hist.g5.f.geo.atlantic_world_geography_triangular_trade
Apply NCGE Five Themes of Geography (LOCATION / PLACE / HUMAN-ENVIRONMENT INTERACTION / MOVEMENT / REGIONS) at Atlantic World scale, including the Triangular Trade routes
Locate on the Atlantic World map (MG-1): (a) West African coastal kingdoms — Kongo, Asante, Dahomey, Oyo, Senegambia; (b) Caribbean sugar islands — Saint-Domingue (Haiti), Jamaica, Barbados, Cuba; (c) Brazil; (d) the 13 English colonies organized into 3 regions (MG-3); (e) the major Spanish, French, and Dutch territorial claims (Florida, Louisiana, Canada, former New Netherland). Trace the Triangular Trade routes (MG-5): Europe → Africa (manufactured goods); Africa → Americas (enslaved Africans via the Middle Passage); Americas → Europe (sugar, tobacco, rice, indigo, molasses). Trace the New England sub-cycle: Caribbean → New England (molasses); New England → Caribbean (rum); New England → West Africa (rum). Compute decimals: shilling/pence colonial currency conversions; square-feet-per-captive ratios. Apply NCGE Five Themes: LOCATION (latitude/longitude of Boston, Philadelphia, Charleston, Jamestown, Cape Coast Castle Ghana); PLACE (physical and cultural features of each); HUMAN-ENVIRONMENT INTERACTION (sugar-cane monoculture and Caribbean ecology; tobacco depleting Chesapeake soil); MOVEMENT (the Triangular Trade as a single global system, not three separate trades); REGIONS (the 13 Colonies organized into 3 regional economies — MG-3).
- Believing the Triangular Trade was three separate trades — it was one integrated global system.
- Believing the Middle Passage was a 'crossing' — it was a forced 4-6 week voyage during which ~15% of captives died.
- Believing only Africa was 'colonized' — the Americas were also colonized; both have parallel histories of European imperial extraction.
- Believing the West African coast was 'primitive' — Kongo, Asante, Dahomey, Oyo, Songhai were sovereign kingdoms with complex governments, art, religion, and trade networks long before European arrival.