Objectives
With this unit I intend that the students will learn about African slaves, how they came to America and to the Caribbean Islands. The students should come to understand the reason that people from these islands looked different to the white men. We will talk about differences in skin color, costumes, music, food, etc.
During the development of this unit the students will
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¥ read passages
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¥ describe pictures of African people, costumes, and masks
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¥ make comments
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¥ draw and color African masks
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¥ visit the African collection in the Yale Art Gallery, second floor
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¥ watch films and discuss them
Words to Study: prosperous, refuse, feature, merchandise, punishment, mulatos, free, relax, Mestizos
Procedure
The teacher will write on the blackboard the words: Africa-African, and will explain that Africa is a large continent located very far from America, and that Africans are the people from Africa. The teacher will also raise the following questions for discussion: If Africa is very far from here, how do you think the Africans came to America? Why?
The teacher will review briefly the past lessons about the white men coming to America and about how many of them became prosperous, especially by planting tobacco. They would send ships full of tobacco and other merchandise to England and other countries in Europe; in that way many farmers became very rich and needed other people to work for them.
African chiefs heard of these goods coming from Europe on these ships, especially guns, and decided to trade these items for people who could work in Europe and in America They called these people slaves because they belonged to the people who paid for them. They were not free, and they had to do all the kinds of work assigned to them without refusing. They had very little food, very little free time to relax, and no pay. If they were slow or refused the job, they were punished.
Women were the fist to be sold to the white men to work in the house: cooking, cleaning, taking care of the children, etc. Later the white people started buying men to work on the farms. This was the reason the slaves came to America.
The slaves came from West Africa. This is the part of Africa closest to America. (The teacher will show West Africa on the world map.) This trading of slaves became so popular that millions of Africans were sold.
The teacher will ask the students: Do you remember the first settlers in America? Those who came to Jamestown and Williamsburg, Virginia in the South? The slaves who came from Africa came to work on the plantations there (pointing to those places on the map.)
African slaves were taken to the Caribbean also, where European people were the leaders. They also needed men to work the land.
There were African slaves in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic, which was named Hispaniola at that time, and other places. The people from Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico do not look totally black because the Africans who were living there married white men or women or people with Indian blood. The children of these families have lighter skin, different features, and different types of hair, and receive the name of mulatos or Mestizos.
Questions to discuss:
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1.
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Whom do we call African?
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2.
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What were the first Africans coming to America called?
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3.
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What kind of work were the slaves asked to do?
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4.
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Show on the map the place they came from.
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5.
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Why do the peoples from Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic look a little different from the African people?
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