On Board The Unity
1761-1763

Educational website

The educational website ‘Slave voyage aboard The Unity’ showcases the triangular or transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans from the perspective of a slave voyage aboard the ship The Unity. Authentic sources were used to develop the content and assignments. An important source is the archives of the Middelburg Commerce Compagnie (MCC).

Contents

The educational website ‘Slave voyage aboard The Unity’ consists of various aspects: short multidisciplinary lessons using worksheets, enrichment lessons based on discussion, viewing and research assignments and suggestions for processing lessons. The lessons and the assignments are linked to The Unity’s blog.

Teachers who wish to pay attention to the subject of triangle trade can work with a selection of the offerings in the introduction, enrichment and processing lessons. Based on the content of the lessons each teacher can decide which levels are appropriate for their students.

For students, learning how to interpret and use archival documents (including texts and visual sources) is paired with (new) media usage, giving media usage a historical component. The central questions are the following: How do we use informational sources (i.e. how are they processed and interpreted), what can we learn from them and what kind of insights can they provide us with?

The project therefore contains many so-called ‘21st century skills and competences’: communication, independent learning, teamwork, ICT-literacy, creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving thinking, and social and cultural skills.

Aims

Students are introduced to primary sources on the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans, and acquire knowledge about the triangle trade via authentic historical sources and supplementary visual material and information. Students gain valuable research skills through the use of these authentic historical sources.

• Students learn to sift for, order and critically examine information gathered from digital and non-digital sources.
• Students learn to ask meaningful questions on societal issues and are able to take up and defend a well-argued point of view, as well as handle any criticism respectfully.
• Students learn to use historical sources to form an understanding of the time period and apply this to their own cultural-historic background.
• Students learn to place events, developments and people in their own time period and learn to connect those with events and developments of the 20th and 21st centuries.
• Students learn about current human trafficking and its effect on individuals and society as a whole (nationally, European and internationally), learn about the interdependence within the world and to place the importance of human rights within international cooperation.

Visit the educational website ‘Slavetrade aboard The Unity’