The Caribbean Unfolded: Visualizing Primary Sources Through GIS

Abstract

GIS has the potential to be an effective and developmentally appropriate tool for presenting and enabling interaction with primary sources, as well as visually situating them in time and space for K-12 students. The authors present a justification of GIS as a tool of digital historical inquiry and art education. They share a case study that used GIS to engage elementary students with a wide variety of sources. The authors suggest that students developed more complex notions of the Caribbean through their engagement with sources through GIS. This article aims to inspire archivists and educators to use GIS to make sources more accessible for, develop critical thinking in, and empower K-12 students.

Keywords:

• Caribbean
• cartography
• K-12 social studies
• primary source literacy
• visual literacy
• critical thinking skills

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 John K. Lee, “Digital History in the History/Social Studies Classroom,” The History Teacher 35, no. 4 (2002): 503–517.

2 Okabe describes Geographic Information System (GIS) as computer-based (digital) methods/tools for processing, organizing, and visualizing geographic data. Atsuyuki Okabe, “Introduction,” in GIS-Based Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences, edited by Atsuyuki Okabe (Boca Raton: Taylor & Francis, 2006), 1–17.; The Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) describes GIS as pairing information with geographic locations. Before GIS was developed, data was plotted on a map by hand. In the last 40 years, GIS has become widely used to visualize information in almost every field by improving communication, efficiency, management of data, and decision making. “What is GIS,” ESRI, Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc., https://www.esri.com/en-us/what-is-gis/overview (accessed April 10, 2023).

3 Steven J. Steinberg and Sheila L. Steinberg, Geographic Information Systems for the Social Sciences: Investigating Space and Place (Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 2005), 212.

4 Keith C. Barton, “A Sociocultural Perspective on Children’s Understanding of Historical Change: Comparative Findings from Northern Ireland and the United States,” American Educational Research Journal 38 no. 4 (2001), 907.

5 Currently we work with upper elementary (fourth and fifth grade) students from Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic, San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Miami, Florida, in whole class virtual settings. One reason we have done the workshops virtually is because of COVID-19 travel and school visitation restrictions. However, in settings where students can use individual technology, students could navigate through the GIS on their own or in small groups to complete the inquiry-based lesson presented by the teacher.

6 Chris Bunin, Emily Driver, Andrew Dojack, Teresa Goodin, Randy, Scott, Donna Shifflett, Kristin Shuman, Casey Stanton, and Julie Stavitski, “#YOUCANMAPTHAT!,” (National Humanities Center, 2017), 11; Gökmen Güneş, Alaatinn Arıkan, and Turhan Çetin, “Analysing the Effect of Authentic Learning Activities on Achievement in Social Studies and Attitudes Towards Geographic Information System (GIS),” Participatory Educational Research 7 no. 3 (2020): 247–64.

7 Michael F. Goodchild Karen K. Kemp, “NCGIA Education Activities: The Core Curriculum and Beyond,” International Journal of Geographical Information Systems 6 no. 4 (1992): 309–320.

8 Timothy A. Keiper, “GIS for Elementary Students: An Inquiry into a New Approach to Learning Geography”, Journal of Geography 98 no. 2 (1999): 48.

9 Eui-kyung Shin, “Using Geographic Information System (GIS) Technology to Enhance Elementary Students’ Geographic understanding,” Theory & Research in Social Education 35 no. 2 (2007): 235.

10 Scott M. Waring and Cheryl A. Franklin Torrez, C., “Using Digital Primary Sources to Teach Historical Perspective to Preservice Teachers,” Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education 10 no. 3 (2010): 294–308.

11 Catherine Delano Smith, “Maps as Art and Science: Maps in Sixteenth Century Bibles,” Imago Mundi 42 (1990), 65–83.

12 Elliot W. Eisner, “The Primacy of Experience and the Politics of Method,” Educational Researcher 17 no. 5 (1988), 15–20.

13 Padron uses the term “ideological transparency,” which we have interpreted as neutrality. Ricardo Padrón, The Spacious Word: Cartography, Literature, and Empire in Early Modern Spain (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 39.

14 Annette Joseph-Gabriel, “Home,” Mapping Marronage https://www.mappingmarronage.com (accessed April 10, 2023).

15 Vincent Brown, “Home,” Slave Revolt in Jamaica, 1760–1761: A Cartographic Narrative http://revolt.axismaps.com/ (accessed April 10, 2023).

16 Stephanie Curci and Chris Jones, “Mapping the Haitian Revolution,” https://www.mappinghaitianrevolution.com/ (accessed April 10, 2023).

17 Andrew Sluyter, “Home,” “The Atlantic Networks Project,” https://sites.google.com/site/atlanticnetworksproject/home (accessed April 11, 2023).

18 Vincent Brown, “Home,” Two Plantations http://www.twoplantations.com/ (accessed April 12, 2023).

19 Marlene H. Gaynair, “Islands in the North: Making Place and Space in Black Toronto,” https://islandsinthenorth.com/ (accessed April 13, 2023).

20 Alexandra Cenatus, Ivanna Moreno, and Margarita Vargas-Betancourt, “Exhibits: The Haitian American dream timeline,” University of Florida George A. Smathers Libraries, https://exhibits.uflib.ufl.edu/HaitianAmericanDream/ (accessed April 14, 2023).

21 Katiana Bagué and Alexis Baldacc, “Exhibits: The Cuban American Dream Timeline,” University of Florida, George A. Smathers Libraries, https://exhibits.uflib.ufl.edu/cubanamericandream/ (accessed April 11, 2023).

