click on the image to open a larger version in a new window.

Image Reference

NW0049

Source

Cartouche from "A Map of the Most Inhabited Part of Virginia...,"

by Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson (ca. 1755). (Copy in the

John Carter Brown Library at Brown University; also,

Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library)

Comments

Wharf scene, showing slaves working with hogsheads of tobacco,

and white merchants; one of slaves is serving one of the whites

with a drink; shipping in background.

Larger images are available online.

http://slaveryimages.org/images/collection/large/NW0049.JPG


.

Image Reference

NW0029

Source

William Tatham, An Historical and Practical Essay on the Culture and Commerce of Tobacco

(London, 1800), facing p. 29. (Copy in Special Collections Department, University of Virginia

Library)

Comments

Illustrates various stages in the processing of tobacco, and is captioned, from top to bottom:

a) "the common tobacco house"; b) "tobacco hanging upon a scaffold"; c) "the operation of

prizing"; d) inside view of a tobacco house, shewing the tobacco hanging to cure"; e) "an

outside view of public warehouses"; f) "an inside view of the public warehouse, shewing the

process of inspection."




Image Reference

NW0046

Source

Original in the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (slide, courtesy, Colonial Williamsburg

Foundation).

Comments

A tobacco label, "The Virginia Planters Best Tobacco," shows pipe-smoking

white planter surrounded by slaves with long-handled hoes;

one of latter shades the former from the sun with an umbrella.



Lesson 1

SCENARIOS

Who has power?

Participating in the transatlantic trade was a source of economic growth for all

thirteen colonies. Which region – New England, mid-Atlantic, or Southern – do you

think had the most to gain from the transatlantic trade?

First, explain on the worksheets below, how each of the regions benefited from

the transatlantic trade. Once you have completed the worksheet, you will these

reasons by what your group thinks is the most to least important. Once you have

completed the ranking write a short paragraph explaining which region benefited

the most and give supporting reasons.

New England

This is how the New England colonies benefited from the

transatlantic trade

Ranking

Mid-Atlantic

This is how the mid-Atlantic colonies benefited from the

transatlantic trade

Ranking

South

This is how the Southern colonies benefited from the transatlantic

trade

Ranking

Question:

You need to buy food and supplies for your family. You go to the local merchant and you buy

basic food such as meat, eggs, flour, sugar, rice and coffee. You also buy a few items that your

family likes but does not necessary need such as cotton and rum. You know that some of these

goods are slave-produced goods. Do you buy the goods or do you do without them?

I buy the goods because

I do not buy the goods because

Reasons to buy the goods Reasons not to buy the goods

After looking at all the reasons to buy or not buy the goods I have decided to _____________ for

these reasons:

First,

Second,

Third,

or

You want to buy a new . The brand you want to buy is

. But you want to do some

research before you buy this product.

Research checklist:

What I want to know What I found out

Questions that I still have about this item:

Reasons for buying this item Reasons for not buying this item

I will this

for these reasons:

Lesson 2

RESISTANCE

Unit Question:



Lesson Question:

What was the impact of slave resistance?

In this lesson, students will understand that there were many ways that enslaved Africans resisted

slavery. The most common form of resistance was a work slowdown but there were also significant

uprisings: the Stono Rebellion and uprisings led by Nat Turner, Denmark Vesey and Gabriel Prosser.

Students will also understand the impact of the Haiti Rebellion on the United States. Students will

be able to explain the Haiti Rebellion and at least one uprising that took place in the United States

and show what effect these action had. In this lesson we are focusing on cause and effect,

justification and ordering evidence by significance. For the citizenship education skills we are

focusing on effective actions to make change.

Historical content skills: 5.4 Students understand the political, religious, social, and economic

institutions that evolved in the colonial era. (5.4) Describe the introduction of slavery into America,

the responses of slave families to their condition, the ongoing struggle between proponents and

opponents of slavery, and the gradual institutionalization of slavery in the South. (5.4.6).

Historical thinking skills: Cause and effect, historical perspectives (understanding how

and why people made the decisions that were made).

Citizenship education skills: What factors might have influenced decisions about how to

participate in the rebellions? Were these rebellions successful or not and how would the

outcome of a rebellion affect an enslaved community?

Day 1: Was the Haiti Rebellion successful?

What could cause the Haiti Revolution to succeed?

Students will list factors that they think would be important in order for a campaign to

succeed? They will share their list with other students in their group. Students will do this

same activity for all of the four readings in this lesson.

We will read “Uprising and Rebellion,” excerpted and adapted from The Slave Trade, Nigel

Sandler, Shire Publications, Oxford, UK, 2009, pgs. 31-32.

Students will use their cards and after doing the Keep It or Junk It activity, they will write

information for each of the cards on the back of the card.

As a class you will generate a list of four or five category words (i.e., organization, leaders,

and actions) and students will write these key words on their index cards. Before students

begin the writing activity, discuss and agree upon criteria for success or failure. For

example, are short-term gains considered successful even if the participants were all

punished? Can strong organization or leadership be unsuccessful in the short term but

prove successful in building toward future gains? Is an action successful if public opinion is

moved?

Students will then write a short paragraph supporting their claim:

The Haiti Rebellion was a (success or failure). The most important reason was

because

.

Day 2: Was the Stono Rebellion successful?

Repeat the instructions for Day 1. Read “Stono Rebellion” from Building a New Land: African

Americans in Colonial America, HarperCollins Publishers, 2005.

Day 3: Were the slave revolts in this article successful?

Repeat the instructions for Day 1. Read “Slave Revolts” from Building a New Land: African

Americans in Colonial America, HarperCollins Publishers, 2005.

Day 4: Were the slave revolts of Nat Turner, Denmark Vesey and Gabriel Prosser successful?

Repeat the instructions for Day 1. Read “Uprisings and Rebellion: United States” excerpted

and adapted from The Slave Trade, Nigel Sandler, Shire Publications, Oxford, UK, 2009, pgs.

35-36.

Lesson 2

TEXT PASSAGES

Uprising and Rebellion Excerpted and adapted from The Slave Trade, Nigel Sandler, Shire Publications, Oxford, UK, 2009, pgs. 31-32

In the Caribbean the most successful slave revolt occurred in Hispaniola, modern Haiti, and

began in 1791. The rebellion started under the leadership of a religious man named Boukman, later

Toussaint L’Ouverture took over. The uprising was of such momentous importance to the region

that the British, French, and Spanish all sent forces to try to end the rebellion. L’Ouverture realized

that success would only be possible if his forces allied with one of the European powers who

wanted the island. He chose France, a country that had just gone through its own revolution, and

with their support he was able to govern. However, when Napoleon came to power France he sent

20,000 troops to take back the country, and the former enslaved workers fought back. L’Ouverture

again made peace with the French, but was tricked, arrested and deported to France where he died

in 1801. Jean-Jacques Dessalines continued the war against the French and in 1803, Dessalines’s

forces were victorious and he became the leader of the new Republic.

There were other successes. Runaway slaves called Maroons developed their own

communities in Guyana, Suriname, Florida and Jamaica. In Jamaica, Spanish slaves who had

escaped into the hills when Britain took control in 1655 fought against the British and helped slaves

to escape. As the raids on plantations increased the British had to do something to end this

defiance. The First Maroon War was led by Cudjoe and Nanny of the Maroons, the leaders of a

highly organized community founded in the 1690s. The British were unable to defeat the Maroons

and the peace treaty of 1739 recognized the Maroons as free people and granted Nanny 500 acres

of land from the Jamaican government for herself and her people. In return, the Maroons agreed to

ally themselves with the Jamaican government against any invader and to hand over any runaway

slaves. It was an uneasy truce and in 1795 the Second Maroon War broke out. In 1796 the British

offered a peace treaty but did not honor their word and deported the most troublesome Maroons

to Sierra Leone.

There were other rebellions in the West Indies and South America, but most of them were

not successful.

The Stono Rebellion Building a New Land: African Americans in Colonial America, James Haskins and Kathleen Benson, HarperCollins Publishers, 2005

South Carolina, with its majority slave population, was witness to the most stunning slave

rebellion. In the early morning of Sunday, September 9, 1739, about twenty slaves, many of them

Angolans led by a man named Cato (some sources give his name as Jemmy), gathered near the

western branch of the Stono River, about twenty miles from Charleston. They broke into a

storehouse, killed two guards, and made off with small arms and powder. They then marched south

toward Florida, where they planned to join up with other runaways. Along the way, they burned

houses and killed their occupants, reportedly sparing an innkeeper who was known for kindness to

his slaves. Other slaves joined the band, some eagerly, some reluctantly. To the beating of drums, a

flag was raised, and the marchers shouted, “Liberty!”

By the time the rebels had marched ten miles, they numbered between sixty and one

hundred. In their wake lay twenty to forty dead white settlers, and “the Country thereabout was

full of Flames.” It was late on Sunday afternoon, and the rebels decided to set up camp in an open

field.

Alarms had been raised throughout the countryside, and a force of armed and mounted

planters attacked the rebels. Although the slaves boldly fought back, they were outgunned. Some

were killed in the first volley; others were surrounded, questioned briefly, and then killed. Several

who proved that they had been forced to join the band were released. At least thirty slaves

escaped, and during the next few days there was an intensive manhunt for them. Some were seized

and shot – and according to one account, the planters “Cut off their heads and set them up at every

Mile Post they came to.”

A small band of rebels managed to travel thirty miles south, but the militia caught up with

them and, in the pitched battle that followed, either killed or dispersed them. Not until a full month

later did the Boston Weekly Newsletter report that “the rebellious Negros are quite stopped from

doing any further mischief, many of them having been put to the most cruel death.”

