Although the course “Early World History” is taught as a thematic survey of the past three thousand years, I often try to often teach the material through a geographic perspective. Using the Five Theme of Geography - Location (Absolute and Relative), Place, Region, Movement, and Human & Environmental Interaction - the class will examine what impact geography had in the development of a civilization. This approach helps students appreciate geography’s role in the prosperity or demise of a society, whether it’s because of proximity to invaders or an issue of natural resources.
For this unit on Africa, the class will primarily focus on the themes of Place, Region, and Movement. “Place” answers the question: what is it like there? The land, the people, and their culture. One of the main objectives of this unit is to establish what Africa was like before the beginning of the Atlantic slave trade. The collective similarities of certain places in Africa create the regions of Africa.
“Region” is a way of classifying a place based on its similar characteristics with other places. My students use the concept of region all the time in daily language when they go “downtown,” to one neighborhood or another, or “down south” or “out west”. This connection to their daily lives should help students understand the idea. Some regions are defined by physical features: sub-Saharan Africa. Other regions are defined by historical circumstance: The Gold Coast. Neither name is very precise, but both provide the student with a way to classify a place. This provides the student with a quick reference as to what that particular place is like within a certain region. With a firm understanding of “region,” the students will know some fundamental differences between Africans from West Africa and those from the Congo River Basin before we actually study the history of either people.
Regional Geography of Africa
Africa can be broken into simple regions, like East Africa or North Africa, but these are often too broad. For the purpose of this unit, Africa will be divided into the following regions: Sahara, Sahel, Ethiopian Highlands, Savanna, Swahili Coast, Rainforest, Great Lakes, and Southern Africa. The names of these regions are based on both ethnicity and physical characteristics, but these regions are defined by their environment.
I will briefly describe the regions, from north to south.
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- Sahara - Sahara means desert in Arabic. This is a telling fact because, obviously, it informs us of what it is like there, but also it reflects the ethnic make up of the Saharan region. The Sahara region runs across the north of Africa. It is a vast desert space inhabited mainly Muslims, and the largest region in Africa
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- Sahel - A narrow band of semi-arid land south of the Sahara, the Sahel attracted both Arabs looking for gold from Sudan and Europeans looking for slaves from West Africa. The two influences merged with native ones, creating a culturally complex area. The Sahel is widely French-speaking, Islamic and takes its name ("shore") from Arabic.
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- Ethiopian Highlands - This region is exactly what it sounds like it is; the mountainous region of east Africa, which is primarily the nation of Ethiopia. This relatively cool, temperate region is one of the most diverse regions in Africa in terms of vegetation, wildlife, and topography.
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- Savanna - Africa's savanna region is dominated by big skies and rolling grasslands. It is located in East Central Africa, where the modern nations of Kenya, Tanzania, and others are located today. This moderate, semi-arid region of Africa is most famous for its wildlife and as the birthplace of mankind.
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- Swahili Coast - Named after the language of the indigenous people of the region, the Swahili Coast sits on the shore of the Indian Ocean in East Southern Africa. The language Swahili is a Bantu language, with Omani and Indian words mixed in. The region is incredibly distinct because of its historical contact with Greeks, Indians, Chinese, Arabs, Romans, and others in search of gold, slaves, and other riches. This region is great to use when teaching the theme of movement.
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- Rainforest - While rainforests are typically famous for their rich and diverse flora and fauna, the African rainforests, located in the heart of central Africa, are falling silent. Deforestation, slash and burn farming, refugees, and road building are destroying the African rainforest at an alarming rate. Using the theme “human-environmental interaction”, students can examine what impact human contact has had in the region. (A great example of human impact on a region is in King Leopold’s treatment of the “Belgian Congo” at the turn of the last century - see Adam Hochschild’s
King Leopold’s Ghost
)
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- Great Lakes - The Great Lakes of Africa include some of the largest and most ecologically diverse freshwater systems on the planet. Twisting down the two arms of the Great Rift Valley, the lakes are located in nine countries in East and Central Africa. These lakes have had a tremendous impact on the people who lived near them. The theme of location, and place, can be used to analyze what that impact was. How did the people benefit from living near such lakes?
