In recognition of Black History Month, Colonial Williamsburg’s latest Electronic Field Trip was "The Slave Trade."  Last year my kids and I intensely studied slavery, abolitionists and the Underground Railroad, but knew very little about the slave trade apart from the efforts of William Wilberforce to end it in Britain and Thomas Jefferson’s eventual ending of it during his presidency. 

     We had an extremely busy week in our regular history studies the week of the EFT, but the week before was light. Therefore we actually started our EFT studies the week before, on Friday. First we watched the EFT broadcast and question and answer segment from two years ago, featuring Sojourner Truth, a New England merchant who profited from the slave trade and a navy captain who’s job was to patrol for slave ships.  There was also a historian. 

    Then we read the background notes from the Teacher’s Activitiy packet.  We learned about specifically where in Africa slaves came from and where they went. Actually this was a review for us, however the percentages of where they went was a surprise. Only 5% of all the slaves were sent to the United States.  We learned why the different names of the coast of Africa (Ivory Coast, Gold Coast, Slave Coast) got their names. We learned about the Triangular Trade, which surprisingly included Rhode Island.   We learned more details than we knew before of the horrors of the  Middle Passage.  We also read about the changing viewpoint of the slave trade over the years, leading to it’s ultimate end.

     Then we did a few of the activities in the teacher packet.  We read a couple of primary source documents to get two different points of view of a slave ship.  One was from a British physician (pro-slavery) and the other was a freed African American, who learned to read and write and wrote his autobiography. He was the son of a tribal chief before his capture. We looked at a picture of an interesting medal.  Oddly the front had English and the back had Arabic. The kids got to make connections between the two as to the actual message of the medal. 

    I never did the games this time but the kids did. There were three of them and the kids really enjoyed them. One of them was Capture the Slave Trader and my kids really enjoyed doing that!  

     Thursday was the live broadcast.  Again for the question and answer were Sojourner Truth, the pro-slavery merchant from Rhode Island and the captain who was against slavery and patrolled the seas to stop slave ships.  They were terrific, sometimes getting into heated debates that needed to be stopped by the 21st century historian.  This topic of slavery was treated sensitively. The actors treat it like it was, according to their character’s viewpoint of the era. After all, how are we going to learn our history. After pro-lavery comments were made by the merchant, the 21st century historian (an African American himself) explained to the kids that some people in the past actually did believe differently from what we do today.  That allowed the kids to see that this type of thinking is wrong, but historically, people believed in slavery and didn’t always treat them well. Since history repeats itself, Colonial Williamsburg’s mission is to teach us the past so that we can make wise choices in the future. 

     After the first broadcast, my son thought of a question to e-mail to Sojourner Truth. "Why weren’t slave trader capturers, like Capt John Bell, able to get better, faster and more numerous ships to capture the slave traders?" We weren’t sure what else to call "slave trader capturers."

Answer:

The ships chasing the slavers were US Navy ships.  There were many more slave ships than the navy had available for this duty.  Also, the slave ships could be newer and faster than some of the older navy ships.

Sojourner Truth

My daughter had had her question ready to go since the week before.  Since we hadn’t read anything in the Teacher Guide or at the activity site for students about Sojourner Truth, yet she appeared in the broadcast and the question and answer, we did not know much about her. I would have liked to have gotten a biography on her to read, but my kids already had 70 pages to read in their regular history studies this week.  So my daughter asked, "Can you tell me some of the things that happened to you before you were freed and what you do now?  Thank you for answering this question."

Answer:       

My Dear ____________,

I was born into slavery in 1797 in Ulster County, New York.  At that time, any child born to an enslaved women became a slave.  The same be true of a man child born to a slave woman.  If your mama was a slave you be born a slave.

I was named Isabella and was the property of Colonel Johannes Hardenbergh.  As a young girl, I spoke only low Dutch and like many slaves born at that time, I never learned to read or write.

In 1815, when I was 18 years old, I married Thomas, a fellow slave and bore five children–Diana, born in 1815, Peter, born in 1821, Elizabeth, born in 1825, Sophia, born in 1826 and a fifth child who died in infancy.

I worked in the field planting and harvesting crops and I also worked as a domestic in the masters house.  I was sold to four more slave owners, until I walked away to freedom in 1826 carrying my infant daughter Sophia in my arms.  I settled in New York City and in 1843, I changed my name to Sojourner Truth and set out to travel the land as an itinerant preacher announcing the truth and working against social injustice.

Since that time I have travelled this country speaking out against slavery, the plight of the freed black person, and all other forms of social issues mostly dealing with former slaves and women.  I have met many famous and prominent people including President Abraham Lincoln, Harriet Beecher Stowe, who wrote the famous novel dealing with slavery called "Uncle Tom’s Cabin", Frederick Douglass, and William Lloyd Garrison one of the early abolitionists who campaigned for freeing the slaves long before the Civil War.

I am now in my 86th year and I will continue to fight injustice as long as I can draw a breath.

Thank you for your interest in my cause,

Sojourner Truth

     Doesn’t this sound like a great EFT?  They are made affordable for homeschoolers through Homeschool Buyers Co-op!