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Slave Trade Memorial
Duration: This lesson culminates in a project which can take substantial time. Teachers may assign it as an in-class or homework, group or individual assignment. The core themes of the lesson are contained in the reading on the conditions of the Middle Passage, which is supplemented by images in PowerPoint and written Primary Sources.
OVERVIEW AND BACKGROUND TO LESSON: This lesson asks students to demonstrate their mastery of their knowledge about the Middle Passage by designing a memorial. Slavery memorials are not common in the United States, despite the fact that roughly two million people perished because of inhumane conditions during their forced migration to the New World between 1519 and 1867. There have, however, been recent movements to have memorials built. In July 2007, a ten-person committee was formed at Brown University to discuss memorializing slavery in Providence, Rhode Island, in acknowledgement of the university founders’ connection with the slave trade. (Debbie Lehman, “U. Launches Commission to Consider Slavery Memorial,” Brown Daily Herald, 16 July 2007). https://www.browndailyherald.com/2007/07/16/u-launches-commission-to-consider- slavery-memorial/
The lesson contains several steps which teachers can use at their discretion to build an appreciation for what enslaved Africans were subjected to as they were forced to the New World, why this part of history should get a public memorial, and how that memorial should be expressed in words and image. The lesson uses mortality statistics from the database to help students get an understanding of how many people died on a voyage, reading comprehension questions, and a PowerPoint Presentation of various monuments.
OBJECTIVES:
- Students will design (draw or build) a memorial for the Africans forced to undergo the trauma of the Middle Passage.
- Students will write a 150-200 word plaque or inscription for the memorial. This writing sample will define the Middle Passage, explain the economic factors that created a market for African slaves, and describe the fatal conditions Africans faced on slave ships.
SUGGESTED GRADE AND COURSE: High School United States or World History
STANDARDS: NCHS Standards: World History, Era 6; United States History, Era 2 NCSS Theme(s): Global Connections, Civic Ideals and Practices
RESOURCES/MATERIALS:
- Background Readings 1 & 2
- Mortality Rate Chart
- Vignettes
- Slave Trade Images
- Memorial Images
ACTIVITIES/PROCEDURES :
Lesson Outline:
- Opening discussion questions : Ask students what they know about memorials: Have you ever seen one? What is its purpose? What kinds of events do we build memorials for? Do you think there should be a national memorial for slavery?
- Background Reading 1 : An introduction to the slave trade. What stimulated the slave trade? How did Africans get to the ships?
- Mortality Rate chart : Students should be able to calculate a mortality rate. They will discuss reasons why large portions of slaves on a ship would die during a voyage of one to five months.
- Background Reading 2 : What hardships threatened slave lives aboard the ships?
- Vignettes: Primary Sources documenting sources of death and hardship on the Middle Passage.
- Images : PowerPoint Presentation with images from the slave trade to reinforce factual learning.
- Images of Memorials : Discuss what images memorials use. In this section, ask students what they see. This should be a discussion to stimulate ideas for a slave trade memorial.
- Definition of Inscription
WRAP-UP/ASSIGNMENT : Design a memorial to commemorate those who died on the Middle Passage. Your memorial must include: a) An appropriate image, such as a statue or building, to commemorate those who died on the Middle Passage. b) An inscription which tells: 1- The event that the memorial commemorates 2- The relevant dates of the event 3- The people that it commemorates: i. How many died ii. How and why they died iii. Where they died
ASSESSMENT/EVALUATION:
- Intermediate Questions: Each reading / image is accompanied by questions that check core understandings
- Final Evaluation: Teacher may grade the memorial for: a. Creativity b. Appropriateness of images c. Neatness of design Teacher may grade the inscription requirement by determining how well it: a) Meets content requirements b) Meets length requirements c) Demonstrates appropriate development of writing style
VOCABULARY Memorial Middle Passage Dysentery / Flux Mortality Rate
Once put into the hands of European slave traders, anywhere from 50 to almost 700 slaves were boarded onto wooden boats in shackles. They were taken under the main deck and chained together below the main deck on dismal shelves for storing the human cargo. The spaces where the slaves were kept were pits of death. There was no light, no proper ventilation, and little or no sanitation. The smell of perspiration quickly blended with vomit, blood, urine, excrement, and dead bodies. The voyage on the slave ship could last anywhere from one month to five months. Many died from suffocation, but disease was responsible for about 70% of deaths (Postma 45). Outbreaks of dysentery, a disease caused by contaminated drinking water, were the main killers. Scurvy, a disease caused by a lack of vitamin C, also took many lives (Kolchin 21). Infectious diseases like smallpox and measles were also common (Postma 45). When weather was good, slaves were taken above to the main deck and “danced” during the morning. Someone played a drum or another instrument, and the slaves were ordered to move about the ship for exercise (Kolchin 21). Here, they were also given their meals, which usually consisted or rations of beans, corn, rice, or yams. Sometimes, small amounts of meat would be added (Postma 24). If the weather was not good, however, slaves were kept in the slimy under- decks all day and all night (Postma 27). Depression and desperation caused many slaves to lose the will to live. Some committed suicide by finding opportunities to throw themselves overboard or refusing food (Postma 45). Crew members tried to prevent self-starving through torturous force- feeding (Kolchin 21). The goal of the slavers after all, was to get as many slaves as possible to ports in the New World (Walvin 65). Economic concerns sometimes led to throwing live slaves overboard. If any slaves showed signs of smallpox, a disease which could wipe out large portions of the slaves and the crew, they would be thrown overboard. Signs of opthamalia, a disease which caused temporary blindness, threatened the value of the slaves, and any slave showing signs of this disease was also thrown overboard. Sometimes, if the voyage was taking too long and rations were running too thin, the sickest slaves would be thrown overboard so that the healthier ones would have the rations to make it to port (Walvin 67). Sometimes, slaves aboard a ship would revolt. Revolts would sometimes result in the death of slaves. Slaves who seemed rebellious would be flogged, or beaten. Finally, some ships sank, taking down their entire crew and kidnapped cargo. Comprehension Questions:
- Describe the conditions on the decks where the slaves were kept.