Slave Revolts Building a New Land: African Americans in Colonial America, James Haskins and Kathleen Benson, HarperCollins Publishers, 2005

Organized slave revolts in the colonial period were not as common as individual slave

resistance. Nevertheless, they were a significant factor in colonial life. Most began as spontaneous

acts of desperation by one slave. A particularly brutal beating, the selling of a spouse, or the

withdrawal of a privilege could be the last straw. Sometimes, the defiant slave would prove to be a

leader and become a rallying point for other dissident slaves.

In the early colonial period there were several instances of African slaves uniting with

Indians. Africans and Indians invaded Hartford, Connecticut, in 1657 and threatened Virginia

settlements seventy years later. Joshua Coffin, an early historian of slave insurrections, wrote this

account in 1845: “ (In the spring of 1690) Isaac Morrill, a native of New Jersey, came to Newbury

(Massachusetts), to entice Indians and negroes to leave their masters and go with him, saying that

the English should be cut off, and the negroes should be free. …Their intention was to take a vessel

… for Canada and join the French against the English,” and travel down the inland part of the

country and “save none but the Negroes and Indians….” The plot was discovered, and Morrill was

arrested and sent to Ipswich, Massachusetts, for trial.

In 1712, twenty-seven armed slaves met in an orchard near the center of New York City and

set fire to an outbuilding. As whites arrived to put out the blaze, the slaves shot at them. Nine

whites were killed before the militia was able to put down the revolt. The slave revolutionaries

were quickly arrested, tried, and publicly executed. Colonial authorities then enacted extremely

rigid slave codes.

Less than a dozen years later, in 1723, a series of suspicious fires in Boston led its citizens to

believe a slave plot was to blame. The local militia was ordered out to police the city’s slaves. A

similar plot was reported in Burlington, Pennsylvania, in 1734.

In 1741, a suspicious fire that destroyed several buildings in New York City was also judged a

slave conspiracy. A wave of hysteria shot through the city, and dozens of blacks and several Irish

immigrants were arrested and tried. Many of the suspects – frightened people “confessed” to the

existence of a plot to destroy the city. By the time the mass hysteria had spent itself, twenty-nine

blacks, along with four white men and two white women who had been found guilty of aiding in the

plot, had been either hanged or burned alive.

Uprising and Rebellion: The United States Excerpted and adapted from The Slave Trade, Nigel Sandler, Shire Publications, Oxford, UK, 2009, pgs. 35-36

In the United States there were over 200 slave revolts between 1600 and 1865, some being

very well organized. In 1800, Gabriel Prosser recruited a thousand slaves and planned to march on

Richmond, Virginia. Prosser was betrayed and he and many of his followers were executed. In 1822,

Denmark Vesey (a free black man) and his followers planned to set fire to Charleston, South

Carolina, but before this happened, his plan was discovered and Vesey and his followers were

hanged.

Another revolt occurred in 1831 when Nat Turner, an enslaved preacher in Virginia, and

seven followers entered his owner’s house and killed the family. Turner’s rebellion grew as more

enslaved Africans joined with him. Eventually Turner and his 80 followers were arrested and

executed. Turner, however, hid in the countryside for two months before he was arrested.

Although there were uprisings in the United States, none were as successful as the Haitian

uprising. There were other ways that enslaved Africans in the United States resisted. Some

escaped in large groups like the 80 armed enslaved Africans who ran away from South Carolina

plantations to Florida. Many escaped as individuals or in small groups using the Underground

Railroad to help them get to states in the North where slavery had been abolished.

Lesson 2

SCENARIO

You are assigned to write an article which explains your opinion about the slave rebellions. Would you

support the rebellions as a way to end slavery?

Reasons to support rebellions Reasons to oppose rebellions but encourage

other actions to end slavery.

Conclusion: I would

for these reasons:

Before we do the writing, we will do a fishbowl activity. Students will come to a table in the center of the

room – no more than 10 students at a time. As students speak from their notes about the issue, other

students at the table may question, add to or disagree with the student who has spoken. Once a student has

spoken, another student who is not at the table may tap them on the shoulder and take that student’s seat

at the table. We will continue this until all students have had the opportunity to speak. This activity will help

students articulate and sharpen their points before they write.

On a separate sheet of paper, write your opinion article. This article should have three paragraphs. The first

paragraph should state your opinion and three reasons. The second paragraph should explain your reasons

using evidence from our readings. The third paragraph is a short concluding paragraph.

Lesson 3

THE MOVEMENTS

TO ABOLISH SLAVERY

Unit Question:



Lesson Question:

How did men and women in Britain and the United States

organize movements to abolish slavery?

In this lesson, students will explore abolition movements in both Britain and the United

States. They will explore how these movements were organized (audience and actions), who

participated, and the effectiveness of the actions taken.


economic institutions that evolved in the colonial era. (5.4) Describe the ongoing struggle

between proponents and opponents of slavery. (5.4.6).


how and why people made the decisions that were made), and change over time.

Citizenship education skills: Students will explore how some chose to organize

against the system of slavery and what actions they chose to take to oppose

slavery. Students will also explore why some people wanted to see the system of

slavery upheld. They will look at how people choose to become active in making

change and how we choose our levels of activism by looking historically at

abolitionists and applying it to current issues in the lives of the students.

Day 1: Introduction

How does who I am affect the decisions I make

In this activity students will explore how their own backgrounds affect

what they see as problems that need changing and how, or if, they

decide to participate in change. Do the activity first with the

McDonald’s scenario, next where the students working in groups

come up with their own question, and finally, with the question about

slavery. They will use their findings about what influences their

decision making as they look at what influenced the decisions and

actions made by abolitionists. Ask students to reflect about how

where they live, where they have travelled, how they identify family

and where their family is from might have influenced their thoughts.

Day 2: Keep It or Junk It. Students can read the Emancipation: Britain and

Emancipation: United States articles as homework. They should come

to class having read the article and circled the key words. They can

circle the words they do not understand and you can do a quick

vocabulary lesson before you start the Keep It or Junk It. Do the Keep

It or Junk It activity for the two Emancipation articles as a whole class.

After that, students can do the Keep It or Junk It in their small groups.

This gives students more control over the information they use from

the articles.

Days 3-5: Students will work in groups on the remainder of the articles.

Days 6-7: Primary Source Examination: With these sources, students will be

looking at items that were produced to advertise opposition to

slavery, photos of abolitionists, and correspondence from political

leaders regarding abolition. There are many more sources available

and if you want to include others, feel free to change the sources.

What I want the students to see from these sources are: who lead the

movement, who participated in the movement, what actions were

taken to build support for abolition, and I want them to see that there

was controversy over some items such as the Wedgwood medallion.

Choose one of the sources to complete the Examining a Primary

Source organizer together as a class, then let the students complete

organizers for the other sources. They will probably need support

with the letter written by John Adams.

Days 8-11: Scenarios. I would give one day for each of the scenarios.

Resistance! This is a passage from a speech given by Henry Highland

Garnet in which he talks about the need to resist. Ask the students to

talk about what Garnet means by resistance. Share these ideas and

write them on a large piece of paper. Ask the students to think about

the ways that people opposed slavery and the risks that people took

to resist slavery. Have the students think about resistance that

involved little risk and resistance that involved a lot of risk. Were

these forms of resistance all effective? Think about how people resist

today. Write the students’ ideas on a sheet of paper and ask them to

rank them by risk factor and effectives.

Building a Campaign. This activity asks students to think about the

ways the abolitionists in Britain and the United States organized

opposition to slavery.

Building a Campaign Today: Organizing Planner. This activity asks

students to think about an issue or problem in their community or

school that they needs changing and then to plan how they might go

about making that change. First, brainstorm some ideas so that

students of a bank of ideas from which to choose. Students must

choose a problem or issue that is important and they must explain

why it is important and who this problem or issues harms. Their

solutions must be reasonable. At the end of this activity, students will

give short presentations and the class will decide which of these

issues they would to change. If you want this to be a final

assessment, you could have students plan a campaign around the

issue that was selected.

Lesson 3

GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS



Date:


Use the words that we kept from our class Keep It or Junk It to sort and categorize each word that you think helps to answer the focus question. You

do not have to use all of the words, you make junk words that do not fit into your category. But, you cannot use words that we have already agreed

to junk. Name the categories with one or two words that you think best describe the theme of the category.



Homeroom Teacher:

Date:


Date of the event:




Category 1:


What does this source tell you about the transatlantic trade?


Lesson 3

TEXT PASSAGES

Emancipation: Britain

Excerpted and adapted from The Slave Trade, Nigel Sandler, Shire Publications, Oxford, UK, 2009, pgs. 35-36

The founder of the Quakers, George Fox, was appalled at the treatment of the

enslaved, which he saw first-hand during a visit to Barbados in 1671. He demanded that

plantation owners would treat their workers better, yet stopped short of calling for

emancipation. Later, in Britain in 1787, it was the Quakers who formed the Society for the

Abolition of the Slave Trade, with a committee of nine Quakers along with Granville Sharp

and Thomas Clarkson and William Wilberforce as their government representatives. Leading

African abolitionists in Britain, like Olaudah Equiano who had bought himself out of slavery,

supported the society; and women, who made up ten percent of the membership, raised

awareness of the violation of family life under slavery.

Often the actions of enslaved Africans are overlooked when discussing emancipation,

but through revolts they fought for their own rights and were probably the most influential

people in the struggle for their freedom. They were not the passive kneeling people begging

for their freedom depicted in Josiah Wedgwood’s illustration. The anti-slavery movement

believed that the successful slave revolt in Haiti and failed uprisings in Jamaica showed that

an economy supported by enslaved labor could be unstable and expensive to protect, and it

would be more profitable to end slavery and use employed labor.

