Alabama Social Studies SS24.4.3a
The Standard
- SS24.4.3
- Explain the reasons for the establishment of the labor systems used in colonial America, including apprenticeship, indentured servitude, and slavery, and describe the differences among them.
Describe the triangular trade system, including the Middle Passage of the transatlantic slave trade, and describe the experiences of West Africans before and after being kidnapped and forced into slavery.
2024 Alabama Course of Study: Social Studies
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students trace routes between Europe, West Africa, and the Americas. They describe West African life before kidnapping, conditions aboard ships, and forced labor after arrival.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student marks the routes on a map and identifies what moved along each one. They explain that kidnapped West Africans had families and communities before capture and did not choose to cross the Atlantic.
Common Misconceptions
- Some students think every ship completed the full triangle or that Africans chose to leave home. Others assume West Africans had no established communities before they were kidnapped.
How to Assess It
- Give students a blank Atlantic map. Ask them to mark the routes, label goods separately from kidnapped people, and write one sentence about West African life before capture and after arrival.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Use three colors of yarn on an Atlantic map to trace trade routes, then label goods separately from kidnapped people.
Read an age-appropriate excerpt about a West African community and ask, 'What did people lose when they were taken?'
Give pairs place and cargo cards to match to routes, then ask them to explain why kidnapped people are not cargo.
Find Liverpool, Cape Coast, and Charleston on a current map, then compare their locations with a historical trade map.
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Printable SS24.4.3a Worksheet
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Related Standards
- SS24.US1.8a
Analyze the domestic slave trade/forced migration, labor, and variations in the practice of slavery in different areas of the United States.
- SS24.8.13
Analyze the economic, political, and social effects of the transatlantic slave trade on African societies and American colonies.
- SS24.6.6
Trace the economic and cultural interactions across continents and the colonies resulting from the triangular trade routes, including the forced migration of Af...
- SS24.8.13a
Describe the conditions and treatment of enslaved Africans during the Middle Passage and in the Americas.
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