Studying the Amistad story will give students practice in several geographic skills, including use of maps, location of continents, countries, cities, and bodies of water; and use of cardinal directions.

• Plotting the actual route

Students will locate where Africa is and identify key geographic features of West Africa.Using the floor size map of the world students will plot out the route taken by the slave traders. Students can outline the course of the Tecora from Lomboko to Havana, Cuba, the course of the Amistad from Havana north through the Bahamas to the eastern end of Long Island, the course of the Gentlemen from New York to Sierra Leone. Students will then locate each stopping place using latitude and longitude.

1. Can you determine how many nautical miles each leg of the journey was?
2. What direction was each ship traveling?
3. How long did each course take?
4. What winds or currents did the ships meet?

• Identifying the affects of the physcial geography on the different culture.

Compare the physical and cultural geography of Cuba, Connecticut, and Mendeland or Sierra Leone in West Africa, describing the human and natural characteristics of each.

1. How did religion affect the Mende life?
2. Why did the secret societies give strength to the people of Sierra Leone?
3. How did the agricultural background of Mendeland make the people more desireable for slavery in the United States?

LINKS -

Sierra Leone

Resources of Sierra Leone

African Studies

Tourist Information