Design a memorial

The Mayor of London has given his support to a memorial statue in London commemorating resistance to slavery and the abolition of the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans.

Your FLO task is to design a memorial for the slave trade. It could be a statue but it doesn't have to be: there are memorial prizes, concerts, gardens, scholarships and buildings...

It should be a memorial to the people who struggled against the trade in enslaved Africans. They included:

• enslaved people who resisted actively or passively
• leaders who organised revolts
• black and white campaigners against the slave trade
• MPs who argued against the slave trade
• the huge numbers of people who signed petitions

If you want to explore the stories and issues more fully online you can visit here or here or here (ignore the tasks, just look at the links).

To help you think....

Here are some examples of different memorials:

Here are some memorials to the slave trade in Africa and the Caribbean:

Here is a model of the memorial planned for London:

Can you do better?

Did Hadrian care about his people?

Complete the survey here.

The biggest military power in the 21st century is the USA .
"When the USA sneezes the whole world catches cold." These words were used 80 years ago but apply today to economic crises and wars.
President Bush faces many problems in 2008: the economy, foreign wars, security and his own image. His successor will face the same problems.
The biggest military power in the 2nd century was the Roman Empire which stretched across three continents.
The Emperor Hadrian faced many problems in the year 117: the economy, foreign wars, security and his own image. Perhaps not much has changed....

How did Hadrian tackle these problems?

Our big question is:

Was Hadrian interested in making life better for his people?

YOUR TASK:

Hadrian wanted to improve his people’s lives
Hadrian wanted to defend his empire from enemies
Hadrian wanted to be popular with his people
Hadrian wanted to show everyone that he was in charge

Do you agree with all of these statements? Some of them? None of them? What's your evidence?
Create a PowerPoint presentation to show your views.

WHERE TO GET INFORMATION etc

Watch the online videos:

Introduction

A new emperor

The imperial palace

Building the wall

The power of image

(Don't worry if you don't have speakers or headphones: there are subtitles!)

Use information from the resource sheets.
Use images from the image slide show.

You can also look at an example of how to lay out your presentation.

Across the Atlantic

In the 15th century there were important civilisations and empires on both sides of the Atlantic.

In West Africa, the powerful kingdom of Benin.

In North Africa, the Muslim Empire of Songhay (or Songhai).

In Central America, the Aztec Empire.

In the South American Andes mountains, the Incas.

Your task is to find out about these four kingdoms. Visit the websites and find our about the way people lived, what they ate, how they dressed, their beliefs, their warfare...

Then choose two objects from each society. They could be buildings, weapons, jewellery, statues, pots, clothing.... They must be objects that represent the society and people they came from.

Copy each object onto a PowerPoint slide and write on the slide why you chose that object and what it teaches us about the society it came from. Add some relevant and interesting information that you have discovered.

Remember to save the Powerpoint as you go along... Call it 'Across the Atlantic' followed by your name.

LINKS:
Benin:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/specials/1624_story_of_africa/page86.shtml

http://www.nmafa.si.edu/exhibits/beninsp.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Benin http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlights_search_results.aspx?searchText=benin
Songhay:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songhai_Empire
http://www.history.com/classroom/unesco/timbuktu/goldenage.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/specials/1624_story_of_africa/page83.shtml

Aztecs:
http://library.thinkquest.org/27981/
http://home.freeuk.net/elloughton13/mexico.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice_in_Aztec_culture
http://home.freeuk.net/elloughton13/everyday4.htm
http://www.learnenglish.org.uk/words/activities/aztecdr.htmlhttp://www.indians.org/welker/aztec.htm Incas:
http://coe.fgcu.edu/students/webb/meso/inca.htm
http://www.mythicjourneys.org/bigmyth/myths/english/eng_inca_pantheon.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incas
http://www.internet-at-work.com/hos_mcgrane/inca/eg_inca_menu1.html
http://www.crystalinks.com/incan.html
http://www.42explore2.com/inca.htm http://library.thinkquest.org/5058/inca.htm

You will have 8 slides, two for each kingdom.

THE SLAVE TRADE: topics

Choose one of these sections.


A. IDENTITY.
How do Black people of African descent see themselves and how are they seen?
Has this been affected by the legacy of slavery?
Where did racist stereotypes come from?

B. HERITAGE.
Does knowing about slavery change how we see Britain and being British?
Is there guilt or blame? Should there be?
How should we remember unpleasant and difficult stories?

C. ROUTES.
How did slavery impact on language and culture in Britain and the Americas?
What part has been played by music, art, film and popular culture?
How and why did enslaved people hold on to their own traditions?

D. ACTIVISM.
What was it like being an activist during the fight against slavery and what does it mean today?
How effective was the anti-slavery campaign and what was its impact on other protests?
What similar campaigns exist or are needed today?

The transatlantic slave trade

TASK 1:

Using Comic Book on the Mac, create a comic strip story of the chattel slave trade.
It can be the personal story of one enslaved African.
It can be the general history of what happened.
Find images here: Image library

What to include:

Life in Africa before slavery.

Capture and imprisonment on the coast.

The 'Middle Passage' - slave ship journey to America.

Rebellion.

Slave auction.

Life on the plantation.

Plantation crops: sugar, cotton, tobacco.

TASK 2:

The Slave Trade, how Britain got rich
and our world today.

Before 1500 England was a small northern European country most people in the world hadn’t heard of. Cities in China, Turkey, India, South and Central America and Africa were as rich as or richer than London.

By 1900 London was the richest city in the world and Europe was far more powerful than Africa or Asia. The world we live in was shaped then. It is a very different world from the one people lived in 500 years ago.

Was the trade in enslaved Africans the reason for this? If so, why? If not, why not? Were there other factors, too?

You will try to answer this and other questions to look at the link between their past and our present.

WHAT TO DO

You must:

• tell the story of the triangular trade and what happened to enslaved Africans
• explain the link between this trade and Britain’s wealth
• describe life on the slave plantations
• find out about slave resistance and rebellion
• find out how the slave trade was abolished (got rid of)
• choose at least one of topics A,B,C,D to investigate

design a memorial to the slave trade


HOW TO DO IT

You are going to create a multimedia disk exploring questions connected with the slave trade and how Britain got rich. You will use artwork, animation, film, your own music, drama role play and writing. All your work will be put on a disk. You must include at least 4 of the following (it can be more):

• well structured writing, either word processed or handwritten (then scanned)
• your own original artwork including a design for your disk cover
• an electronic presentation (PowerPoint or similar)
• a paper display (photographed)
• a story in comic form (using ComicLife)
• a stop motion animation using stills
• music that you have composed (blues, reggae, soul, gospel….)
• music soundtracks linked to slavery, resistance or freedom
• a review of a commercial film about the slave trade (we have a selection on DVD)
• a short film that you have made (to get ideas go to www.runnymedetrust.org/vap for over 30 one-minute films on slavery made by young people)
• a role play that you create, practise and then film
  
  Here are some links

Artefacts

Maps

Sound files

Video clips:

Hostages

Picking cotton

Rebellion on ship

The slave ship Zong

On ship role play

On a slave ship

Horrors of the Middle Passage

Rights of slaves

Escape

Women slave working

Sugar production

Slave auction

Cotton fields

Sugar cane and work songs

Slave owner

Chant for freedom

Slavery