Sixth Grade Caribbean Unit
Lesson 4
Title: Geography of the Caribbean: Movement
Grade Level: 6
Unit of Study: Caribbean
GLCE:
G1.3.1 Use the fundamental themes of geography (location, place, human environment interaction, movement, region) to describe regions or places on earth.
G4.2.1 List and describe the advantages and disadvantages of different technologies used to move people, products, and ideas throughout the world (e.g., call centers in the Eastern Hemisphere that service the Western Hemisphere; the United States and Canada as hubs for the Internet; transport of people and perishable products; and the spread of individuals’ ideas as voice and image messages on electronic networks such as the Internet).
G2.2.1 Describe the human characteristics of the region under study (including languages, religion, economic system, governmental system, cultural traditions).
G2.2.3 Analyze how culture and experience influence people’s perception of places and regions (e.g., the Caribbean Region that presently displays enduring impacts of different immigrant groups – Africans, South Asians, Europeans – and the differing contemporary points of view about the region displayed by islanders and tourists).
G4.4.1 Identify factors that contribute to conflict and cooperation between and among cultural groups (control/use of natural resources, power, wealth, and cultural diversity).
G4.1.1 Identify and explain examples of cultural diffusion within the Americas (e.g., baseball, soccer, music, architecture, television, languages, health care, Internet, consumer brands, currency, restaurants, international migration).
G4.3.2 Describe patterns of settlement by using historical and modern maps (e.g., coastal and river cities and towns in the past and present, locations of megacities – modern cities over 5 million, such as Mexico City, and patterns of agricultural settlements in South and North America).
E3.1.2 Diagram or map the movement of a consumer product from where it is manufactured to where it is sold to demonstrate the flow of materials, labor, and capital (e.g., global supply chain for computers, athletic shoes, and clothing).
Time: 1 day, 2 if needed
Abstract: In this lesson students will discover how and why people migrated to the Caribbean 500 years ago and why people migrate to and from the Caribbean today. They will also trace the changing path of trade goods to and from the Caribbean throughout history.
Key Concepts: The arrival of various cultural groups in the Caribbean region brought about many changes, which impacted Caribbean society.
Sequence of Activities:
1. Discuss with students the reasons various cultural groups came to the Caribbean and their purpose for being there. Discuss the importance of sugar cane and slave trade within the region, and how this impacted the Western Hemisphere.
2. Ask students to search for goods at home or in the classroom that were manufactured in the Caribbean. As a class, trace the route these goods traveled from their place of origin to where they are now. Next, students will use a world map to trace the path of peoples and goods to and from the Caribbean. Students may use a color-coding system for clarification (Ex: red lines indicate the path of goods, green lines indicate the path of peoples).
3. Discuss the ways movement affects people both internationally and intra-nationally (migrant workers, legal and illegal immigration, etc.)
Connections: Language Arts, Math (use of ruler)
Resources
Teacher Background Information
From wikipedia:
Impact of Colonialism on the Caribbean
A medallion showing the Capture of Trinidad and Tobago by the British in 1797.
Sir Ralph Abercromby, Commander of the British forces that captured Trinidad and Tobago.