One of the most important aspects of the British anti-slavery campaign was the

population’s support. It was the first major civil movement for human rights in Britain as

consumers became aware that their enjoyment was gained at a cost: the exploitation of

enslaved labor. In 1792 the West Indian sugar boycott started and at its peak at least

300,000 people had given up sugar, with grocers reporting sales falling by half. Other

workers refused to make products to be used in the slave trade.

Even with the slave uprisings and public awareness nothing could happen without

political pressure. Thomas Clarkson risked his life gathering evidence from British ports and

his work aided William Wilberforce when he presented evidence of the horrors of the slave

trade in parliamentary debates. In 1806 Lord Grenville formed a new government and

argued that the slave trade was “contrary to the principles of justice, humanity, and sound

policy.” In 1807 the Abolition of the Slave Trade bill was passed with clear majorities in both

the House of Commons and the House of Lords, abolishing the transatlantic trade but not

slavery itself.

Wilberforce believed slavery would gradually end once the African slave trade

ceased. This did not happen. Protests to end slavery in British territories were renewed. The

British government passed new laws to protect the enslaved Africans but these did not go far

enough. In 1823 the Anti-Slavery Society was founded. Wilberforce and Clarkson were both

members. Women were excluded from its leadership so the Birmingham Ladies Society for

the Relief of Negro Slaves was formed in 1825 and by 1831 there were 73 anti-slavery

women’s organizations. Women such as Anne Knight and Elizabeth Heyrick were in favor of

the immediate end, or abolition, of slavery and in 1830 the Female Society for Birmingham

submitted a resolution calling for the immediate end to slavery in the British colonies. Other

groups also agreed to call for the immediate end to slavery.

Abolition

BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk

Manchester and slavery

Back in the 1700s, Manchester's prosperous textile industry was thriving on the back

of slavery. But it was the city's outrage at this trade in human cargo which sparked the

campaign for abolition. Washington Alcott tells this complex story:

Manchester's direct and indirect connections to the Atlantic Slave Trade can

be linked to the city’s thriving cotton industry which was built on slave-grown cotton

from the West Indies. This cotton was subsequently woven into textiles, a major

export item for Liverpool slave traders.

Textiles: in Manchester's cotton mills

Manchester’s cotton mills produced 'coarse checks' (cloth or fabric with a pattern of

crossed lines) and silk handkerchiefs. The industry reportedly earned Manchester up to

$283,000 per annum - equivalent to $40 million today: mostly cloth that was traded for

captured Africans.

As the demand for cotton cloth increased worldwide, traders responded by importing

slave-grown cotton from America. This helped the city to treble its cotton trade in the last

quarter of the 1700s. At the same time, the slave trade was booming.

The rise of the anti-slavery movement

Despite Manchester’s direct role in the slave trade, the 1807 Act was strongly

influenced by the city's campaigners, influential sections of the clergy and even Manchester

cotton merchants themselves. The anti-slave trade movement here showed that they were

serious about ending the traffic of Africans, putting pressure on the British government and

slave traders through public meetings, petitions, and boycotting the use of sugar.

One of the city’s major efforts in the anti-slave trade movement which immediately

sparked renewed national attention was the invitation given to Thomas Clarkson to

denounce slavery here in Manchester. Clarkson’s visit was a watershed that energised the

anti-slavery campaign across the country. His address on October 8th 1787 at the

Manchester Cathedral gave the national abolitionist movement a new focus. From Clarkson’s

reception in Manchester and its impact, more local, regional and national anti-slavery

lobbying emerged.

Clarkson’s visit added much weight to the formation of a number of anti-slavery

organizations in Manchester including: the Anti Society Slavery Union; the Constitutional

Society, the Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society, the Emancipation Society, and the Manchester

http://www.bbc.co.uk/

Union. They were well aware of the campaign work of the MP William Wilberforce in

parliament. All these factors encouraged the Manchester Anti Slavery Committee to organise

a petition in support of Wilberforce calling for the abolition of the slave trade; a monumental

drive for a petition against the slave trade collected over 10,500 names - roughly one in five

Mancunians.

The Manchester radical abolitionist movement was becoming difficult to ignore.

Amongst its supporters were well known public figures such as John Wesley, Dr John and

Adam Clarke, among others. Samuel Bradburn, a prominent Methodist, stated in his support

of free trade: "I have given up the use of sugar in everything, except medicine; and shall

continue till the slave trade is abolished", and urged members of his Methodist conference

to abstain from "a drug comprised of the slave dealers' sin and misery."

Despite the 1807 Act of Parliament, the Manchester anti slavery movement remained

determined in its efforts to end slavery in the British colonies (which was not outlawed until

1833).

Mobilizing the Public


In 1791, thousands of pamphlets were printed which encouraged people to boycott sugar

produced by slaves. Estimates suggest some 300,000 people abandoned sugar, with sales dropping

by a third to a half. Some shops advertised goods which had been produced by 'freemen' and sales of

sugar from India, where slavery was not used, increased tenfold over two years.

Hundreds of thousands of people also signed petitions calling for the abolition of the slave

trade. Many supported the campaign against their own interests. For example, in Manchester (which

sold some $283,000 in today’s dollar worth of goods each year to slave ships) roughly 20% of the

city's population signed petitions in support of abolition. The size and strength of feeling

demonstrated by these popular protests made even pro-slavery politicians consider the

consequences of ignoring public opinion. One pro-slavery lobbyist of the time noted that the 'Press

teems with pamphlets upon the subject ... The stream of popularity runs against us.'

Mobilisation of the public remains an essential tool in achieving political change. The sugar

boycott is one of the earliest examples of consumers using their purchasing power to reject the trade

in goods which have not been ethically produced. This is the equivalent of the modern day Fairtrade

campaign. Similarly, people continue to sign petitions to indicate to politicians and their government

concerns over particular issues. For example, in recent years, tens of thousands of people have

signed Anti-Slavery International's petitions against bonded labour and trafficking in people, and

millions of people have petitioned against post office closures.


Abolishing the slave trade: 1787-1823


Although slavery was effectively illegal in England from 1772 and in Scotland from

1778, campaigns to abolish both the trade and the institution have continued ever since.

Women participated in the campaign from its beginning and were gradually able to move

from the private into the political arena as strategies changed.

Similar strategies were employed and developed during the 1866-1928 women's

suffrage campaign, with the same individuals and families active in both campaigns.

In the early years, women influenced the campaign to abolish slavery, but they were

not direct activists. This accorded with the prevalent view of women as a moral not a

political force. As the campaign gained popularity, many women - ranging from the Whig

aristocrat, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, to the Bristol milk-woman Ann Yearsley -

published anti-slavery poems and stories.

Yearsley's patron, Hannah More, publicised the campaign with 'Slavery, a Poem'

(1788), which dramatically depicted the predicament of an enslaved woman, ill-used and

separated from her children. This theme was repeatedly emphasised by women

campaigners.

More was a member of a group of evangelicals associated with the anti-slavery

campaign. Her friend, Lady Margaret Middleton, is credited with encouraging both the

group's leaders, Thomas Clarkson and William Wilberforce, to take up the cause. Although,

because she was a woman, Lady Middleton had no direct political power she was able to

cajole her influential friends.

Ironically, it was against the necessity for women to exercise such wiles that Mary

Wollstonecraft railed in 'Vindication of the Rights of Woman' (1792), writing 'When therefore

I call women slaves, I mean in a political and civil sense; for, indirectly they obtain too much

power and are debased by the exertions to obtain illicit sway.'

Influenced by the anti-slavery debate, she repeatedly likened men's domination of

women to the planters' domination of slaves: 'Is one half of the human species, like the poor

African slaves, to be subject to prejudices that brutalise them...only to sweeten the cup of

men.'

This last reference was to sugar, grown on plantations that were dependent on the

labour of enslaved people. Working- and middle-class families were encouraged by appeals

to women to buy sugar produced in the East Indies using free labour. More than 300,000

people joined this boycott of sugar grown on plantations using slave labour.


Objects such as Wedgwood's cameos featuring the image of a kneeling, chained,

black slave were bought by women to be used in bracelets and hairpins to publicise their

support for the cause.

As well as these indirect contributions, in 1788 the Abolition Society and its provincial

committees had 206 female subscribers. They were mainly of the 'middling sort' - wives and

daughters of merchants, professionals, manufacturers and shopkeepers - drawn from

Quaker, Unitarian and Evangelical families.

But women were not officers of these committees and were generally not invited to

sign the thousands of petitions organised by the Abolition Society.

Women continued to be involved in the popular campaign until its collapse in 1792.

The radicalism it inspired was no longer acceptable as France was ravaged by revolution. A

decade and a half later, when national interests coincided with those of the abolitionists,

smart parliamentary tactics ensured the Abolition Act was passed in 1807.

Emancipation: United States

Excerpted and adapted from The Slave Trade, Nigel Sandler, Shire Publications, Oxford, UK, 2009, pgs. 35-36

Just as they had in Britain, the Quakers played a major part in the

emancipation movement in the U.S. In 1775 they formed the Society for the

Relief for Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, and by 1804 their work had

helped abolish slavery in every northern state. American involvement in the

transatlantic slave trade was made illegal in 1808, and by the 1830s the

pressure on the southern states was so intense that anti-slavery literature was

banned in the south and any teachers from the north who sympathized with

the enslaved were expelled.

Many freed or escaped enslaved people wanted to remain in the United

States and they became involved in the anti-slavery movement. Two of the

most prominent were Frederick Douglass, an ex-slave who published his own

abolitionist newspaper, and Isabella Baumfree: freed from slavery in 1827, she

changed her name to Sojourner Truth and became one America’s foremost

anti-slavery campaigners.

