Sailors, Whalers, Fantastic Sea Voyages (1750-1900)

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We have studied sailors before, but we focused mainly on explorers and pirates, the sailors of the 17th and 18th centuries. Now that we are studying the 19th century, we took another look at the sailors of this time period. This time period was dominated by the whaling ships. The 19th century whaling industry was one of the most prominent businesses in America. Hundreds of ships setting out from ports, mostly in New England, roamed the globe, bringing back whale oil and other products made from whales. Islanders from Nantucket had taken to whaling because their soil was too poor for farming. Oil obtained from a whale’s blubber has been used for both lighting and lubricating purposes, and the bones of the whale were used to make a variety of useful products. In the early 19th century, a typical American household might contain several items manufactured from whale products, such as candles or corsets made with whalebone stays.  New Bedford, Massachusetts, became known as the world’s center of whaling, where wealthy whaling captains built large houses in the best neighborhoods. The Golden Age of American whaling extended into the 1850s, and what spelled its demise was the invention of the oil well.

scrimshaw sundial
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Scrimshaw is probably the thing we remember most from this time period, and there are a number of scrimshaw-like art projects that can be done (one is listed below), but an artform that is lesser known are Sailor's Valentines. 

These works of art were made in octagonal wooden boxes and were usually two sided and hinged, covered with a glass overlay, and closed with a heart shaped lock. When closed, the shell work is hidden and the glass protected so that the Valentines could be stored safely for travel. Many left a space for the insertion of a picture, perhaps a wedding photo or a photo of the sailor and his sweetheart. Idle hours aboard whaling ships in the 1800's was thought to be the time and place for crafting Sailor's Valentines. However the creation of Valentines was actually a cottage industry on the island of Barbados. Once a stopping point on long sea voyages, sailors happily ordered and purchased a Valentine to bring home and present to a family member or loved one.

I went with a simpler approach, but also one that had some elements of the original Sailor's Valentines. I bought octagonal boxes at a hobby store. I was hoping to find wooden ones, but settled for these small sturdy cardboard ones. I also purchased a bag of small shells and let the boys glue them on to the boxes in any fashion they wished. Quentin decided to also use some glass counters that we had on hand for his box.

Quentin's Sailor Valentine, age 8

James' Sailor Valentine, age 11

related posts:

• Whales
• How Stars Show Direction
• Ships
• Life On Board
• Latitude and Quadrants
• Longitude and Loglines
• Mapping

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inspiration and sources:

• Sailors, Whalers, Fantastic Sea Voyages: An Activity Guide to North American Sailing Life, Valerie Petrillio
• A Sailor's Valentine at Sea Kettle Diaries
• History of Sailor's Valentines at Sailor's Valentines Studio
• Moby Dick, Herman Melville
• Dark Day in the Deep Sea, Magic Tree House #39, Mary Pope Osborne
• Scrimshaw Art Project at Education.com

French Explorers in North America

Cartier Explores Canada (1535)
Cartier saw many beavers along the river. Soon demand for their fur rose in Europe
Alex's notebook page
map from Interactive 3-D Maps: American History, Scholastic

Jacques Cartier
(1491 – 1557) claimed what is now Canada for France. He was the first European to describe and map the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and its shores which he named "The country of Canadas" after the Iroquois names for the two big settlements there. 

Marquette and Joliet Explore the Upper Mississippi River (1673)
Alex's  map from Interactive 3-D Maps: American History, Scholastic

Giovanni da Verrazzano

(1485–1528) was an Italian explorer of North America, in the service of the French crown. He explored the Atlantic coast of North America between the Carolinas and Newfoundland, including New York Harbor and  Naragansette Bay in 1524. The bridge over the opening of New York harbor is named after him.

English Explorers to the New World

John Cabot

Navigator and explorer whose 1497 discovery of parts of North America is commonly held to have been the second European voyage to the continent following that of Christopher Columbus a few years prior. The official position of the Canadian and United Kingdom governments is that he landed on the island of Newfoundland.

Henry Hudson

English sea explorer and navigator in the early 17th century. After several voyages on behalf of English merchants to explore a prospective Northeast Passage to India, Hudson explored the region around modern New York City while looking for a western route to Asia under the auspices of the Dutch East India Company. He explored the river which eventually was named for him, and laid thereby the foundation for Dutch colonization of the region.

Sir Walter Raleigh
 (c. 1552 – 29 October 1618) was an English aristocrat, writer, poet, soldier, courtier, spy, and explorer. He is also well known for popularising tobacco in England.

Sir Francis Drake,
Vice Admiral (1540 – 27 January 1596) was an English sea captain, privateer, navigator, slaver, a renowned pirate, and a politician of the Elizabethan era. Elizabeth I of England awarded Drake a knighthood in 1581. He was second-in-command of the English fleet against the Spanish Armada in 1588.
His exploits were legendary, making him a hero to the English but a pirate to the Spaniards to whom he was known as El Draque. King Philip II was claimed to have offered a reward for his life.
He is famous for, among other things, leading the first English circumnavigation of the world, from 1577 to 1580.

