• The elements of slavery in the colonies in the seventeenth century (e.g., the emergence of chattel slavery in Virginia and Maryland, why free labor and chattel slavery did not provide an alternative for labor in the Chesapeake colonies before 1675).
• Growth and change in the European colonies during the two centuries following their founding (e.g., the arrival of Africans in the European colonies in the seventeenth century, rapid increase of slave importation in the eighteenth century).
• Elements of African slavery during the colonial period in North America (e.g. relocation of enslaved Africans to the Caribbean and North America, the slave trade and "the middle passage").
• Ways slavery shaped social and economic life in the South after 1800 (e.g. how the cotton gin and the opening of new lands in the South and West led to increased demands for slaves; differences in the lives of plantation owners, poor free black and white families, and the enslaved; methods of passive and active resistance to slavery; escaped slaves and the Underground Railroad).
• Different economic, cultural, and social characteristics of slavery after 1800 (e.g. the influence of the Haitian Revolution and the ending of the Atlantic slave trade, how the enslaved forged their own culture in the face of oppression, the role of the plantation system in shaping slaveholders and the enslaved, the experiences of escaped slaves).

• The Domestic Slave Trade
• Graphing paper or a database computer program

1. Print out and make a transparency or class set of the chart showing the distribution of "African slaves in the Americas during the Atlantic Trade, 1450-1870" that is based on information in The African Slave Trade by Philip Curtin. 1-065 C
2. Ask students to do the following:

   1. Count the number of modern nations to which Africans were brought.
   2. Answer the questions: (a) to which nation were more people transported than any other and (b) to which region of the Americas were the most Africans brought?
   3. Hypothesize why North America was the least common destination.

3. Explain that this chart shows the dispersal of the people of Africa across the Americas, but that it doesn't show their geographic dispersal within the United States. Ask students to hypothesize whether they think that Africans were dispersed equally by age and sex across the United States. For age and sex in the Transatlantic Slave Trade see 1-022 T and 1-023 T

1. Direct students to read the narrative, The Domestic Slave Trade, focusing first on the section, "Victims of the Trade." Discuss the segment with the students and have them retrieve the following data for use in their graphs or charts:

   1. What percentage of the enslaved population of the United States lived in Louisiana?
   2. What percentage of the people brought to the slave markets of New Orleans was male? What percentage was female?
   3. What percentage of the people brought to the slave markets of New Orleans were men over 30? What percentage of people brought to the slave markets of New Orleans were women over 30? What percentage of people brought to the slave markets of New Orleans were young (newborn to 10-year old) boys? What percentage of people brought to the slave markets of New Orleans were young (newborn to 10-year old) girls? Calculate the percentage of "young and likely" (aged 10-29) individuals brought to the slave markets of New Orleans who were men. Calculate the percentage of "young and likely" (aged 10-29) individuals brought to the slave markets of New Orleans who were women.
   4. With the exception of Louisiana, what percentage of the domestic slave trade were males between 10 and 29? What percentage of the domestic slave trade were children under 10? Is it possible to calculate the percentage of individuals sold in the domestic slave trade that were females between 10 and 29?
   5. If children under 10 made up 18% of the domestic slave trade, and most were sold with their mothers, yet one third (33%) were separated from one or both parents by the age of 14, what conclusions can you draw about the likelihood of a child between 10 and 14 being sold?

2. Ask students to create four graphs or charts (either a bar, line, or pie) to reflect the information they collected from the narrative in procedure 1, questions a-d.
3. Once the charts are completed, ask students to compare and contrast their information from Louisiana with the overall United States domestic slave trade. What similarities do they see? What differences?
4. What generalizations can they make about the dispersal of enslaved persons through the domestic slave trade? Were women as likely as men to be sold? What age group was most likely to be sold, or was there equal risk for those under 10, over 30, and those 10-29?
5. As follow up, you may ask students to conduct research to gather additional information for conversion from raw data into graphs and charts. For example, in the narrative Runaway Journeys, they could compare the numbers of escaped slaves reported in 1850 and 1860 (in the segment, "The Consequences of the Migration") or gather information comparing the number of slaves imported from Africa for sale in South Carolina, Georgia, and English/U.S. Florida to those who were "seasoned," i.e. born in North America or the Caribbean. They might also compare the numbers of slaves in rural areas with those in urban areas: Spanish Florida's colonial records and U.S. Census records are particularly useful sources of data for this information.

Ask students to write a paragraph, evaluating the accuracy of the following hypothesis, using the data that they gathered and charted: "Enslaved persons were dispersed equally through the domestic slave trade, regardless of age or sex."

Evaluate on a five-point scale (which may be multiplied for weighting) or five letter-grade rubric as follows:

• The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture maintains a digital exhibition, The African Presence in America: 1492-1992, which includes maps, charts, print and still picture images that reflect the ethnic diversity of Africans in America. The support materials include a general bibliography, children's bibliography, teacher resources, and a timeline. An overview of migration and additional statistics are provided at: http://www.si.umich.edu/CHICO/Schomburg/text/migration.html.

• Language Arts/English: While turning people into statistical data is important for understanding large trends, it also tends to dehumanize them. In conjunction with the statistical study, coordinate with writing teachers to remind students that the domestic slave trade is about individuals, just like them. Ask students to write an interior monologue about the trauma of being sold from the point of view of either one of the following individuals mentioned in the narrative, Domestic Slave Trade, or a fictional character based on real experiences of such slaves: Francis Fedric, John Brown, Sella Martin, or Charles Ball. The best of the monologues might form a segment for the school literary magazine or a dramatic performance, for example during Black History Month, either at the high school or as a visiting performance to students in elementary or middle school.
• Sociology/Psychology: Ask students to examine the most recent studies and their findings about the effect on the individual and society of forced separation of husbands and wives, or children from families. Based on these findings, students should assess the impact of the domestic slave trade on the individuals involved and on society (especially the community of the enslaved and free people of color).