The Bantuma Railway Unit
In 1910, a colonial railway reached the interior of the fictional West African kingdom of Bantuma, and a curriculum team is writing a world history unit on colonial economies. The team has two sources. A 1912 colonial trade report says railway freight rose from 4,000 tons in 1900 to 11,000 tons in 1910, export taxes brought in 30,000 pounds, and 'the railway opened the interior to legitimate commerce.' A 1975 oral history collected from Bantuma elders says farmers were required to grow cotton instead of millet, young men left for railway construction camps, and three villages lost grazing land when the line was built. The unit must include one claim about economic change and one claim about social change, each supported by evidence, and must avoid presenting the two sources as equally valid on every point. The team also has a 1908 colonial map showing the railway route and a 1911 photograph of a loading platform, but no Bantuma-authored written records from the period.
1. Identify one economic change and one social change described in the sources. For each, name the source that best supports it and explain what the source can and cannot prove.
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Economic change: export-oriented production and freight expanded. The colonial trade report best supports this with tonnage rising from 4,000 to 11,000 and tax revenue of 30,000 pounds. It can prove that more goods moved and were taxed, but not that Bantuma farmers benefited; higher exports could coexist with lower food security.
Social change: labor migration and loss of grazing land. The oral history best supports this because elders describe young men leaving for construction camps and three villages losing land. It can show how people experienced the railway, but it is retrospective and may generalize from a few villages. The team should pair the oral history with the 1908 map to see which villages were near the line.
2. The team has no Bantuma-authored written records from the period. How should that gap affect the unit's claims? Explain why 'no written record' does not mean 'no history.'
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The gap means the unit cannot claim to know Bantuma views in the same way it knows colonial export totals. It should label the colonial report as a colonial administrative source and the oral history as a later community memory. Oral history is evidence, but it is created in a later context and shaped by what elders choose to remember.
The absence of written records often reflects who had literacy, power, and archives, not who had history. The team should triangulate: use maps, photographs, tax records, and oral history together, and state uncertainty. It should avoid treating the colonial report as neutral 'data' and the oral history as mere 'opinion.'
3. Write a two-sentence claim for the unit that avoids overgeneralizing about 'Africans' or 'colonialism.' Then explain how the claim uses evidence.
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Sample: 'Between 1900 and 1910, railway construction in Bantuma increased export freight and tax revenue, according to colonial records. Oral histories from the 1970s describe how the same railway pulled young men into labor camps and took grazing land from some villages.'
The claim is specific to Bantuma and the period. It uses the colonial report for measurable trade and the oral history for social experience, without saying all Bantuma residents experienced the railway the same way. It also avoids claiming the railway caused either all growth or all harm.