In the 1830s William Lloyd Garrison led a campaign for “immediate

emancipation, gradually achieved,” demanding that slave owners set up a

system of emancipation. Most Northerners favoured gradual and compensated

emancipation but after 1849 demand for immediate emancipation grew. Many

lobbied peacefully; however, some advocated violence. In 1859 John Brown

raided the arsenal at Harper’s Ferry and seized weapons for his insurrection.

Eventually the men were captured and all were executed.

Eventually the tension between the Union (the Northern states) and the

Confederates (the Southern states) led to the Civil War. On January 1, 1863,

President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation which

brought the system of slavery closer to an end.

Boycotting Goods Produced by Slaves

Quakers in the World, http://www.quakersintheworld.org

Quakers were at the forefront of the movement to boycott goods produced by slave

labour. In Britain women were influential in the anti-slavery movement. In 1824 Elizabeth

Heyrick from Leicester in England wrote a pamphlet entitled “Immediate, not Gradual

Abolition or An Inquiry Into the Shortest, Safest, and Most Effectual Means of Getting Rid of

West Indian Slavery” which sold thousands of copies in Britain and the USA. they made it

clear that conditions in the plantations in which the slaves worked to produce sugar were

appalling.

Heyrick and many other women, a large number of whom were Quakers, believed

that a boycott of sugar, which was one of Britain’s major imports, would help to make

people aware of the suffering of slaves. Inspired by her, women’s societies put out boycott

pamphlets and started to compile a national list of all those who had given up West Indian

sugar. Together with fellow-campaigner Susannah Watts she canvassed large areas of

Leicester and promoted a boycott of sugar produced in the West Indies. By the following

June almost a quarter of the town’s population had given up sugar.

Some supporters of the campaign used sugar from East India instead, and and sugar

bowls and other items were soon produced which stated that the sugar in them had not

been produced by slave labour. Those who forsook sugar seem to have come from all

classes and age groups within society. Quaker William Allen had given up sugar before he

was eighteen years of age. Grocers stopped selling sugar from the West Indies and reported

that sales of sugar from East India had increased tenfold. According to a newspaper report

two Quakers in Cornwall toured the county on foot and found that more than 12,000 people

had stopped using sugar. Anti-slavery campaigner Thomas Clarkson gave his backing too, and

it was estimated that at the height of the boycott 400,000 people had given up the use of

sugar from the West Indies. To some extent the boycott of sugar was symbolic as people in

Britain continued to consume other products made by American slave labour such as

tobacco, coffee and cotton, but awareness of these was not raised systematically in the

same way.

In America Elias Hicks spoke forcefully against slavery and was one of the early

leaders of the anti-slavery movement. In 1811 he produced a pamphlet against slavery and

encouraged his followers to join the boycott against the products of slavery. He would not

http://www.quakersintheworld.org/

http://www.quakersintheworld.org/quakers-in-action/55






use rice, sugar or cotton. It is said that even on his death bed he refused to be covered by a

blanket made of cotton that had been produced using slave labour.

The “free produce” movement was a boycott of goods produced with slave labour. It

was seen as a way of fighting slavery by having consumers buy only produce from non-slave

labour. The movement was active in the United States of America from the beginning of the

abolitionist movement of the 1790s to the end of slavery in the 1860s. In 1826 in Baltimore,

Maryland, Benjamin Lundy opened the first “free produce” store that only sold goods that

had been produced by non-slave labour. In the same year Quakers in Wilmington, Delaware,

drew up a charter for a formal free-produce organisation. In 1827 the movement expanded

and Thomas M’Clintock and others founded the Free Produce Society in Philadelphia,

Pennsylvania.

In 1838 several such groups came together to form the American Free Produce

Society, which developed the idea further as it aimed beyond boycotts and early forms of

conscious consumerism, by creating several pamphlets, tracts and the journal Non-

Slaveholder. The association, although larger than the predecessors, did not grow large

enough to start benefitting from economies of scale and as a result the prices were always

unsustainably higher than the slave produced goods they were trying to replace. Levi Coffin,

the American abolitionist, established a warehouse in 1847 in Cincinnati selling goods not

produced by slave labour. For a time the business prospered but was eventually forced to

close. It was difficult for abolitionists to ascertain which goods were wholly produced by free

labour. The American Free Produce Society disbanded in 1847 as there was insufficient

support of the boycott. In the previous year Quakers had founded The Philadelphia Free

Produce Association of Friends. Quakers who had organised the earlier Free Produce Society

continued their activities until 1856


Lesson 3

PRIMARY AND

SECONDARY SOURCES

Quakers in the World, http://www.quakersintheworld.org

http://www.quakersintheworld.org/

www.bbc.co.uk


Massachusetts Historical Society: Image Resource MHS Collections Online: Am I Not A Woman And A Sister

with this URL: http://www.masshist.org

The Tools of the Abolitionists

Excerpted from Mike Kaye. www.bbc.co.uk

The 'Am I not a Man and a Brother' logo used by the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society

Branding the campaign

In 1787, Josiah Wedgwood designed a seal for the anti-slavery campaign. The image

(shown above) depicts an African man kneeling in supplication under the slogan 'Am I not a

man and a brother?'.

The African slave is presented as passive rather than rebellious, and is therefore non-

threatening.

The Wedgwood seal ignores the fact that some Africans were actively engaged in

challenging the system of slavery through rebellions, personal acts of resistance and as

abolitionists. Instead, it depicts an image which was likely to engage the maximum number

of white, British people in the campaign. This approach was effective, but serves to reinforce

negative stereotypes of Africans as helpless and dependent, as indeed do some fundraising

campaigns today.

The image was adopted as the abolition movement's logo and used to brand

publications, chinaware, snuffboxes, cufflinks, bracelets, medallions and banners. The logo

became both a political and a fashion statement and helped to popularise opposition to

slavery. This helped to build support for the anti-slavery movement over a large cross-

section of British society, including radicals and conservatives, and the working and middle

classes.


The use of branding, marketing and merchandising is commonplace today and

includes anything from T-shirts to credit cards. The 'Make Poverty History' wristbands, AIDS

ribbons, the Royal British Legion's Poppy Appeal and Comic Relief's Red Nose Day are all

examples of contemporary campaigns which have raised public awareness and gained mass

support from the public in this way.

Accessibility links

Title: [Sojourner Truth, three-quarter length portrait, standing, wearing

spectacles, shawl, and peaked cap, right hand resting on cane]

Date Created/Published: [Detroit], [1864]

Medium: 1 photographic print

Rights Advisory: No known restrictions on publication.

Repository: Library of Congress Washington, D.C. 20540 U

Object found at Wilberforce House, Hull, England



Adams, John (1735-1826) to

George Churchman and Jacob Lindley

Source Information:

Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC00921

Author/Creator: Adams, John (1735-1826)

Place Written: Washington, D.C.

Type: Autograph letter signed

Date: 24 January 1801

Pagination: 2 p.: docket; 25.2 x 20.4 cm.

Background: In response to two abolitionists, who had sent him an antislavery pamphlet by a

Quaker reformer, Warner Mifflin (1745-1798), President Adams expresses his views on slavery, the

dangers posed by abolitionists (who at the time were mostly Quakers and unpopular religious

radicals), and emancipation. This letter is particularly revealing in what it discloses about Adams’s

sense of priorities. , In his letter, Adams mistakenly concludes that slavery was an institution in

decline. The 1790 census counted almost 700,000 slaves. According to the census of 1800, the year

before Adams wrote this letter, that number had grown to almost 900,000.

https://www.gilderlehrman.org/mweb/search?needle=Adams%2C%20John%20%281735-1826%29&fields=_t301000285

Full Transcript: Washington January 24, 1801, Friends, I have received your Letter of the

17 of the 1. Mo. and thank you for communicating the Letter to me, of our friend Warner

Mifflin. I have read both with pleasure, because I believe they proceeded from a Sense of Duty

and a principle of Benevolence. , Although I have never Sought popularity by any animated

Speeches or inflammatory publications against the Slavery of the Blacks, my opinion against it

has always been known and my practice has been so conformable to my sentiment that I have

always employed freemen both as Domisticks and Labourers, and never in my Life did I own a

Slave. The Abolition of Slavery must be gradual and accomplished with much caution and

Circumspection. Violent means and measures would produce greater violations of Justice and

Humanity, than the continuance of the practice. Neither Mr. Mifflin nor yourselves, I presume

would be willing to venture on Exertions which would probably excite Insurrections among the

Blacks to rise against their Masters and imbrue their hands in innocent blood., There are many

other Evils in our Country which are growing, (whereas the practice of slavery is fast

diminishing,) and threaten to bring Punishment on our Land, more immediately than the

oppression of the blacks. That Sacred regard to Truth in which you and I were educated, and

which is certainly taught and enjoined from on high, Seems to be vanishing from among Us. A

general Relaxation of Education and Government. A general Debauchery as well as dissipation,

produced by pestilential philosophical Principles of Epicurus infinitely more than by Shews and

theatrical Entertainment. These are in my opinion more serious and threatening Evils, than

even the slavery of the Blacks, hateful as that is. , [2] I might even add that I have been

informed, that the condition, of the common Sort of White People in some of the Southern

states particularly Virginia, is more oppressed, degraded and miserable than that of the

Negroes., These Vices and these Miseries deserve the serious and compassionate

Consideration of Friends as well as the Slave Trade and the degraded State of the blacks., I wish

you Success in your benevolent Endeavors to relieve the distresses of our fellow Creatures, and

shall always be ready to cooperate with you, as far as my means and Opportunities can

reasonably be expected to extend., I am with respect and , Esteem your Friend, John Adams

Lesson 3

SCENARIOS

How does who I am affect my decisions about the world?

