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The Domestic Slave Trade
Mapping the Domestic Slave Trade
Overview
The website includes many maps among its resource materials. The lesson, Mapping the Domestic Slave Trade, is designed to help students develop their analytical skills when examining historical maps by focusing on Map 5, The Domestic Slave Trade 1820–1829 (which compliments the narrative The Domestic Slave Trade.) Students will learn to examine a map for data which supports textual information about the Constitution, Congressional legislation, and the historic U.S. economy. Students will focus on data in the maps to determine whether the 1808 Slave Importation clause of the Constitution, the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, the Missouri Compromise, and the 1793 invention of the cotton gin had an impact of the migration of African-Americans between 1790 and 1829.
Grade Levels:Middle school, grades 6–8
For use with:Domestic Slave Trade
Concentration Area:Geography
National Curriculum Standards met by this lesson
The following standards have been taken from the Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McRel) standards.
Students will understand

  • Understand patterns of change and continuity in the historical succession of related events
  • Understand the influence specific ideas and beliefs had on a period of history
  • Analyze the effects specific decisions had on history
  • Use historical maps to understand the relationship between historical events and geography
Time required
This lesson is expected to take one 50-minute class period if no homework is assigned.
Materials needed
Anticipatory Set

  1. Provide a copy of the map to each student or work with an enlarged display print copy, transparency, or a captured on-screen image so all students may look at it at the same time.
  2. Ask students either aloud or in the form of a worksheet to answer the following questions:

    1. What is the main title of the map?
    2. What are the time periods of the two inset and main maps?
    3. What direction is north on these maps?
    4. What does the color green represents on these maps, according to the key?
    5. What does the color red represents on these maps, according to the key?
    6. What does the dotted area represent on the main map, according to the key?
    7. What states are represented on the insert map labeled 1790–1799?
    8. What states are added to the insert map labeled 1820–1829?
    9. Define "natural increase" and "natural growth rate."
  3. Discuss with students the following questions:

    1. Which states that were slave importers during the decade 1790–1799 became slave exporters during the decade 1820–1829?
    2. Which state during the period 1820–1829 exported the most enslaved people? How many?
    3. Which state during the period 1820–1829 imported the most enslaved people? How many?
    4. What happened to the number of total estimated importations between the decade 1790–1799 and the decade1820–1829?
    5. What happened to the number of total estimated exportations between the decade 1790–1799 and the decade 1820–1829?
  4. Explain to students that maps help us to visually organize and understand relationships between historical events, geography, and statistical data. Ask them to hypothesize why the mapmaker included "sugar parishes" on the main map about the domestic slave trade, 1820–1829. Then explain that sugar cultivation was introduced into Louisiana by Jesuit priests in 1751 but that it wasn't until 1795 that Etienne de Boré successfully refined his crop of cane into sugar and sold it. Other planters hopped on the bandwagon between 1797 and 1803. Ask students to review the maps for evidence that Louisiana became a slave importing state due to the sugar industry. What is their evidence? How did the climate of geographical locations confine the sugar industry and how is that reflected on the maps? What was the impact of sugar cultivation on the domestic slave trade and on the overall pattern of African-American migration?
Procedures

  • Explain to students that other historical events have had an impact on African-American migration. Direct them to refer to their textbook and the narrative The Domestic Slave Trade and to identify and explain the relationship between the following historical events and slavery:

  • Article I, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution, allowing importation of slaves from outside of the United States until 1808
  • The Northwest Ordinance of 1787
  • The Missouri Compromise of 1820
  • The invention of the cotton gin in 1793 and the spread of cotton cultivation through the "Old Southwest," i.e. Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana
  • The decline of tobacco, indigo and rice cultivation in favor of cotton cultivation in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida after 1793
  • Ask students to examine Map 5 and answer the following questions:

