| Not everyone who came to the English colonies came by choice.
Africans were forcibly taken to the Americas from their African
homelands during the slave trade. Like all immigrants that
came to America, Africans brought with them their culture and language.
The following globe activity shows how well the African culture has
endured in a particular part of the United States.
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| On your globe, find and circle the country of Sierra Leone in
western Africa. Sierra Leone's location is 8N/12W. Next, place a small
"X" on the east coast of Georgia at 31N/81W. Your X should be on the
coast about half way between Jacksonville, FL and the Georgia/South
Carolina border. Use the globe mounting ring as a straight edge to draw
a line connecting these two locations.
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| Near the Georgia location that you marked on your globe, are some
coastal islands called the Barrier Islands. In the 1700s African slaves
were brought to these islands to work on large rice plantations. People
who are descendants of these slaves still live there today. When the
recording of a song that had been passed down in one of these families
for generations was recently played in a remote village in Sierra Leone,
the villagers recognized it and sang along with the recording. They
could not believe that the song had been recorded in the United States.
The song is thought to be over 2,000 years old, but it is still being
sung in the United States today.
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| Look again at the line that you drew between Sierra Leone and
Georgia. This line is close to the sea routes that many slave ships
followed from Africa to the colonies. This route made up one segment of
the triangular trade route and was often referred to as
the Middle Passage. What is the distance of this route? (1.)
__________________________________________________ If a ship averaged
about 70 miles per day over the entire route of a Middle Passage, how
long would it take to make such a voyage? (2.)
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