Who do I call my family? Where are all the places my family

comes from?

What’s in my neighborhood? Here are the most important places

that I have visited?

A fast-food restaurant chain wants to build a restaurant in my neighborhood.

I think a new restaurant like this would be (good or bad) for these reasons: First,

Second,

Finally,

On the other hand,

In conclusion,

To make this happen, I would be willing to

Action I would be willing to do this (yes or no) Because I think it would

Write a letter to:

Make a phone call to:

Sign a paper petition

Sign an online petition

Use social media by:

Walk on a picket line

Other:

Other:

Other:



comes from?

What’s in my neighborhood? Here are the most important

places that I have visited?

Your question:

First,

Second,

Finally,

On the other hand,

In conclusion,

To make this happen, I would be willing to

Action I would be willing to do this (yes or no) Because I think it would

Write a letter to:

Make a phone call to:

Sign a paper petition

Sign an online petition

Use social media by:

Walk on a picket line

Other:

Other:

Other:



comes from?

What’s in my neighborhood? Here are the most important

places that I have visited?

Is it important to study slavery today?

It is (important or not important) to study slavery today for these reasons: (1)

;

(2)

;

and (3)

Although some may disagree with this because

Resistance!

Have the students read the story about Henry Highland Garnet (1915-1882). Clergyman Henry Highland Garnet was well

acquainted with the evils of America’s “peculiar institution.” Born in slavery in Maryland, he escaped from bondage in 1824 and

later served as a conductor http://nmaahc.si.edu 4 on the Underground Railroad in Troy, New York. Like many abolitionists,

Garnet first hoped that moral persuasion could turn public opinion against slavery, but in 1840 he abandoned this approach in

favor of political action. His stance became still more militant in 1843, when he delivered an impassioned speech at the National

Convention of Colored Citizens in Buffalo, New York. In his “Address to the Slaves of the United States of America,” Garnet

exhorted those in bondage to rise in insurrection against their enslavers. “Strike for your lives and liberties,” he proclaimed.

“Rather die freemen than live to be slaves. . . . Let your motto be resistance! Resistance! RESISTANCE!”

Excerpted from an activity from the National Museum of African American History and Culture, http://nmaahc.si.edu

What did Henry Highland Garnet mean by the word resistance?

What are some ways that people can resist? Which do you think would be the most effective ways to resist?

http://nmaahc.si.edu/

Building a Campaign

There were several tactics that abolitionists in Britain and the United States used to build the movement that abolished slavery. What you are

going to examine in the first part of this exercise is how was the movement built? Who participated? Who was the audience? After reading

your text passages and looking at the primary sources, complete the chart below.

Britain United States

Who participated? Who was the audience?

What was the tactic? Who participated? Who was the audience?

What was the tactic?

Which of the tactics do you think were the most effective? Explain the reasons for your choice:

Which of the tactics, if any, do you think might have had some problems or risks:

Build a Campaign Today: Organizing Planner

What is the problem that you would like to see changed?

How does this problem cause harm or damage? Why does it need to be changed?

Who is mainly affected by this problem?

Who do you want to participate in changing this problem?

Who will participate? Who is the audience? What is the action? What risks are there in participating in these actions?

On a separate sheet of paper, write up your plan of action. You will present this to the class, so you must convince your classmates that this is a

problem that important and requires action to make a change. You must convince your classmates that the actions you have chosen will result

in change.

-

Lesson 4

GOVERNMENT AND LAWS

Unit Question:



Lesson Question:

How did the transatlantic trade shape

the political growth of the United States?

Delegates to the Constitutional Congress had to make many compromises in order to agree

on the final draft of the Constitution. In this lesson, we will analyse those compromises.

Were they fair? Was there a balance of power? Were imbalances or unfairness corrected

with amendments to the Constitution?


economic institutions that evolved in the colonial era. (5.4) Describe the introduction of

slavery into America, the responses of slave families to their condition, the ongoing struggle

between proponents and opponents of slavery, and the gradual institutionalization of

slavery in the South. (5.4.6). 5.7 Students describe the people and events associated with

the development of the U.S. Constitution and analyze the Constitution’s significance as the

foundation of the American republic. 5.7.2. Explain the significance of the new Constitution

of 1787, including the struggles over its ratification and the reasons for the addition of the

Bill of Rights.


how and why people made the decisions that were made), ethical dimension

(reasoned ethical judgments of past actions can be made by taking into account

the historical context of the people in question). (The Big Six Historical Thinking

Concepts, Seixas and Morton).

Citizenship education skills: Were the compromises fair? Did the compromises

help to balance power or enhance the power of a small group? Did some groups

give up more than others in this process of compromise? Was compromising a

good thing to do?

Day 1: Is it fair? Introduce the lesson by asking students to list one or two rules at

school that they believe are fair? Ask them to list one or two rules at school that

believe are unfair? In small groups, have the students share their lists and have

the students decide what makes a fair rule and what makes a rule unfair? What

action can they take to change an unfair rule using their criteria for what makes

a rule fair. Decide as a class the criteria for a fair rule and post these criteria in

the room. Students will add to this list as the lesson goes on.

Take the timeline that you did from lesson one and add the dates from the

attached timeline in this lesson. What connections can students make from the

earlier information and what they are adding now?

Day 2: Read paragraphs 4, 5, and 6 in “North American Slavery.” Do the Keep It or Junk

It activity using the categories: responsibility, rights, participation, and power.

The students may use the words in more than one category. Discussion

question: How did these laws influence the contents of the Constitution?

Day 3: Read “A Short-Lived Victory.” Do the Keep It or Junk It activity. Take time to have

the students analyse the Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution that is embedded

in this article. Use a Keep It or Junk It or Chunk This! to really explore this

constitutional article. This is still in the Constitution today.

Day 4: Read “Congressional Venom.” Do the Keep It or Junk It activity.

Day 5: Examining a source: Quaker Petition to Congress. The students should notice

how many signatures are on the document and they should discuss the

effectiveness of petitions. Are petitions important today? How are petitions

used in social media? They could write their congress member to see if he/she

pays attention to online petitions.

Day 6: Read “Debate and Compromise.” Do the Keep It or Junk It activity.

Day 7: Read “Compromises on Slavery.” Do the Keep It or Junk It activity.

Day 8: Examining a source: The 3/5 Compromise. Students will explore who has power

with this compromise? What makes this compromise fair or unfair? This is a

math/social studies lesson where the students will use calculators to complete

the student chart. Have them do this one column at a time. As each column is

completed, have the students talk about what they noticed about power. As

they question each of these possibilities, they should also talk about what could

be have been done to have made these solutions fairer.

Days 9-10: Examining a primary source: Preamble to the U.S. Constitution. You can choose

which sources you want to use. You can use either the Examining the Source

graphic organizer, Chunk This! or Sort It Out. There are directions for how to use

the each of these organizers within this lesson.

Chunk This! In this activity students will deconstruct the document to help them

draw conclusions about rights, responsibility, participation and power. This

activity helps students understand that the people of the United States are the

subject of this preamble and that it is the responsibility of the people to make

sure these rights are carried out. The students should also understand that

these rights did not include enslaved Africans – many of whom fought in the

Revolutionary War believing that these rights would be extended to them. This

might also be a discussion point for the class.

Directions:

1. Students read the passage. You may want to ask students to identify

unfamiliar words that they find in the Preamble. Do not frontload the

words. It is important for students to self-identify what they do not

know. Front loading the words leads to passive reading. You can, after

the students have self-identified the words, do a quick vocabulary lesson

but you can also define the words once you have completed the Chunk

This! activity.

2. Students read the passage again and circle the verbs.

3. After circling the verbs, students write what they think the Preamble tells

them about rights, responsibilities, participation, and power.

4. After answering the questions, students share their answers with the

students in their group. Give about five minutes for students to revise

their answers after the group discussion.

Sort It Out is an alternative activity where the students circle the key words in

the Preamble and write the words on separate strips of paper. After all

members of the group have written all the chosen words on separate pieces of

paper the groups meet to do two things: (1) they sort the words that all students

have selected into each of the categories (rights, responsibilities, participation,

and power) and (2) they rank the categories by level of importance. After each

group has sorted and ranked, one group member stays at the table and the

other group members go to other tables. The group member who stays behind,

explains the group’s rationale. Once all traveling group members have heard

from all the groups, they return to their original group and share what they

heard. The group is given time to revise their sort and ranking if they choose to

do so. Students then answer the questions on the sheet that you give them.

Day 11: Students will write a short three-paragraph essay explaining how slavery shaped

the issues of who had power and how compromises that were made at the

Constitutional Congress shaped who had power.

Lesson 4

GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS



Date:


Responsibility Rights

Participation

Power

Use the words that we kept from our class Keep It or Junk It to sort and categorize each word that you think helps to answer the focus question.

You do not have to use all of the words; you make junk words that do not fit into your category. But, you cannot use words that we have already

agreed to junk. Name the categories with one or two words that you think best describe the theme of the category.

Responsibility Rights Participation Power



Homeroom Teacher:

Date:


Date of the event:




Category 1:


What does this source tell you about government and laws?


Chunk This!

Read the passage below and circle all verbs.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the

common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this

Constitution for the United States of America.

What does this tell you about rights?

What does this you about responsibilities?

What does this tell you about participation?

What does this tell you about power?

Teacher Key CHUNK THIS!

Prepositions Subject Action Who’s getting the action? Questions/Comments

We the People of

the United States

in Order to form a more

perfect Union

establish justice

insure domestic tranquility

provide for the common defence

promote the general Welfare

and secure Blessings of Liberty

to ourselves and our

Posterity

do ordain and establish this Constitution

for the United States of

America

CHUNK THIS!

