What can We LEARN FROM A PASSENGER LIST?
Everyone in America has come from some other place. America has always been diverse and multi-cultural. There are many families that have come for a better life. Still to this day we are a country that is working towards a melting pot, religious freedom, and political tolerance. Also many African immigrants were forced here and were enslaved for many years. It will take many chapters in our course to get to the time when slavery was abolished and the Constitution and country began to try and reconstruct itself. So we will use these passenger list to answer the historical question above.
Pair share questions:
• What are the biggest differences between the two ships?
• What does this information tell you about the differences between
New England and Virginia in the 1630s?
Examining Passenger Lists
• What do you think will change once plantation owners in the Chesapeake area begin replacing indentured servants with African slaves?
• Imagine the setting: Officials are collecting this information as passengers board the ship? Is the setting noisy or orderly? Are officials guaranteed to get accurate information? How do you explain the fact that all the passengers swore allegiance to the Church of England (we know that many immigrants were religious dissenters, like the Puritans who were escaping because ofreligious persecution)?
• What more do you want to know about these passengers? What information is missing from these lists? How might you go about finding that information?
Citations:
Passenger list from the ship Planter, which sailed from London to Boston in 1635.
http://www.olivetreegenealogy.com/ships/neng_planter1635.shtml
Passenger lists from the ship America from London, England to Chesapeake, Virginia.
http://www.olivetreegenealogy.com/ships/tova_america1635.shtml
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2015/02/immigration-america
Pair share questions:
• What are the biggest differences between the two ships?
• What does this information tell you about the differences between
New England and Virginia in the 1630s?
Examining Passenger Lists
• What do you think will change once plantation owners in the Chesapeake area begin replacing indentured servants with African slaves?
• Imagine the setting: Officials are collecting this information as passengers board the ship? Is the setting noisy or orderly? Are officials guaranteed to get accurate information? How do you explain the fact that all the passengers swore allegiance to the Church of England (we know that many immigrants were religious dissenters, like the Puritans who were escaping because ofreligious persecution)?
• What more do you want to know about these passengers? What information is missing from these lists? How might you go about finding that information?
Citations:
Passenger list from the ship Planter, which sailed from London to Boston in 1635.
http://www.olivetreegenealogy.com/ships/neng_planter1635.shtml
Passenger lists from the ship America from London, England to Chesapeake, Virginia.
http://www.olivetreegenealogy.com/ships/tova_america1635.shtml
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2015/02/immigration-america