22 Kaiama L. Glover and Alex Gil, “Intersections,” In the same boats, https://sameboats.org/#/intersections (accessed April 20, 2023).

23 Yilin Andre Wang, “Mapping LGBTQ + Caribbean Literature,” last modified 2017, https://queercaribbeanlit.wordpress.com (accessed April 12, 2023).

24 Seanna Viechweg, “Mapping Caribbean Sci-Fi & Fantasy Writers: Tracing the Movement and History of Caribbean Sf & Fantasy Across the Global South, US & UK,” [StoryMap], April 15, 2021, https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/9d0f222f84be41c5b723dc8f173e5751 (accessed May 12, 2023).

25 Yarimar Bonilla and Max Hantel, “Visualizing Sovereignty: Cartographic Queries for the Digital Age”, sx archipelagos, 1 (2016). http://www.smallaxe.net/sxarchipelagos/issue01/bonilla-visualizing.html.

26 National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards: Guidance for Enhancing the Rigor of K-12 Civics, Economics, Geography, and History (Silver Spring, MD: NCSS, 2013), www.socialstudies.org/system/files/2022/c3-framework-for-social-studies-rev0617.2.pdf. The C3 Framework is a set of interlocking and mutually supportive principles that frame what students should learn about in social studies and how they should learn it.

27 Library of Congress, “Teachers’ Guide: Analyzing Maps,” https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/teachers/getting-started-with-primary-sources/documents/Analyzing_Maps.pdf.

28 The Inquiry Arc of the National Council for the Social Studies’ C3 introduces the term “compelling question,” which addresses problems and issues found in and across the academic disciplines that make up social studies. In this case, the question “What is the Caribbean?” underlines current debates about what are the spatial and symbolic limits of the region.

29 Alain Manesson Mallet, The Islet Guanahani or San Salvador [Engraving], Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Guanahani#/media/File:Alain_Manesson_Mallet_-_circa_1685_-_The_Islet_Guanahani_or_San_Salvador_-_Fig_22.jpg (accessed April 12, 2023).

30 Fragment of the Diario del primer viaje de Colón (1492/1995): “12 de octubre de 1492 […]Y todos los que yo vi eran jóvenes, ninguno tenía más de treinta años. Eran bien proporcionados, de muy hermosos cuerpos y muy buenas caras. Tenían los cabellos gruesos como las colas de caballos y corto. Los cabellos los traen por encima de las cejas, excepto en la parte de atrás que los llevan largos, porque nunca se los cortaban. Su piel no era blanca ni negra y la pintaban de negro, blanco y rojo. No traían armas ni las conocen.” Christopher Columbus, Diario del primer viaje de Colón, ed. Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, rev. ed. (1995; repr., 1530s), 398, https://juancarloslemusstave.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/diarios-de-colc3b3n.pdf.

31 Theodore de Bry, Engraving of Columbus arriving in America, 1594, (engraving). 186mm × 196mm, RijksMuseum, Amsterdam https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/nl/collectie/RP-P-BI-5278.

32 Sebastiano del Piombo, Portrait of a Man, Said to be Christopher Columbus (born about 1446, died 1506), 1519, oil on canvas, 42 × 34 3/4 in. (106.7 x 88.3 cm), The Met. New York, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437645.

33 Fragment of Relacion acerca de las antigüedades de los Indios (1494), by Fray Ramón Pané:

“La Española tiene una provincia llamada Caonao, en la que está una montaña, que se llama Cauta, que tiene dos cuevas nombradas Cacibajagua una y Amayaúna la otra. De Cacibajagua salió la mayor parte de la gente que pobló la isla.” Pane’s landmark account is the first book written in a European language on American soil—inadvertently registered Tainos’ spatial descriptions of Hispaniola. Ramon Pané, Relación acerca de las antigüedades de los Indios, 3rd ed. (Antigua: Siglo Veintiuno, 1988), 22.

34 The YouTube video is not a primary source, yet it allows students to observe the complex society the Taino had built before Columbus arrived. It provides an example of the way archivists and teachers could present audio and visual sources through GIS. Carmen Diaz, Canción de los Taínos (video). From YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8klBRFnNIg.

35 “Human systems represent the settlement and structures created by people on Earth’s surface. The growth, distribution and movements of people are driving forces behind human and physical events. Geographers study patterns in cultures and the changes that result from human processes, migrations and the diffusion of new cultural traits.” Ohio Department of Education. “Ohio’s Learning Standards: Social Studies,” (2018), 18. https://education.ohio.gov/getattachment/Topics/Learning-in-Ohio/Social-Studies/Ohio-s-Learning-Standards-for-Social-Studies/SSFinalStandards01019.pdf.aspx?lang=en-US (accessed April 18, 2023).

36 Currently, we are in the process of building a more accessible platform for teachers and K-12 students.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alexander S. Butler

Alexander S. Butler, Ph.D. is an assistant professor of elementary social studies methods and content at Bowling Green State University in the School of Inclusive Teacher Education. His research interests include pre-service teachers’ conceptions of teaching and learning and their knowledge of history. He also studies Caribbean students’ conceptions of the cultures, histories, and identities of the Caribbean.

Medardo Gabriel Rosario

Medardo Gabriel Rosario, Ph.D. is an assistant professor of Spanish literature in the Department of Modern Languages at Florida International University. His academic research revolves around two themes: the influence of Cervantes on the work of Latin American authors and the representation of the Caribbean in cartography and literature developed during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Europe.