Prepositions Subject Action Who’s getting the action? Questions/Comments

We the People of

the United States

in Order to form a more

perfect Union

justice

domestic tranquility

for the common defence

the general Welfare

Blessings of Liberty

to ourselves and our

Posterity

this Constitution

for the United States of

America





Sort it Out

Read the passage below and circle the key words. The words that you select should relate to the words that we have been working with in this

unit: rights, responsibility, participation and power. Write each word you choose on a separate strip of paper. When you have completed

this, work with your group to sort the words into the categories of rights, responsibility, participation, and power. You will then rank the

categories by which categories you think are the most important. You will explain to the class how you arrived at your rankings.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the

common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this

Constitution for the United States of America.

responsibility

rights

participation

power





What does it say, mean and do?

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence,

promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of

America.

What does it say? What would it have meant to the delegates at the Constitutional Congress?

What would this mean today?

We the People of the United

States

In order to form a more

perfect Union

Establish justice

.

Insure domestic tranquility

Provide for the common

defense

Promote the general welfare

Secure the blessings of

liberty

To ourselves and our

posterity

Lesson 4

TEXT PASSAGES

Timeline The U.S. Congress for Kids, Ronald A. Reis, Chicago: Chicago Review Press, pg. xiv 1789 March 4 – First U.S. Congress meets in New York City.

1789 First Congress passes 12 amendments to the Constitution, 10 of which are ratified by

1791, becoming the Bill of Rights.

1865 Congress passes the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery.

1870 Senator Hiram Revels, a Mississippi Republican, becomes the first African American to

serve in Congress.

North American Slavery in 1700 Building a New Land: African Americans in Colonial America, James Haskins and Kathleen

Benson, HarperCollins Publishers, 2005, pgs. 18-19

Note: This is the entire article, however, I am going to break this article to meet the needs of

each lesson. In Lesson 4, I am only to have the students read paragraphs 4, 5, and 6.

By 1700, the European-American population in the colonies had reached a quarter of a

million. At twenty-eight thousand, the enslaved population totaled a little more than one-

tenth that number; some twenty-three thousand lived in the South. (1)

Although there were barely one thousand slaves in the New England colonies, and about

four thousand in the colonies of the Middle Atlantic, the institution of slavery was by that time

widely recognized by law. As early as 1641, the Puritan authorities in the Province of

Massachusetts established a Body of Liberties that included the first statute (law) to establish

slavery in New England. Connecticut recognized slavery as a legal institution in 1650; Virginia

did so in 1661; Maryland, in 1663; New York and New Jersey, in 1665; South Carolina, in 1682;

Rhode Island and Pennsylvania, in 1700; and North Carolina, in 1715. (2)

Many factors contributed to this change in the slaves’ legal status, including the growing

need for a cheap labor force. By 1700, the triangular trading voyage was an established

institution: European slave traders sailed to Africa with cargoes of woollen or cotton goods,

rum, brandy, iron bars, and glass beads. They traded these goods for slaves, whom they

transported to the West Indies, Newport, New York, Boston, and Charleston in what has

become known as the Middle Passage. The ships then loaded up with sugar, tobacco, coffee,

and timber and headed back to Europe. It was an extremely profitable business. (3)

As more African slaves arrived in North America, people of European heritage began to

fear alliances among Indians, Africans, and white indentured servants that might lead to slave

revolts. This fear led to the creation of additional laws in every colony. As the years passed,

slaves saw more and more of their rights taken away. (4)

In the meantime, the first antislavery pamphlets were published by men who believed

that slavery was against the laws of God. In 1693, a Quaker named George Keith published the

first, entitled “An Exhortation and Caution to Friends Concerning Buying or Keeping of

Negroes.” The second, “The Selling of Joseph,” by an English-born Bostonian named Samuel

Sewall, was published in 1700. But these pamphlets were like cries in the wilderness. The vast

majority of European Americans considered slavery part of the natural scheme. (5)

Acceptance of slavery gave rise to laws that would be the basis for racial prejudice and

oppression for the next two centuries. Soon all blacks were subjected to the same restrictions

that governed slaves. In 1703, a law was passed in Massachusetts that required a master who

freed a slave to pay a fee to the colony; another prohibited Indian and black servants from

being on the streets after 9:00 p.m. In 1705, Virginia adopted a slave code that limited the

number of slaves who could meet together at one time, restricted their travel, and forbade

them to strike white persons or escape. That same code denied free blacks the right to testify

in court against anyone but other blacks, and it forbade them to hold any office,

“ecclesiastical, civil or military.” (6)

A Short-Lived Victory The U.S. Congress for Kids, Ronald A. Reis, Chicago: Chicago Review Press, pgs. 3-5

During the battle for independence, in mid-1776, the 13 British colonies, through their

Continental Congress, drafted the Articles of Confederation. The Articles proved to be a weak

form of government. They provided for no executive, no judiciary, and a virtually powerless

Congress. Six years after the war ended, in 1787, a convention was called to revise the Articles

of Confederation. It was soon realized, however, that a whole new form of government was

required. It was at this Philadelphia Convention, over a four-month period, that a new

Constitution was drafted. On March 4, 1789, the new government, formed by the recently

(1788) ratified (formally approved) Constitution, would be installed.

The U.S. Constitution included a curious provision on the abolition of the slave trade.

The stipulation, in Article I, Section 9, of the Constitution, prevented any interference in such

trade before the year 1808.

The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any

of the States now existing shall think proper to admit,

shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the

Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax

or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not

exceeding ten dollars for each person.

The South, consisting of slaveholding states, was elated. General Charles Cotesworth

Pinckney, of South Carolina, bragged that the “South had won a great victory” in protecting the

slave trade for at least 20 years.

Furthermore, Pinckney and other members of Congress realized that the clause did not

require an end to the slave trade in 1808. To actually terminate the trade would require

passing a bill in both chambers of Congress, the House and the Senate. It would then be signed

by the president.

On March 2, 1807, the U.S. Congress did exercise its constitutional power to halt the

international slave trade. President Thomas Jefferson promptly signed the Act to Prohibit the

Importation of Slaves, making law. The Constitution, however, required that the effective date

be delayed until January 1, 1808.

It must be pointed out that this act did not end slavery in the United States. The

widespread trade of slaves within the South was not prohibited. The Southern states went

along with the elimination of the international slave trade in part because by 1808 they had a

self-sustaining population of over four million slaves. With the children of slaves automatically

becoming slaves themselves, the South was assured of a never-ending secure supply of human

property.

Congressional Venom The U.S. Congress for Kids, Ronald A. Reis, Chicago: Chicago Review Press, p. 9

Congress made three major compromises, each 30 years apart, which attempted to

pacify pro- and antislavery regions of the country.

The first, known as the Compromise of 1790, involved founding fathers Thomas

Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison. In June 1790, the three met for dinner and

worked out a deal that Congress would later approve. The capital of the United States would

be moved from Philadelphia to the Potomac, to become Washington, DC. In exchange, the

federal government would assume debts acquired by the states during the Revolutionary War.

The South liked the compromise because it put the nation’s capital between two slave states –

Maryland and Virginia.

The Missouri Compromise of 1820, made possible to a large extent by Senator Henry Clay

of Kentucky, was an effort by both chambers of Congress to maintain a balance between

slaveholding states and free states. With new western territories becoming states, it was

agreed that some would be free and other slave. Though the Missouri Compromise may have

temporarily eased arguments over the question of slavery, it served notice that the South not

only had no intention of ending slavery, it wanted to expand it – westward.

The Compromise of 1850, where Henry Clay, again played an important role, also dealt

with slavery in the new territories. The Compromise of 1850 strengthened the Fugitive Slave

Act. The Fugitive Slave Act required the North to return runaway slaves.

Debate and Compromise Reflections: The Making of a Nation, Harcourt, 2007

During their work, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention often disagreed with

one another. A major disagreement was about how each state would be represented in the

new Congress.

Edmund Randolph and the other Virginia delegates introduced a plan for Congress called

the Virginia Plan. Under this plan, Congress would have two parts, or houses. The number of

representatives that a state would have in both houses would be based on that state’s

population. States with more people would have more representatives and more votes in

Congress. This plan would favor the large states, such as Virginia, Massachusetts, and

Pennsylvania, which had many people.

“Not fair!” replied the delegates from the small states. William Paterson of New

Jersey accused the Virginia Plan of “striking at the existence of the lesser States.”* The plan

would have given large states control of Congress.

Paterson offered a different plan, called the New Jersey Plan. Under this plan, the new

Congress would have one house, in which each state would be equally represented. This

plan would give the small states the same number of representatives as the large states.

For weeks, the delegates argued about how states should be represented in Congress.

Finally, the delegates realized that in order to reach an agreement, each side would have to

give up some of what it wanted. In other words, the delegates would have to make a

compromise. The delegates decided to set up a committee to work out a compromise.

In one committee meeting, Roger Sherman of Connecticut presented a new plan, called

the Connecticut Compromise. It was based on the idea of a two-house Congress. In one

house, representation would be based on the population of each state, as in the Virginia

Plan. In the other house, each state would be equally represented, as in the New Jersey

Plan. Either house could present a bill, or an idea for a new law. However, both houses had

to approve a bill before it became a law.

Committee members from the large states thought that the compromise gave too much

power to the small states. To avoid this, the committee added another idea. Only the house,

in which representation was based on population, would be able to propose tax bills.

The committee presented the Great Compromise, as it became known, to the whole

convention. Although the delegates continued to argue, many wanted to make sure that

they would have a new plan of government. On July 16, 1787, they approved the Great

Compromise.