The exploitation of the Caribbean landscape dates back to the Spanish conquistadors around 1600 who mined the islands for gold which they brought back to Spain. The more significant development came when Christopher Columbus wrote back to Spain that the islands were made for sugar development.[2] The history of Caribbean agricultural dependency is closely linked with European colonialism which altered the financial potential of the region by introducing a plantation system. Much like the Spanish enslaved indigenous Indians to work in gold mines, the seventeenth brought a new series of oppressors in the form of the Dutch, the English, and the French. By the middle of the eighteenth century sugar was Britain's largest import which made the Caribbean that much more important as a colony. [3] The “New World” plantations were established in order to fulfill the growing needs of the “Old World”. The sugar plantations were built with the intention of exporting the sugar back to Britain which is why the British did not need to stimulate local demand for the sugar with wages. A system of slavery was adapted since it allowed the colonizer to have an abundant work force with little worry about declining demands for sugar. In the nineteenth century wages were finally introduced with the abolition of slavery. The new system in place however was similar to the previous as it was based on white capital and colored labor. Large numbers of unskilled workers were hired to perform repeated tasks, which made it very difficult for these workers to ever leave and pursue any non farming employment. Unlike other countries, where there was an urban option for finding work, the Caribbean countries had money invested in agriculture and lacked any core industrial base. [6] The cities that did exist offered limited opportunities to citizens and almost none for the unskilled masses who had worked in agriculture their entire lives. The products produced brought in no profits for the countries since they were sold to the colonial occupant buyer who controlled the price the products were sold at. This resulted in extremely low wages with no potential for growth since the occupant nations had no intention of selling the products at a higher price to themselves. The result of this economic exploitation was a plantation dependence which saw the Caribbean nations possessing a large quantity of unskilled workers capable of performing agricultural tasks and not much else. After many years of colonial rule the nations also saw no profits brought into their country since the sugar production was controlled by the colonial rulers. This left the Caribbean nations with little capital to invest towards enhancing any future industries unlike European nations which were developing rapidly and separating themselves technologically and economically from most impoverished nations of the world.
Triangular trade
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Depiction of the classical model of the Triangular trade.
Triangular trade, or Triangle trade, is a historical term indicating trade among three ports or regions. The trade evolved where a region had an export commodity that was required in the region from which its major imports came. Triangular trade thus provided a mechanism for rectifying trade imbalances.
The Transatlantic Triangular Trade operated during the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries, carrying slaves, cash crops, and manufactured goods between West Africa, the Caribbean or American colonies and the European colonial powers, with the northern colonies of British North America, especially New England, sometimes taking over the role of Europe.[1]
·Atlantic triangular trade
African slaves were elementary to run the colonial cash crop economy, the products of which were in turn exported to Europe. European goods, in turn, were used to purchase African slaves, which were then brought on the sea lane west from Africa to the Americas, the so called middle passage. [2]
A classic example would be the trade of sugar (often in its liquid form, molasses) from the Caribbean to Europe or New England, where it was distilled into rum, some of which was then used to purchase new slaves in West Africa.
Diagram illustrating the stowage of African slaves on a British slave ship.
The trade represented a profitable enterprise for merchants and investors. The business was risky, competitive and severe, but enslaved Africans fetched a high price at auctions, making the trade in human cargo a lucrative business[citation needed].
The first leg of the triangle was from a European port to Africa, in which ships carried supplies for sale and trade, such as copper, cloth, trinkets,slave beads, guns and ammunition. [3] When the slave ship arrived, its cargo would be sold or bartered for slaves, who were tightly packed like any other cargo to maximize profits.
On the second leg, ships made the journey of the Middle Passage from Africa to the New World. Once the slave ship reached the New World, enslaved survivors were sold in the Caribbean or the Americas.
The ships were then prepared to get them thoroughly cleaned, drained, and loaded with export goods for a return voyage, the third leg, to their home port.[4] From the West Indies the main export cargoes were sugar, rum, and molasses; from Virginia, commodities were tobacco and hemp. The ship then returned to Europe to complete the triangle.
However, because of several disadvantages that slave ships faced compared to other trade ships, they often returned to their home port carrying whatever goods were readily available in the Americas and filled up a large part or all of their capacity with ballast. Other disadvantages include the different form of the ships (to carry as many humans as possible, but not ideal to carry a maximum amount of produce) and the variations in the duration of a slave voyage, making it practically impossible to pre-schedule appointments in the Americas, which meant that slave ships often arrived in the Americas out-of-season. Instead, the cash crops were transported mainly by a separate fleet which only sailed from Europe to the Americas and back. It is therefore important to note that the Triangular trade is a trade model, not an exact description of the ships route. [5]
New England
Depiction of the Triangular Trade of slaves, sugar, and rum with New England instead of Europe as the third corner.