- What were the causes of slave deaths aboard the slave ships? List at least 6 causes of death.
- Do you think the crews on slave ships wanted to hurt the slaves? Why or why not? List at least 3 things that would prompt the crew to kill a slave.
VINGETTES: Primary Sources on the Middle Passage “Space on the slave decks” by Alexander Falconbridge. Falconbridge was an English surgeon aboard a slave ship. He recorded some of what he witnessed. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1h281t.html- Alexander Falconbridge’s account of the slave trade.
“...they are frequently stowed so close, as to admit of no other position than lying on their sides. Nor will the height between decks...permit the indulgence of an erect posture; especially where there are platforms, which is generally the case. These platforms are a kind of shelf, about eight or nine feet in breadth, extending from the side of the ship toward the centre. They are placed
nearly midway between the decks, at the distance of two or three feet from each deck, Upon these the Negroes are stowed in the same manner as they are on the deck underneath....”
- Why did the slaves have to lie only on their sides?
- Why were European slavers packing the slaves so tightly together?
Food “...The diet of the Negroes while on board, consists chiefly of horse beans boiled to the consistency of a pulp; of boiled yams and rice and sometimes a small quantity of beef or pork. The latter are frequently taken from the provisions laid in for the sailors. They sometimes make use of a sauce composed of palm-oil mixed with flour, water and pepper, which the sailors call slabber-sauce. Yams are the favorite food of the Eboe or Bight Negroes, and rice or corn of those from the Gold or Windward Coast; each preferring the produce of their native soil....Upon the Negroes refusing to take sustenance, I have seen coals of fire, glowing hot, put on a shovel and placed so near their lips as to scorch and burn them. And this has been accompanied with threats of forcing them to swallow the coals if they any longer persisted in refusing to eat. These means have generally had the desired effect. I have also been credibly informed that a certain captain in the slave-trade, poured melted lead on such of his Negroes as obstinately refused their food....”
- What would happen to slaves who refused to eat?
- Why do you think they tortured slaves who did not want to eat?
Ventilation of the ships “...The hardships and inconveniences suffered by the Negroes during the passage are scarcely to be enumerated or conceived. They are far more violently affected by seasickness than Europeans. It frequently terminates in death, especially among the women. But the exclusion of fresh air is among the most intolerable. For the purpose of admitting this needful refreshment, most of the ships in the slave trade are provided, between the decks, with five or six air-ports on each side of the ship, of about five inches in length and four in breadth....But whenever the sea is rough and the rain heavy, it becomes necessary to shut these and every other conveyance by which the air is admitted. The fresh air being thus excluded, the Negroes' rooms soon grow intolerable hot. The confined air, rendered noxious by the effluvia [gases] exhaled from their bodies and being repeatedly breathed, soon produces fevers and fluxes [dysentery] which generally carries off great numbers of them. During the voyages I made, I was frequently witness to the fatal effects of this exclusion of fresh air. I will give one instance, as it serves to convey some idea, though a very faint one, of their terrible sufferings....Some wet and blowing weather having occasioned the port-holes to be shut and the grating to be covered, fluxes and fevers among the Negroes ensued. While they were in this situation, I frequently went down among them till at length their room became so extremely hot as to be only bearable for a very short time. But the excessive heat was not the only thing that rendered their situation intolerable. The deck, that is the floor of their rooms, was so covered with the blood and mucus which had proceeded from them in consequence of the flux, that it resembled a slaughter-house. It is not in the power of the human imagination to picture a situation more dreadful or disgusting. Numbers of the slaves having fainted, they were carried upon deck where several of them died and the rest with great difficulty were restored. It had nearly proved fatal to me also. The climate was too warm to admit the wearing of any clothing but a shirt and that I had pulled off before I went down.... In a quarter of an hour I was so overcome with the heat, stench and foul air that I nearly fainted, and it was only with assistance I could get back on deck. The consequence was that I soon after fell sick of the same disorder from which I did not recover for several months....”
OTHER MEMORIALS
- Tomb of the Unknown Soldier https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/tomb-of-the-unknown-soldier-history/
- Vietnam War Memorial https://washington.org/dc-guide-to/vietnam-veterans-memorial
- Inscription at the Jefferson Memorial https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%22Almighty_God_as_Created_the_Mind Free...%22_at_Jefferson_Memorial.jpg
MORTALITY IN THE MIDDLE PASSAGE
Historians estimate that 12.5 million Africans were taken from their homes in Africa during the four centuries of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Of those put on ships, about 10.7 million made it to land in the New World. Below are the slave mortality rates aboard 23 of the thousands of slave voyages. How did the author calculate the mortality rate? What do you calculate as the total mortality rate for all Africans placed upon slave ships?