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- Southern Africa - Rich in minerals, this region sits at the bottom of the continent. It is made up of nations such as Namibia, South Africa, Botswana, and Zimbabwe. These minerals, especially diamonds, lured outsiders to the region. This inevitably led to clashes between indigenous black African and newly arrived white Africans, and eventually to the white domination found in South Africa, and colonial German West Africa and Rhodesia.
Once the concept of region is understood by students, the teacher can use just one as a case study for early African society or the class can take their time researching the physical and human characteristics of many regions. The detailed histories of these regions should provide an opportunity for many other historical and geographical lessons. As I stated earlier, this unit can be applied to any region of Africa. So, regardless of what region a teacher or class chooses, this unit can be used to study slavery’s impact on the region. Although, I would suggest that the Sahel and the Rainforest regions provide the best examples.
Human Geography of Africa
The human geography of Africa is too vast to fall into the scope of these few lessons. Once the teacher chooses a region of focus, he or she should then take the appropriate amount of time to thoroughly examine the society and culture of that geographic region. If there is time to cover all regions of African, the class will appreciate the diverse nature of the African people. It will further reinforce the idea that Africa is not a country, but a vast diverse continent of many countries and many cultures.
Theme of Movement & the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
People, trade, disease, goods, and ideas that enter or leave any one place all fall under the theme of “Movement”. The Atlantic Slave Trade and the Triangle Trade are perfect examples to study movement. The Triangle Trade is a term that summarizes the mercantile relationship between the three continents of Europe, Africa, and the Americas. The rum that was produced in New England in the 1600’s was shipped to Africa and traded for slaves, which were shipped to the Caribbean and traded for sugar and ingredients for rum. These ingredients - along with guns and other manufactured goods - were then shipped to New England to produce more rum, which would be traded for more slaves. This summarizes the essence of the Triangle Trade. Europeans were often the financiers behind such ventures. This scenario is a great topic to teach the geographic theme of movement, and prompts the students to consider some important questions about movement: Where did the Africans come from? Where did they end up? How did they adjust to the new climate? What effect did there departure have on their land? These are all questions answered through the examination of the theme of movement.
The shipping of slaves from Africa to the Caribbean was known as the "Middle Passage." The Middle Passage was the longest leg of the triangular trade route. Slaves were kept below deck in conditions that were vile. The water and food that they were fed was often tainted. As a result of these and other factors, there was a high mortality rate. Thomas Clarkson’s
History of the Rise, Progress & Accomplishment of the Abolition of the Slave Trade
contains excellent ship drawings and blueprints that illustrate the crowded unlivable conditions aboard the slave ships. The journal of slaver Richard Drake provides a graphic account of life aboard a slave ship:
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I am growing sicker every day of this business of buying and selling human beings for beasts of burden… On the eighth day [out at sea] I took my round of the half deck, holding a camphor bag in my teeth; for the stench was hideous. The sick and dying were chained together. I saw pregnant women give birth to babies whilst chained to corpses, which our drunken overseers had not removed. The blacks were literally jammed between decks as if in a coffin, and a coffin that dreadful hold became to nearly one half of our cargo before we reached Bahia
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Another quote from a Dr. Alexander Falconbridge describes a similar scene:
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Some wet and blowing weather having occasioned the portholes to be shut, and the grating to be covered, fluxes and fevers among the negroes ensued. While they were in this situation, my profession requiring it, I frequently went down among them, till at length their apartments became so extremely hot as to be only sufferable 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 mucous 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 to itself a situation more dreadful or disgusting. Numbers of the slaves having fainted, they were carried up on deck, where several of them died and the rest were, with great difficulty, restored...