  • What evidence from the total estimated importations data in the inset maps supports the idea that the end of the international slave trade in 1808 caused the domestic slave trade to increase? What evidence explains which states became suppliers of slaves in the domestic trade after 1808?
  • What evidence from the domestic slave trade maps supports the idea that the Northwest Ordinance had an impact on the spread of slavery (and thereby African-American migration) to the states that formed the "Old Northwest," i.e. Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and parts of Iowa and Minnesota?
  • What evidence from the domestic slave trade maps supports the idea that the Missouri Compromise of 1820 had an impact on the spread of slavery (and thereby African-American migration) to the territories of Maine, Missouri, Arkansas (part of Missouri until 1819), and Michigan?
  • What evidence from the domestic slave trade maps supports the idea that the invention of the cotton gin in 1793 had an impact on slavery (and thereby African-American migration)?
  • What evidence from the domestic slave trade maps supports the idea that the growth of cotton cultivation and the corresponding decline of rice, indigo, and tobacco cultivation in favor of cotton cultivation had an impact on which states were slave importers and which slaves were slave exporters (and thereby had an impact on African-American migration)?
  • What evidence from the maps supports Tadman's two assertions, that "the first key factor in creating the domestic slave trade was an insatiable demand for slave labor from expanding plantation regions in the South. The second essential factor was the availability of a ready supply of slaves."
  • Assessment

    1. Ask students to write a 5-paragraph essay explaining how geography, legislation, and economic changes impacted the domestic slave trade and African-American migration and to assess which factor, in their opinion, had the greatest impact on the history of slavery and African-American migration.
    2. Evaluate on a twenty-point scale (which may be multiplied by 5 to convert to 100-point scale or for conversion to letter grades) using the following rubric:
      Excellent Good Fair Not Satisfactory No Work
      Historical Comprehension

      10 points
      (10) Written assignment demonstrates excellent historical

      •analysis of information

      •command of facts

      •synthesis of information

      •balance in treatment of geographic, economic, and legislative factors

      •interpretation and evaluation of the relative importance of the factors
      (9-8) Written assignment demonstrates good historical

      •analysis of information

      •command of facts

      •synthesis of information

      •balance in treatment of geographic, economic, and legislative factors

      •interpretation and evaluation of the relative importance of the factors
      (7-6) Written assignment shows fair historical

      •analysis of information

      •command of facts

      •synthesis of information

      •balance in treatment of geographic, economic, and legislative factors

      •interpretation and evaluation of the relative importance of the factors
      (5-1) Written assignment shows little historical

      •analysis of information

      •command of facts

      •synthesis of information

      •balance in treatment of geographic, economic, and legislative factors

      •interpretation and evaluation of the relative importance of the factors
      0
      Technical Writing Skills

      10 points
      (10) Written assignment shows excellent

      •compositional structure

      •sentence structure and variety

      •vocabulary use

      •grammar, spelling, punctuation
      (9-8) Written assignment shows good

      •compositional structure

      •sentence structure and variety

      •vocabulary use

      •grammar, spelling, punctuation
      (7-6) Written assignment shows adequate

      •compositional structure

      •sentence structure and variety

      •vocabulary use

      •grammar, spelling, punctuation
      (5-1) Written assignment shows inadequate

      •compositional structure

      •sentence structure and variety

      •vocabulary use

      •grammar, spelling, punctuation
      0

    Related Works

    • The United States Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistics Service is a rich source of statistical information in charts, maps, and graphs about U.S. crops and livestock since 1980. Teachers who wish to compare and contrast the historical cultivation of cotton with contemporary production and distribution may wish to visit http://www.usda.gov/nass/
    • The National Park Service has a pair of maps showing the historical distribution of cotton in 1820 and subsequently in 1850 at http://www.cr.nps.gov/seac/beneathweb/ch13.htm
    Interdisciplinary Links

    • Art – Ask students to superimpose where cotton was cultivated over the inset map for 1790–1799 and the main map of the Domestic Slave Trade 1820–1829. Then, ask students to create a map of cotton cultivation in 1860 on the eve of the Civil War and hypothesize about what other areas may have become slave importing states or territories in the years between 1830 and 1860. Finally, ask students to suggest where they could find information to confirm their hypothesis. Students may create maps by hand on paper, in modeling medium, or on transparencies; alternately they may generate them on a computer.
    • Economics – Ask students to examine data provided by the National Cotton Organization or the U.S. Department of Agriculture about where cotton is produced in the United States today. What is the correlation between where it is produced today and the following a) climate b) areas developed during the era of slavery and c) geographical features such as mountains, sources of water, and urban development? Students may wish to examine U.S. Department of Agriculture data about world-wide cotton production, which countries are leaders and how a) climate b) geographical features such as mountains, sources of water, and urban development and c) availability of labor, irrigation and/or farm equipment impact which countries are cotton producers today.
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