Lesson plan – St Barthélemy and Swedish slavery (for high school)
Background information:
St Barthélemy became a Swedish colony 1784, although it was a French colony before then. Already when the Swedes arrived to the island, there were French speaking farmers and enslaved people. However, they would become much more numerous later. Sweden adopted slave laws for how the enslaved should be treated according to the Code Noir, meaning the system on the French colony Martinique.
Instructions:
Let the students meet in groups and search on swecarcol.ub.uu.se. The students should have 60–80 minutes to search, read and reflect. Alternatively, they can be given the task as a project, and present their findings at the next class.
- What types of documents can you find relating to slavery? What are they about? Take 2 or 3 examples of documents, and how they are related to slavery. (Tip! Use “Subject > Slavery” in Extended search to more easily find documents.)
- Search in ”Document category > Inventory” and ”Subject > Slavery” and find an example of a ”kvarlåtenskapshandling”, which is similar to a will. Find some examples of enslaved people. What can you learn about them? How much were they valued for, and why? What do you think happened to them after the will?
- Have any questions arisen about St Barthélemy or about slavery? Is there any information or any document you would have liked to find?
Important information:
- A lot of the documents is written in old-fashioned languge, and many in French. Some documents are also very damaged and hard to read. If you have a hard time understanding a text, try a new one!
- A lot of the language in these documents come from a society with racist values. Be prepared that sensitive language will be present.
Other teaching resources
The Swedish governmental agency The Living History Forum [Forum för levande historia] was in 2021 given the task to produce a material concerning Swedish participation in slavery and the Transatlantic slave trade. This resource is aimed at pupils in 7-9th grade in the Swedish school system, as well as for high school students and in adults education. It is only in Swedish but as most of the material is drawn from the SweCarCol archives it might be a source of inspiration also for teaching in other languages. SweCarCol's PI Fredrik Thomasson was responsible for factual content of the material: Sverige, slavhandeln och slaveriet