Exploring for Spain in the New World

New World Map activity from Kaboose

Here is a great explorers notebooking page your students can use for these explorers.

Christopher Columbus

(October 1451-1506) the explorer who led to general European awareness of the American continents in the Western Hemisphere. With his four voyages of exploration and several attempts at establishing a settlement on the island of Hispaniola, all funded by Isabella I of Castile, he initiated the process of Spanish colonization which foreshadowed general European colonization of the "New World".

See Columbus Map.

Juan Ponce de Leon

A Spanish explorer who became the first Governor of Puerto Rico. He led the first European expedition to Florida, which he named. He is associated with the legend of the Fountain of Youth, reputed to be in Florida.

Vasco Núñez de Balboa

A Spanish explorer, governor, and conquistador, who is best known for having crossed the Isthmus of Panama to the Pacific Ocean in 1513, becoming the first European to lead an expedition to have seen or reached the Pacific from the New World. He traveled to the New World in 1500 and, after some exploration, settled on the island of Hispaniola.

Juan Rodriguez Oñate
(1550 – 1626) was a Spanish explorer, colonial governor of the New Spain province of New Mexico, and founder of various settlements in the present day Southwest of the United States.

Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo
 (1499 – 1543) was a Portuguese explorer noted for his exploration of the west coast of North America on behalf of Spain. Cabrillo was the first European explorer to navigate the coast of present day California in the United States. He helped found the city of Oaxaca, in Mexico

Francisco Vásquez de Coronado
(1510 – 1554) was a Spanish conquistador, who visited New Mexico and other parts of what are now the southwestern United States between 1540 and 1542. Coronado had hoped to conquer the mythical Seven Cities of Gold.

Hernando de Soto
(c.1496/1497–1542) was a Spanish conquistador who, while leading the first European expedition deep into the territory of  what is now known as the United States, was the first European documented to have crossed the Mississippi River.  

Privateers and Spanish Galleons, Phase II

There are no set routes to this phase of the game. Moves are calculated on the basis of the number of degrees earned rather than dots. This is why your students need to understand how degrees of latitude and longitude work. (You, of course, can help young players.) All moves must be made along a specific longitudinal line or specific latitudinal line or a combination of the two. For example, if a ship earns 8 degree moves and the ship's current position is 25 degrees N-30 degrees W, the ship may move N or S 8 degrees, OR E or W 8 degrees, OR any combination, such as 4 degrees N and 4 degrees E to a new coordinate position. The ships, cannot, of course, move over land, so they must adjust their course accordingly.

Moves are obtained purely by chance. Each ship's captain rolls a ten-sided (sometimes called percentage or place value) die. Each ship with gold on board moves this amount of dots. Any ship without gold, because it is lighter and more maneuverable, gets to double the amount the die shows.

Before they make their movements, however, he must take a fate card and take in account whatever fate has dealt the ship in plotting the ship's next move. The fate cards may add or subtract movement points or it may negate the roll all together. The ship's captains will then decide how and where his ship should go. At this time, the ship's captain can decide to go less than the moves earned, but any excess degrees are lost. They will record their ship's new position and give this to the teacher. After all ship's captains have turned in their new positions, they can move their ships one at a time with the teacher's supervision.

To make contact with another ship, a ship must end up at the end of a turn's movement within 2 degrees latitude and 2 degrees longitude of another ship. If contact is made, there are three options:

1. The captain of the ship can decide to engage the other ship in battle. A 10-sided die is rolled and the greater roll wins. Tie rolls are rolled again until there is a winner. If it is a ship without gold that is attacking a ship with gold and has won, the gold is now transferred to the winning ship. If neither ship has gold or the ship without the gold has lost, then the losing side loses a crew member of his choice. He must cross him off his sheet. When he is out of crew members entirely, the ship has been sunk and is out of the game. Spanish Galleons who have lost their gold in a previous attack can attack privateers ships in the hopes of regaining their gold.

2. The captain can attempt to sail away under the cover of night. They both roll the 10 sided die and if this captain wins then he successfully escaped. If he loses, the other ship can either take your gold or kidnap a crew member of your choice. When he is out of crew members entirely, the ship has been sunk and is out of the game.

3. The captain can join forces with another ship. If this is the case, both ship's captains that have joined forces roll the die and the scores are totalled together. The other ship rolls only for himself. If the ships that join forces lose, then each ship must forfeit gold/ crew members to the other ship. Also, both ships must sail on the same mutually agreed upon course for the next round, and if they make it back to port, they must share the king's prize.

The first galleon to reach either La Coruna or Cadiz wins the king's prize. The prize can just be winning the game, a candy bar, a cardboard prize ribbon, certificate, small toy or anything you would like. The ship nearest port after the winner, is second place, and so on, as far as you want to go. The privateers, however, serve a different king and their prize can be different. He can also get prizes for sinking Spanish galleons.

You may want to hold a ceremony in which their accomplishments are honored. Or, you can keep it totally low-key and award no prizes or honors at all. It all depends on if this is a motivating and fun aspect to the game or not for your students. Remind them that much of their outcome is due to the luck of rolls and card draws.

