In this lesson, students will learn the reasons pirates frequented certain areas, taking into account the relationship between piracy and the slave trade. They will visit Web sites to find out more about pirates, and draw pirate maps showing some of the places a pirate might have traveled.

Geography, world history

Standard 17: "How to apply geography to interpret the past"

Three to four hours

• Computer with Internet access
• Blank Xpeditions outline maps of the world, one for each student
• Writing and drawing materials

Students will

• discuss what they already know about pirates;
• read and answer questions about the "triangular trade";
• map the triangular trade routes, and discuss where pirates would most likely have been spotted;
• discuss other places and time periods when pirates were active;
• read and discuss information about the Whydah;
• visit Web sites and answer questions about pirates;
• discuss what it might have been like to have been a pirate; and
• draw maps that a pirate might have drawn.

Ask students to contribute words that come to mind when they think of pirates. What images come to mind when they think about pirates' appearance or activities? List their ideas on the board.

Ask students if they know what motivated pirates. Were they in search of adventure, money, or perhaps a combination of the two?

Have students look at the pirate pictures at Beej's Pirate Image Archive. Do these pictures remind them of the pirates they have seen in movies, on TV, or in books? Why or why not? What are the differences?

Have students read the first two paragraphs of National Geographic's Pirate Ship Wydah site. They should pay particular attention to the brief description of the triangular trade. Discuss these questions as a class:

• Why was this trade pattern called triangular trade?
• Who benefited from this trade?
• Who lost from this trade?

Give each student a blank outline map of the world, and ask them to map the triangular trade pattern, using arrows and words to indicate the directions of people, goods, and money.

Ask students to look carefully at their maps and predict where they think pirates would have wanted to focus their energies. Where might they have had the best luck in finding ships to capture? What would they have expected to find on the ships at different stages along the trade routes? Along which part of the trade route would the ships probably have been the most interesting to pirates?

Inform students that pirates frequented other parts of the oceans and seas in addition to the areas involved in the triangular trade. For example, pirates could often be found in the eastern Mediterranean, the northern coast of Africa (Barbary Coast), and Madagascar.

Point these places out on a map, and ask students to explain what they think was going on in these locations that would have made them attractive to pirates. They should recognize that pirates followed treasure, so the presence of pirates in these areas indicates that these places were located along trade routes where ships carried precious metals, jewels, spices, and other valuable commodities.

Students should also realize that piracy didn't begin with the slave trade. For example, treasure-seeking pirates plied the waters of the Atlantic during the height of the Spanish empire in North America, when Spain was transporting gold and other valuables from its colonies. One Spanish ship that was susceptible to piracy was the Concepción.

Introduce students to the Wydah by having them read (or reading to them) the first two sections of the National Geographic magazine article, "Pirates of the Whydah." Have students locate Cape Cod on a map, and ask them to summarize in a class discussion what the pirates of the Wydah did in the Caribbean and in the North Atlantic. In particular, ask them to explain the Wydah's role in the triangular trade.

Have students go to the following Web sites to find out what it would have been like to be on the Wydah or another pirate ship. Ask them to answer these questions as they go through the sites:

• What were some of the reasons people became pirates?
• Did all pirates start out as "bad guys"?
• Were there rules on pirate ships? What were some of these rules?
• What jobs did different people on a pirate ship have?
• What did pirates wear?

National Geographic: Pirates!
National Geographic: Pirates of the Whydah
Beej's Pirate Image Archive
Blackbeard the Pirate
Oh To Be A Pirate

Discuss as a class what it might have been like to have been a pirate. What would a pirate have been looking for? Where would the captain of a pirate ship have wanted to spend most of his time? What would a pirate's daily life have been like?

Ask students to imagine that they are exploring a beach on the East Coast of the United States. They suddenly feel something hard beneath their feet—it's a glass bottle, and inside is a very old piece of paper. Upon closer inspection, they discover that it's a very well decorated map drawn by a pirate in the early 18th century. Perhaps it washed up on shore from a shipwreck, or maybe a pirate left it there for someone else to pick up.

Have students draw this map. It should show some of the places the pirate might have traveled and some of the things he or she might have seen and done along the way. Students should take care to represent the locations the pirate traveled as realistically as possible on the map.

Have students include some text on their maps, pretending the pirate has written it to describe some of the things shown on the map. To be creative, they can use their version of old English.

To make the pirate maps appear authentic, you (not the students) can burn the edges of the paper with a lighter.

Have students read the Dunnbar Bound story. In this interactive story, readers pretend to be on a trading vessel that encounters a pirate ship and they get to make their own decisions about how to react.

Once students have finished this story, have them write their own pirate stories. If they write the stories in a multimedia presentation program or post them on a Web page, they can create hyperlinks and allow the reader to choose, just like in the Dunnbar story.

Beej's Pirate Image Archive
Blackbeard the Pirate
National Geographic: Pirates of the Whydah
National Geographic: Pirates!
Pirates and Privateers