*William Paterson, June 9, 1787, at the Constitutional Convention, from James Madison’s

notes. The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, edited by Max Farrand. Yale

University Press, 1937.

Compromises on Slavery Reflections: The Making of a Nation, Harcourt, 2007

Under Roger Sherman’s plan, population would affect each state’s representation in

Congress. This raised an important issue that troubled many people in the young nation—

slavery. Delegates from the northern and the southern states argued about whether

enslaved African Americans should be counted when figuring each state’s population.

The southern states had many more slaves than the northern states. Delegates from the

southern states wanted to count slaves when figuring out how many representatives a state

would have in Congress. That way, the southern states could count more people and have

more representatives.

Delegates from the northern states did not want slaves to be counted for representation.

After all, these delegates argued, slaves were not allowed to vote and did not hold any of

the other rights of citizenship. In addition, some delegates wanted slavery to end.

The delegates finally agreed to count three-fifths of the total number of slaves in each

state. The Three-fifths Compromise was attached to the Great Compromise. By settling the

issue of representation, the delegates moved closer to forming a new government.

After this issue was dealt with, some delegates still spoke out against slavery. Gouverneur

Morris of Pennsylvania called slavery “the curse of heaven on the states where it prevailed

[existed].” (Source not given.) Other delegates were afraid that if the Constitution stopped

states from importing slaves, the southern states would not approve it. The delegates

agreed that Congress could not end the slave trade before 1808.

Lesson 4

PRIMARY SOURCES

Quaker petition to Congress, October 4, 1783

As early as 1688, the Quakers had been expressing their opposition to slavery, which they considered to be sinful. This petition, asking that Congress end the slave trade, was signed by more than five hundred Quakers. Citing the Declaration of Independence, the petition states that the slave trade exists “. . . in opposition to the solemn declaration often repeated in favor of universal liberty.” The petition was read in Congress on October 8 and subsequently tabled.

National Archives, Records of the Continental and Confederation Congresses and the Constitutional Convention

National Archives website, http://www.archives.gov

Preamble to the United States Constitution

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish

Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general

Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and

establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

AMENDMENT XIV

Passed by Congress June 13, 1866. Ratified July 9, 1868.

Note: Article I, section 2, of the Constitution was modified by section 2 of the 14th

amendment.

Section 1.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,

are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or

enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United

States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due

process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the

laws.

Section 2.

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective

numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed.

But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-

President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial

officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male

inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age,* and citizens of the United States,

or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of

representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male

citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such

State.

Section 3.

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and

http://www.archives.gov/

Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any

State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of

the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial

officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in

insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.

But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4.

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts

incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or

rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume

or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United

States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations

and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5.

The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of

this article.

*Changed by section 1 of the 26th amendment.

Original Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution

National Constitution Center, http://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/articles

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may

be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be

determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to

Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.

AMENDMENT XV

Passed by Congress February 26, 1869. Ratified February 3, 1870.

Section 1.

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the

United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude--

Section 2.

The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

http://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/articles

http://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/articles/article-i#tooltip-1




POPULATION CHART: Teacher Key

State Pop. (free)

Slave Pop.

Total pop. 3/5 pop.

# representatives (free pop.)

# representatives (total pop.)

#

representatives (3/5 pop./total

free & 3/5)

N Connecticut 237,655 2,764 240,419 1,658 7 8 0/7

N Massachusetts 378,556 - 378,556 0 12 12 0/12

N New Hampshire 141,899 158 142,057 94 4 4 0/4

N New Jersey 184,139 11,423 195,562 6,853 6 6 0/6

N New York 340,241 21,324 361,565 12,794 9 12 0/11

N Pennsylvania 433,611 3,737 437,348 2,242 14 14 0/14

N Rhode Island 69,112 948 70,160 568 2 2 0/2

S Delaware 59,096 8,887 67,983 532 1 2 0/2

S Georgia 82,548 29,264 111,812 17,558 2 3 0/2

S Maryland 319,728 103,036 422,764 61,821 10 14 2/12

S North Carolina 395,005 100,572 495,577 60,343 11 16 2/15

S South Carolina 249,073 107,094 356,167 64,256 8 11 2/10

S Virginia 747,550 292,627 1,040,177 175,000 24 34 5/29

Each state would receive 1 representative for every 30,000 residents.

POPULATION CHART

State Pop. (free)

Slave Pop.

Total pop. 3/5 pop.

# representatives (free pop.)

# representatives (total pop.)

#

representatives (3/5 pop./total

free & 3/5)

N Connecticut 237,655 2,764 240,419 1,658

N Massachusetts 378,556 - 378,556 0

N New Hampshire 141,899 158 142,057 94

N New Jersey 184,139 11,423 195,562 6,853

N New York 340,241 21,324 361,565 12,794

N Pennsylvania 433,611 3,737 437,348 2,242

N Rhode Island 69,112 948 70,160 568

S Delaware 59,096 8,887 67,983 532

S Georgia 82,548 29,264 111,812 17,558

S Maryland 319,728 103,036 422,764 61,821

S North Carolina 395,005 100,572 495,577 60,343

S South Carolina 249,073 107,094 356,167 64,256

S Virginia 747,550 292,627 1,040,177 175,000

Each state would receive 1 representative for every 30,000 residents.

Final Assessment:

Remembering the Transatlantic Trade

For this project you will work with your group members to produce a

museum exhibit that answers the question, how did the transatlantic

trade shape the political and economic growth of the United States?

Your exhibit must include a written answer to the question as well as

graphics that support your answer. There must be a clear claim that

answers the question and evidence that supports your claim.

You must also include in your exhibit an explanation about why knowing

about the transatlantic trade is important to us today. You can show

this in your writing and/or through the graphics you select for you

exhibit.

You do not have to show evidence from all four sections: transatlantic

trade, resistance, abolition and government. You can explain what the

transatlantic trade and show evidence from one section or as many as

your group decides. But you must think about what it is you want your

audience to know about the transatlantic trade and how it shaped the

politics and economics of the U.S.

The exhibits must be mounted on presentation board which Ms.

Brouhard will provide.

You are free to use the graphics we have looked at in class or to choose

your own. If you choose your own, you must give the source of the

graphic. If you are unsure how to do this, Ms. Brouhard will show you

how.

When the project is complete, you will select one or two members of

your group to present to the class. The students who do not present will

listen to the presentations of all the other groups and give them the

student grade.

Your group will meet with Ms. Brouhard and in that meeting you must

prepared to explain why your group chose the artifacts that are in your

exhibit.

ADDITIONAL

TEACHER RESOURCES

Araujo, Ana Lucia (ed.), Transnational Memory of Slave Merchants: Making Slavery Visible in

the Public Space, Abingdon Press, 2012.

Arnold, Sandra, “Why Slaves Graves Matter,” The New York Times, April 2, 2016.

Bailey, Ronald, “The Slave(ry) Trade and the Development of Capitalism in the United States:

The Textile Industry in New England,” Social Science History, Vol. 14, No. 3, Autumn

1990, pgs. 373-414.

Banks, James A., “Diversity, Group Identity, and Citizenship Education in a Global Age,”

Educational Researcher, American Education Research Association, Vol. 37, No. 3,

2008, pgs. 129-139.

Barton, Keith C. and Linda S. Levstik, Teaching History for the Common Good, London:

Routledge, 2009.

Billingham, Luke, “Investigating Contingency in School History: An Aid to Rich, Meaningful Critical

Citizenship,” The Curriculum Journal, 2016,

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09585176.2016.1143379.

Blinder, Alan, “Momentum to Remove Confederate Symbols Slows or Stops,” The New York Times,

March 13, 2016.

Boyle-Baise, Marilynne and Jack Zevin, Young Citizens of the World: Teaching Elementary Social

Studies Through Civic Engagement, Routledge, 2009.

Davies, Ian, and Vanita Sundaram, Gillian Hampden-Thompson, Maria Tsouroufli, George Bramley,

Tony Breslin and Tony Thorpe, Creating Citizenship Communities: Education, Young People

and the role of Schools, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

Faust, Drew, “Recognizing Slavery at Harvard,” Harvard Crimson, Harvard University, March 30,

2016.

Hakim, Joy, A History of US: Making Thirteen Colonies 1600-1640, New York: Oxford University Press,

2005.

Haskins, James and Kathleen Benson, Building a New Land: African Americans in Colonial America,

HarperCollins Publishers, 2005.

Klein, Herbert S., “Slaves and Shipping in Eighteenth-Century Virginia, The Journal of Interdisciplinary

History, Vol. 5, No. 3, Winter 1975, pgs. 383-412.

Levstik, Linda S. and Keith C. Barton, Doing History: Investigations with Children in Elementary and

Middle Schools, London: Routledge, 2015.

Ligali Organisation, Declaration of Protest of the 2007 Commemoration of the Bicentenary of the

British Parliamentary Abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, August 2005.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09585176.2016.1143379

McWilliams, James E., “Butter, Milk, and a ‘Spare Ribb:’ Women’s Work and the Transatlantic

Economic Transition in Seventeenth-Century Massachusetts, The New England Quarterly,

Vol. 82, No 1, March 2009, pgs. 5-24.

Morgan, Kenneth, “Slavery and the Debate Over the Ratification of the United States Constitution”

Slavery and Abolition, Vol. 22, No. 3, pgs. 40-65, 2001.

Myers, Walter Dean, Now is Your Time: The African American Struggle for Freedom, Harper Trophy,

1992.

Prior, Katherine, “Commemorating Slavery 2007: A Personal View from Inside the Museums,”

History Workshop Journal, No. 64, Autumn 2007, pgs. 200-210.

Sadler, Nigel, The Slave Trade, Shire Library, 2009.