New England also benefited from the trade, as many merchants were from New England, especially Rhode Island, replacing the role of Europe in the triangle. New England also made rum from the Caribbean sugar and molasses, which it shipped to Africa as well as within the New World.[6] Yet, the 'triangle trade' as considered in relation to New England was a piecemeal operation. No New England traders are known to have completed a full sequential circuit of the triangle, which took a calendar year on average, according to historian Clifford Shipton, after years of sifting through New England shipping records, could not find a single instance of a ship completing the full triangle as described [7] The concept of the New England Triangular trade was first suggested, inconclusively, in an 1866 book by George H. Moore, was picked up in 1872 by historian George C. Mason, and reached full consideration from a lecture in 1887 by American businessman and historian William B. Weeden. [8]
Other triangular trades
The term "triangular trade" also refers to a variety of other trades:
· A trade pattern which evolved before the American Revolutionary War between Great Britain, the colonies of British North America, and British colonies in the Caribbean. This typically involved exporting raw resources such as fish (especially salt cod) or agricultural produce from British North American colonies to feed slaves and planters in the West Indies (also lumber); sugar and molasses from the Caribbean; and various manufactured commodities from Great Britain.[9]
· The shipment of (island)|Newfoundland]] salt cod and corn from Boston, Massachusetts in British vessels to southern Europe.[10]
· The "sugar triangle" whereby American ships took local produce to Cuba, then brought sugar or coffee from Cuba to St. Petersburg, then bar iron and hemp back to New England.[11]
· The "Indian Ocean Triangle" or "Double Triangle" involved dhows with Arab and sometimes Somali crews, who traveled to Basra, Bombay/Mumbai and Mombassa on the outward passage and returned to Dar-es-Salaam, Karachi and Aden. The above were known as the "Six Ports" to those involved in the trade. The origins of this trade route go back to medieval times. It was still thriving in the 1960s.
· The Transatlantic Slave Trade Database, a portal to data concerning the history of the triangular trade of transatlantic slave trade voyages.
References
1. ^ About.com: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Accessed 6 November 2007.
2. ^ National Maritime Museum - Triangular Trade. Accessed 26 March 2007.
3. ^ Scotland and the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Accessed 28 March 2007.
4. ^ A. P. Middleton, Tobacco Coast.
5. ^ Emmer, P.C.: The Dutch in the Atlantic Economy, 1580-1880. Trade, Slavery and Emancipation. Variorum Collected Studies Series CS614, 1998.
6. ^ Rhode Island Slavery History. Accessed 15 December 2007.
7. ^ Curtis, Wayne. and a Bottle of Rum. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2006-2007. ISBN 978-0-307-33862-4. page 117.
8. ^ Curtis, Wayne. and a Bottle of Rum. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2006-2007. ISBN 978-0-307-33862-4. page 119.
9. ^ Kurlansky, Mark. Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World. New York: Walker, 1997. ISBN 0-8027-1326-2.
10. ^ Morgan, Kenneth. Bristol and the Atlantic Trade in the Eighteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. ISBN 0521330173. Pages 64–77.
11. ^ Chris Evans and Göran Rydén, Baltic Iron in the Atlantic World in the Eighteenth Century: Brill, 2007 ISBN 9789004161535, 279
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangular_Trade
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook
http://www.socialstudiesforkids.com/articles/economics/theimportanceoftrade1.htm (info about trade)
http://www.scholars.nus.edu.sg/post/caribbean/nations.html
http://www.caribbean-on-line.com/
http://www.caribbean.com/
http://www.caribbeandaily.com/
http://www.cep.unep.org/
http://videos.howstuffworks.com/hsw/24270-geography-of-the-caribbean-caribbean-lands-and-culture-video.htm
Calhoun ISD Social Studies Curriculum Design Project