Amazing Grace

"Amazing Grace" is based on the life of British Member of Parliament, William Wilberforce, and his friends who worked together to pass a  bill to end the slave trade in the British Empire in 1807. The United States, influenced by Wilberforce and his collegues, officially abolished slavery on January 1, 1808. Motivated by his deep faith in God, Wilberforce also launched a social and moral campaign known as "the Reformation of Manners". Surrounded by like-minded people, he helped create over sixty organizations that tackled issues including: child labour protection laws, universal education for children, health care for the poor, prevention of cruelty to animals and of devastation caused by poverty in all forms. It has been said, "He made goodness fashionable.".

The Horrors of the ´Middle Passage

You have been kidnapped from your home in Africa, yanked from your family and friends and forced to travel by foot with your captors. You do not understand what they are saying, and you have no idea where you are being taken. Their skin looks strange and pale. You are taken to a ship. Your captors trade you for guns and other manufactured goods offered by slave traders. Then the slave traders take you aboard the ship and place you below deck. They make you lie in tiny spaces and put you in chains and manacles. It is suffocating, hot and crowded. The stink of perspiration, human waste, and death overwhelmes your senses, as do the shrieks, cries and groans of your fellow enslaved Africans. On this seemingly endless trip to Americas, you watch in horror as slave traders throw people overboard - some who are dead, some who are still alive.

This was a grim journey known as the Middle Passage, the route of slave trading ships from the west coast of Africa, where Africans were kidnapped away from their families, across the Atlantic to the Americas and the Caribbean. In this new land they were sold as slaves or, in some cases, traded for goods such as molasses, which was used in the making of rum. The Middle Passage was the longest, hardest, most dangerous, and most horrible part of the journey of the slave ships, a miserable voyage lasting two to four months. Incredibly profitable for borth slave traders and their investing partners. The Middle Passage was a journey into injustice, cruelty and unimaginable human suffering.


Research first-person accounts of the Middle Passage journey online: www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/slaveship.htm

Present:  -What would this journey be like on the the first day? The last?
              - How could anyone survive it?
              - What would be the worst aspect of such a voyage?
              - Do you think the average British citizen had any idea how human beings were treated in the slave trade? Why or why not?


Discuss:

1. You can base your discussion essay completely on the movie Amazing Grace.
- Discuss three aspects of slave trade as it is shown in the movie and the story of the eye witness.

2. You can discuss causes and effects of slave trade in our time.
- Discuss trafficking and/or other trading with people

3. You can discuss the problem with either the slave trade in the movie or human trading today.
- Describe the problem and give three solutions to it

4. You can discuss child labouring today
 - Discuss causes and effects of child labouring

5. You can discuss education for children around the world
- Discuss either causes - effects, different aspects or describe the problem and give solutions

6. You can discuss poverty in the world
- Discuss causes and effects of poverty

Write your discussion essay according the hand out "Writing Activities"
You should use formal language and add linking words
The length of your essay should be approximately one and a half to two pages