Sears, Louis Martin, “Philadelphia and the Embargo of 1808,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics,

Vol. 35, No. 2, February 1921, pgs. 354-359.

Seixas, Peter and Tom Morton, The Big Six Historical Thinking Concepts, Nelson Education Ltd., 2013.

Wallace, Elizabeth Kowaleski, The British Slave Trade and Public Memory, Columbia University Press,

2006.

Winch, Julie, “Free Men and ‘Freemen’: Black Voting Rights in Pennsylvania,” Pennsylvania Legacies,

Vol. 8, No. 2, November 2008, pgs. 14-19.

Worth, The Slave Trade in America, Enslow Publishers, 2004.

Zahedieh, Nuala, “London and the Colonial Consumer in the Late Seventeenth Century,” The

Economic History Review, New Series, Vol. 47, No. 2, May 1994, pgs. 239-261.

Video

Why America Needs a Slavery Museum, The Atlantic, August 25, 2015, www.theatlantic.com/video.

Websites

Avalon Project, Yale University, www.avalon.law.yale.edu

Boston Public Library, www.bpl.org

Massachusetts Historical Society, www.masshist.org

National Archives UK, www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

http://www.theatlantic.com/video

http://www.avalon.law.yale.edu/

http://www.bpl.org/

http://www.masshist.org/

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/

National Archives U.S. www.archives.gov

National Museum of African American History and Culture, www.nmaahc.si.edu

Pennsylvania Historical Society, www.hsp.org

Slaves in the Urban North, www.teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian

The Constitution Center, www.constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution

The International Slavery Museum, Liverpool, http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk

Understanding Slavery Initiative, www.understandingslavery.com This website is a good source

for citizenship education lessons, background information and primary sources.


http://www.nmaahc.si.edu/

http://www.hsp.org/

http://www.teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian

http://www.constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution

http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/

http://www.understandingslavery.com/

ADDITIONAL

TEACHER RESOURCES

Araujo, Ana Lucia (ed.), Transnational Memory of Slave Merchants: Making Slavery Visible in

the Public Space, Abingdon Press, 2012.

Arnold, Sandra, “Why Slaves Graves Matter,” The New York Times, April 2, 2016.

Bailey, Ronald, “The Slave(ry) Trade and the Development of Capitalism in the United States:

The Textile Industry in New England,” Social Science History, Vol. 14, No. 3, Autumn

1990, pgs. 373-414.

Banks, James A., “Diversity, Group Identity, and Citizenship Education in a Global Age,”

Educational Researcher, American Education Research Association, Vol. 37, No. 3,

2008, pgs. 129-139.

Barton, Keith C. and Linda S. Levstik, Teaching History for the Common Good, London:

Routledge, 2009.

Billingham, Luke, “Investigating Contingency in School History: An Aid to Rich, Meaningful Critical

Citizenship,” The Curriculum Journal, 2016,

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09585176.2016.1143379.

Blinder, Alan, “Momentum to Remove Confederate Symbols Slows or Stops,” The New York Times,

March 13, 2016.

Boyle-Baise, Marilynne and Jack Zevin, Young Citizens of the World: Teaching Elementary Social

Studies Through Civic Engagement, Routledge, 2009.

Davies, Ian, and Vanita Sundaram, Gillian Hampden-Thompson, Maria Tsouroufli, George Bramley,

Tony Breslin and Tony Thorpe, Creating Citizenship Communities: Education, Young People

and the role of Schools, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

Faust, Drew, “Recognizing Slavery at Harvard,” Harvard Crimson, Harvard University, March 30,

2016.

Hakim, Joy, A History of US: Making Thirteen Colonies 1600-1640, New York: Oxford University Press,

2005.

Haskins, James and Kathleen Benson, Building a New Land: African Americans in Colonial America,

HarperCollins Publishers, 2005.

Klein, Herbert S., “Slaves and Shipping in Eighteenth-Century Virginia, The Journal of Interdisciplinary

History, Vol. 5, No. 3, Winter 1975, pgs. 383-412.

Levstik, Linda S. and Keith C. Barton, Doing History: Investigations with Children in Elementary and

Middle Schools, London: Routledge, 2015.

Ligali Organisation, Declaration of Protest of the 2007 Commemoration of the Bicentenary of the

British Parliamentary Abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, August 2005.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09585176.2016.1143379

McWilliams, James E., “Butter, Milk, and a ‘Spare Ribb:’ Women’s Work and the Transatlantic

Economic Transition in Seventeenth-Century Massachusetts, The New England Quarterly,

Vol. 82, No 1, March 2009, pgs. 5-24.

Morgan, Kenneth, “Slavery and the Debate Over the Ratification of the United States Constitution”

Slavery and Abolition, Vol. 22, No. 3, pgs. 40-65, 2001.

Myers, Walter Dean, Now is Your Time: The African American Struggle for Freedom, Harper Trophy,

1992.

Prior, Katherine, “Commemorating Slavery 2007: A Personal View from Inside the Museums,”

History Workshop Journal, No. 64, Autumn 2007, pgs. 200-210.

Sadler, Nigel, The Slave Trade, Shire Library, 2009.

Sears, Louis Martin, “Philadelphia and the Embargo of 1808,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics,

Vol. 35, No. 2, February 1921, pgs. 354-359.

Seixas, Peter and Tom Morton, The Big Six Historical Thinking Concepts, Nelson Education Ltd., 2013.

Wallace, Elizabeth Kowaleski, The British Slave Trade and Public Memory, Columbia University Press,

2006.

Winch, Julie, “Free Men and ‘Freemen’: Black Voting Rights in Pennsylvania,” Pennsylvania Legacies,

Vol. 8, No. 2, November 2008, pgs. 14-19.

Worth, The Slave Trade in America, Enslow Publishers, 2004.

Zahedieh, Nuala, “London and the Colonial Consumer in the Late Seventeenth Century,” The

Economic History Review, New Series, Vol. 47, No. 2, May 1994, pgs. 239-261.

Video

Why America Needs a Slavery Museum, The Atlantic, August 25, 2015, www.theatlantic.com/video.

Websites

Avalon Project, Yale University, www.avalon.law.yale.edu

Boston Public Library, www.bpl.org

Massachusetts Historical Society, www.masshist.org

National Archives UK, www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

National Archives U.S. www.archives.gov

National Museum of African American History and Culture, www.nmaahc.si.edu

Pennsylvania Historical Society, www.hsp.org

Slaves in the Urban North, www.teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian

http://www.theatlantic.com/video

http://www.avalon.law.yale.edu/

http://www.bpl.org/

http://www.masshist.org/

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/


http://www.nmaahc.si.edu/

http://www.hsp.org/

http://www.teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian

The Constitution Center, www.constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution

The International Slavery Museum, Liverpool, http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk

Understanding Slavery Initiative, www.understandingslavery.com This website is a good source

for citizenship education lessons, background information and primary sources.

http://www.constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution

http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/

http://www.understandingslavery.com/

ADDITIONAL SCENARIOS

SCENARIO 1

You want to 5th dance at the end of the year. In order to have this dance

you have to make a plan that includes all of the following:

Ms. must see a written plan and approve the plan.

You must include a dress code for the dance.

You must include a playlist of no more than 15 songs. These songs

must be clean and represent a variety of musical interests. No

student’s interest can be left out.

You must include a student behavior plan that explains appropriate

behavior at the dance and consequences for students who do not

behave.

You must include a petition or some other way of your choice that

shows Ms. that at least 90% of the 5th grade students want

this dance.

SCENARIO 2

What will your world look like?

Before we begin the activity, read the choices below and decide which

best describes the kind of world where you would like to live.

1. I think that things are basically ok. There are a few thing s that

could be improved but, I have few issues.

2. I think there are a lot of ways that people are treated unfairly but I

think if we try to get along better things would improve.

3. I think there are many things that are unfair and make people’s

lives hard. There is a lot of inequality.

Important Issues:

Take a few minutes and write down things that a neighborhood where you

would want to live must have:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

In your groups, discuss your lists and decide on which five are the most

important characteristics of a good neighborhood. Write those

characteristics in the space below.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

In the space below, reflect on how you made these choices. Do you agree

with your group’s choices? If not, what would have added or taken away

from the list and explain your reasons. Feel free to write about any other

thoughts about your group’s work.

Join with another class group and repeat the activity. Again, the two groups may only

choose five characteristics.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.




thoughts about your group’s work.

You will now join your larger group with another class group and repeat the activity.

Again, the three groups may only choose five characteristics.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.




thoughts about your group’s work. How does compromising change once

the groups get larger? Go back to the answer you gave on the first page,

would you change or keep your answer the same?

A Living Wage

More than half (52 percent) of the families of front-line fast-food

workers are enrolled in one or more public programs, compared to 25

percent of the workforce as a whole.

Due to low earnings, fast-food workers’ families also receive an annual

average of $1.04 billion in food stamp benefits

People working in fast-food jobs are more likely to live in or near

poverty. One in five families with a member holding a fast-food job has

an income below the poverty line, and 43 percent have an income two

times the federal poverty level or less.

Even full-time hours are not enough to compensate for low wages. The

families of more than half of the fast-food workers employed 40 or

more hours per week are enrolled in public assistance programs.

Source: Fast Food, Poverty Wages: The Public Cost of Low-Wage Jobs in the Fast-Food

Industry, S. Allegretto, M. Doussard, D. Graham-Squire, K. Jacobs, D. Thompson and J.

Thompson, University of California Berkeley Labor Center.

What is fair in this passage What is unfair

What could I do to make change

Look at the boxes on the earlier page. Has your answer remained the

same or changed? On the back of this paper, write your reflections about

your answer.

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