Unit Four: African-Americans and the 13 Colonies

Top is a map showing the trade triangle. Raw materials such as tobacco were traded in Europe. Manufactured goods were traded in Africa for slaves. Slaves were traded in America for raw materials.

We compared indentured servants and slaves. In the beginning the groups of people were treated equally. Slaves who finished their term were free and had the same rights as other citizens. Over time laws were passed taking rights away from slaves and changing their term of service form 7 years to life. It is interesting to note that unlike slaves in other countries, the African- Americans had more births than deaths and thus they became self sustaining. The ships from Africa were outlawed in 1808. The Africans were gathered by their own people and sold to the European ships.

The conditions of the slave ships were so brutal that many men died on the ships.

Slavery began in the colonies because some crops, such as tobacco and rice grew so well that large plantaions emerged. The farmers needed help to produce their crops and African Americans were the cheapest and also the easiest labor. Indentured servants could complain to their governement if they were not treated fairly. Native Americans knee the land and simply escaped.

Reading Rainbow Follow the Drinking Gourd video

My Name is Phyllis Wheatly by Afua Cooper

African Americans in the Thirteen Colonies by Deborah Kent

A Kid's Guide to African American History by Nancy Sanders

I Want to be Free by Joseph Slate

Fort Mose by Glennette Turner

Trade and Empire Interactive Online Activities www.nmm.ac.uk/upload/package/29/OnlineZone/OnlineZoneMain.tem

Vocabulary: cash crop, export, import, massacre, natural resources, plantation, slave, trade

Carolina rice and tobacco growers believed that they could not remain in business without using slaves. Criticize their attitudes by writing either an editorial in a New England newspaper or a response in a Charleston newspaper.

Newspaper Editor,

My name is Kaitlyn Langin and I disagree with slavery. It is wrong. Paid servants would be okay, but not this, not slaves. Here are some reasons why...

First, all people should be free to do what they want, not be forced around by Carolina's rice and tobacco growers. If Africans work it should be for them to eat and make money. If slavery continues only the plantation owners are making money. That is not right. Farmers should only make as big a farm as he can take care of.

Second, slaves aren't even getting any of the money or trades that farmers get for selling the crops their slaves grow. So if slaves grow them it should be them who get to sell them not the slave owners. The slaves should get half the money so they can stay alive.

Next, slave owners beat them and hurt them for no reason, and then kill them if they try to escape from that miserable life. Slaves, slave owners and all the other people in America should be treated fairly and not live like the slaves do. THey should all be well cared for.

Last, America should be better made.No one should have to work unless it's for their own family. There should be no killing, no beating, and no violence.

Thanks for reading this letter. Hopefully these problems will be fixed, and slavery will end. Your friend, Kaitlyn Langin