Explorers and Pirates (1420-1779) Part VII: Pirates

Make a Jolly Roger

Pirate captains flew  a flag designed to identify a ship's crew as pirates called a Jolly Roger. Generally they were black and had some variation of the classic white skull and crossbones emblem. A Jolly Roger was often raised only once the ship's target was within firing range. We shall see some of this on our second phase of Privateers and Spanish Galleons. We made our Jolly Rogers freehand, but if you would like to use a template, Disney has a template of  the pirate Jack Sparrow flew.

To make your own Jolly Roger, you'll need:

Straight pins
Sticky-back felt (white and red)
A sheet of black felt
Scissors

Decide on your design. Sketch it out on plain paper (or if you want you can print out the template) and cut out the pieces. Pin the pieces of your design onto the white felt or red felt. Cut out the felt pieces. Don't worry if you stray a bit from the lines. Arrange the cutouts as you wish on the black felt. Working with one piece at a time, peel the backing from the cutouts and stick them in place. When all the pieces are well adhered, you can pin the Jolly Roger on the wall pennant-style, or you can create a handheld flag by hot-gluing the upper portion of a wooden dowel to the side of the felt and then covering the dowel with an additional strip of black felt. Quentin decided to use masking tape to adhere his to the dowel.

Redbeard or Barbarossa

Ottoman Corsairs or Barbary Pirates were pirates and privateers who operated from North Africa. This area was known in Europe as the Barbary Coast, a term derived from the name of its Berber inhabitants. The main purpose of their attacks was to capture Christian slaves for the Islamic market in North Africa and the Middle East. The Conquest of Granada by Spain in 1492 drove many Moors out. They retaliated by piratical attacks on the Spanish coast. Barbarossa or Redbeard was the most famous pirate from this time.

Sir Francis Drake

Privateer- A privateer was a pirate authorized by a country's government by letters of marque to attack foreign shipping. Privateers were only entitled by their state to attack and rob enemy vessels during wartime.

Jim Hawkins

During the 1550's-1600, Privateers such as Sir Francis Drake and Jim Hawkins came to challenge the Spanish claim to the New World and its riches, known as the Spanish main. Their success led to to others to act as pirates rather than privateers, not restricting their attacks to Spanish ships. This is the time period that our Privateers and Spanish Galleons game is set.

 Letter of Marque -a government licence authorizing a private vessel to attack and capture enemy vessels, and bring them before admiralty courts for condemnation and sale. Cruising for prizes with a Letter of Marque was considered an honorable calling combining patriotism and profit, in contrast to unlicensed piracy which was universally disrespected.

Henry Morgan

King James I's withdrawal of all letters of marque in 1603 led to the replacement of privateers by bands of lawless buccaneers such as Sir Henry Morgan. The name buccaneer is derived from the French "boucanier", which roughly translates as "someone who smokes meat.". These pirates picked up the technique of smoking meat from the Caribbean Arawak who used this word to describe a sort of grill on which the meat was smoked. Port Royal became the center of legalized piracy encouraged by the governors of Jamaica who, acting on their own behalf, hoped to discourage any Spanish attempts to recapture the island.

Captain Kidd

The Classic era of the pirates began in the 1690's starting with Captain Kidd, and continued until about 1750 with pirates such as Blackbeard

Blackbeard

and the women pirates Mary Read and Anne Bonny.

Mary Read and Anne Bonny

There were also a few privateers during the American Revolution (1175-83) when they boosted the small American Navy and attacked merchant ships of the English, crippling trade. John Paul Jones is one of the most famous of this type of privateer.

The Aztecs (1300-1500)

We have been studying the Aztec Empire all week.  I read to the little boys from Usborne Encyclopedia of World History. We are also using the Aztec unit that we had left to do from the History Pockets Ancient Civilizations book. My boys do not like to color, so this was not a favorite activity, but variety is nice all around. In this unit is a Aztec calendar to put together and color.

There is also puppets of an Aztec man and woman to color, and some vocabulary words with pictures for them to fill in the definitions.

The best in-depth book on the Aztecs (Incans and Mayans, too) for children is made by the owner of Sonlight Curriculum, John Holtzman, Incans, Aztecs and Mayans. It gives an in-depth account of these Empires, explaining how the thought and what they did without condemning the behaviors of either the Aztecs or the Conquistadors who conquered them in 1521.

Hernan Cortes
1485 – December 2, 1547) was a Spanish conquistador who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of mainland Mexico under the rule of the King of Castile in the early 16th century.

from A Pilgrim's Heart

A Pilgrim's Heart has wonderful timelines and lapbook pieces for the Aztec and Incan Empires.
We also completed some related map activities.

Interactive 3D Maps: American History

Another activity that would be great to do is a drawing of an Aztec warrior.
Lesson plans can be found at Deep Space Sparkle.
More Resources for older students at Academia Celestia.
Or, this Aztec File Folder book at That Artist Woman

Aztec Cocoa from Budget Bytes

Source: thatartistwoman.org via Phyllis on Pinterest