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These two excerpts taken from the Smithsonian Institute’s online exhibits on slavery
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provide more detail about the Middle Passage. If you allow your students to analyze the first quote they might get the impression that the Middle Passage wasn’t all that bad. In fact, the author suggests that the slaves “enjoyed” themselves. The second is a more personal account by one who actually experienced the middle passage.
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‘‘The schooners were fitted with bulkheads, in the fashion of regular slavers.... The largest males were packed first in the hold, sitting cross-legged in rows, back to back. They faced each other closely, and a hundred were thus crammed into each schooner under decks. The women and girls were all stowed in one hold. After securing these below, about fifty were tied around the masts and rails of both vessels; and by this time every available foot of space had been covered with black flesh. The slaves are to get two meals a day, of boiled beans or rice; each has a light wooden dish and spoon tied about the neck. The gangs are to come on deck, in fine weather, to dance and enjoy themselves.’’
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- Richard Drake, an Englishman who immigrated to the United States and worked on slave ships from 1807 to 1857. The incidents above took place in May 1808 aboard the
Coralline
.
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And:
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‘‘After being about 15 days out to sea a heavy squall struck the ship. The poor slaves below, altogether unprepared for such an occurrence, were mostly thrown to the side, where they lay heaped on the top of each other; their fetters rendered many of them helpless, and before they could be arranged in the proper places, and relieved from their pressure on each other, it was found that 15 of them were smothered or crushed to death. The captain seemed considerably vexed; but the only grievance to him was the sudden loss of some five or six thousand dollars.’’
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- Zamba Zemola told his story in
The Life and Adventures of Zamba, an African Negro King; and his Experience of Slavery in South Carolina,
published in 1847.
While both are technically accurate, the latter better provides students with the essential horror of the Middle Passage. Also, by allowing the students to analyze both primary documents it allows them to understand the subjective nature of historical record and the importance of using more than one source.
To reinforce the terrible journey that was the middle passage, the class should view the famous scene in the film Amistad which vividly portrays the horrible and tragic details of the Middle Passage. This is a good example of Hollywood’s effort to accurately present African history from an African point of view. It also tells the story of Africans for their sake, not as a back drop for another plot; one disconnected from the essence of Africa.
Slavery in the Colonies
As the class follows Africans off their continent and across the ocean, it is worth while to examine the new lives that these enslaved Africans were starting. To generate thoughts and access prior knowledge, the teacher should conduct a “word web” or “chalk talk” activity. Once the ideas and images surrounding the conditions of slavery, the teacher will show any clip from the film The Patriot where the lead character is seen interacting with his slaves.
Although the primary focus of this film is on a southern planter’s role in the American War for Independence, it glosses over the place slavery had in this man’s life. When slaves are shown they are often presented in as content and almost as employees or peers instead of slaves. This film is a typical light treatment of the slavery issue that has plagued American history, historiography, and film for many years. Ask your students, what would people think if they only saw this film’s point of view about slavery? Based on this film, how would you describe slavery? Does this new description match the descriptive terms generated by the word web or chalk talk written on the board? This further reinforces the need to use multiple sources when studying history and provided a framework for analyzing later films. Excerpts from this film can be shown as a stark contrast to a film like
Amistad
, or
Sankofa
.
Sankofa is a film about the slave experience from the point of view of a self-absorbed twentieth-century African model. In it, she is transported back to the days of slavery where she has become a house slave on a Louisiana plantation. As a slave, she slowly realizes the importance of resistance to slavery. She eventually returns to Africa more interested in her African heritage than the photo shoot she was whisked away from. This film is a great tool to teach the Atlantic slave trade from an African point of view.
I plan to use the film Sankofa when teaching about the Atlantic slave trade and its impact on African society. See Lesson four (4) below for activity. The treatment of slavery this film will be compared and contrasted with the treatment of slavery in popular films from Hollywood.
