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Sharing African-American History |
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 Contact the Education Programs Administrator at 410-222-1919 x212 or via email for availability, bookings, and more information.
Sharing African American History:
The Sharing African American History program at Historic London Town and Gardens is based on archaeological discoveries, archival research and oral histories.
Students learn about the life experiences and contributions of African indentured servants, enslaved people, and free Blacks who worked alongside European settlers at the circa 1683 tobacco port settlement of London Town. They will also gain insight into the lives of nineteenth-century African Americans who lived and worked in the Anne Arundel County Almshouse from circa 1828 to 1965. The teacher’s packet with pre- and post-visit activities is here.
Students will have the opportunity to use 18th century tools and technology to gain an understanding of the labor involved in growing, harvesting, and shipping tobacco-- the basis of Maryland's economy. Students will also learn basic wood working skills and other trades essential to a colonial seaport.
Program Objectives:
- Learn how archival documents and physical evidence (artifacts) can tell us about the past.
- Learn a new type of historical investigation of disenfranchised people by using artifacts as a primary source.
- Use deductive reasoning, based on the best archival and physical evidence, to develop theories of how African Americans lived their daily lives at London Town
- Learn how tobacco played a large part in the gradual institutionalization of slavery in London Town and the New World.
- Learn how slaves lived and the various jobs they performed in the tobacco port of London Town.
- Develop a comprehensive time line of the African American presence at London Town since 1683.
 Lessons Used:
The following are some of the individual lessons used. Not all lessons are used in every program.
- Roleplay—Children dress in period clothing and are given roles of actual people of London Town.
- Spinning Room—Children experience hands-on the process of making clothing from flax and wool.
- Seaport Room—Children learn about ship life, tobacco trade, mercantile system, ropemaking, and the Triangle Trade.
- Lord Mayor’s Tenement—Children experience daily life of children in the 18th Century, including helping to prepare meals.
- Kitchen Garden and African American Demonstration Garden reveal the versatility of 18th century gardens. Children have the opportunuty to harvest produce to cook on the hearth in the Lord Mayor’s Tenement.
- Tools and Tobacco-- Children learn about the labor involved in growing tobacco, and work with the tools and technology of the 18th century.
- Rumney/ West Site-- Children visit a completed archaeological excavation in order to learn about the material culture left behind by African Americans and how archaeologists can interpret the artifacts to interpret the lives of past people.
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