How to Play the Triangle Trade — Mr. B’s Social Studies

The goal

Be the first region to get everything on your secret needs list.

New England Home port: Boston
Middle Colonies Home port: Philadelphia
Southern Colonies Home port: Charleston
West Indies Home port: Kingston
England Home port: London

Your score = how much of your needs list you have.
Time's up and nobody finished? The highest score wins. A tie goes to the team with more voyages.

The build-up: five steps

1 ReadRead your region's Group Handout on your own.Rules for your region, the reading, and what you have. Readings come in four levels.You’ll use: Your Group Handout
2 Take notesFill in side 1 of the Region Notes sheet.Products, needs, ships, who did the work, biggest advantage, biggest challenge.You’ll use: Region Notes, side 1
3 Plan as a teamGet your Needs Card. Copy your secret needs. Make a plan.Your monopolies, your ship plan, your first move. Pick your Captain, Merchant and Harbormaster jobs.You’ll use: The Needs Card, Region Notes side 2, and the Harbormaster Record
4 TradePlay rounds: Negotiation, then Shipping.The teacher runs the clock and the Dock.You’ll use: Goods cards, the trade log, the Dock
5 Count up and reflectCount your goods. Then think:Why would colonists be angry about England's trade rules, even though the rules helped some colonists too?You’ll use: What we have, then the Reflection sheet

Your team's jobs

Captain 1 person

Carries out the deals in Shipping.
Takes the goods cards to the Dock. Draws a chance card each way.
Comes back to port quickly.

One person is the captain. During Shipping rounds, the captain carries out the deals. Fill out the ship's manifest (6 items at most), take it to the teacher's Dock, and draw a chance card for the trip out and another for the trip back. A Free Passage card can cancel one bad card later, but not an Admiralty Court inspection. Come back to port quickly, because only the merchant OR the captain can be away.

Merchant 1 person

The person in charge of trade.
In Negotiation, visits another port to offer a deal.
Say “yes if my team agrees.” A deal counts only when your Harbormasters vote yes.
No ship? Bargain at home with your Port Negotiator.

One person on the team is the merchant, the person in charge of trade. During Negotiation rounds, the merchant goes to other ports to learn what they have and need, and to offer deals. No goods move during Negotiation. A deal counts only after your harbormasters approve it.

Harbormasters everyone else

Stay at your home port the whole game.
Keep the record. Talk with visiting Merchants.
Vote on every deal. Each one also has a Harbormaster job.

Everyone on the team except the merchant and the captain is a harbormaster. Harbormasters stay at the home port the whole game. They keep the record of every item the region owns, gives, and gets. They talk with merchants who visit, and they vote on every deal. No trade is final until the harbormasters say yes. Each harbormaster has one job: Record Keeper (writes every deal and voyage in the trade log), Counter (counts the goods cards after each round), Port Negotiator (talks with visiting merchants), or Strategist (watches the board and plans the merchant's next visit).

Big rule: only the Merchant OR the Captain is away from port. Never both.

Harbormaster jobs

Every Harbormaster has one. Fewer than four Harbormasters? Double up.

Record Keeper Writes every deal and voyage in the trade log before the Captain leaves.
Counter Counts the goods cards at the end of each round, fills in “What we have” and checks off needs.
Port Negotiator Meets visiting Merchants at your table and says what your team would accept.
Strategist Watches the board and your needs list. Decides the Merchant’s next target.

What's on your table

Table tent: your region's name and home port.
Goods cards: 28 cards in your region's color. Ships are cards too. Keep them in the bag.
Harbormaster Record, one per team. Side 1: TOP SECRET needs and a count of what you have. Side 2: the trade log.
Group Handout (your region’s reading, rules and needs) and Region Notes sheet, one each.

C Captain · M Merchant · H Harbormaster

A round, step by step

A round is Negotiation, then Shipping. Rounds repeat until the teacher calls time. Sometimes the teacher pauses the game to ask the whole class a question. That’s part of the game.

Negotiation about 3 minutes

Merchant Walk to ONE other port.
Merchant Offer a deal: what you give, what you get.
Their Harbormasters They say yes or no.
Merchant Come home. Tell your team. You may go back once to confirm.
Your Harbormasters Vote yes or no. Write the deal in the trade log.

Shipping about 5 minutes

Harbormasters Pick up to 6 goods cards. Log both ways.
Captain Bring the cards and the folded log to the Dock.
Dock Out, chance card, back, chance card: one visit.
Captain Swap cards at the other port. Come home.
Harbormasters Count your cards. Check off your needs.

Ships

A ship carries 6 goods at most, each way.
One voyage per team each Shipping round.
New England, the Middle Colonies and England own ships (New England 7, Middle Colonies 2, England 8).
No ship? Hire one: make a deal with a team that has ships. The fee rides as cargo: load the goods you pay with in the hold (they count toward the 6), and they go to the ship’s owner. The ship goes back to them.
A hired voyage is your one voyage: your Captain takes your log to the Dock. The owner can still sail its own voyage that round.
Or trade for a ship card. Tell the teacher at the Dock, so the game moves the ship to you. It isn’t cargo. From the next Negotiation, your Merchant can go out.
A ship can sail out empty to pick goods up, or come home empty after a delivery.

Chance cards

Two per voyage: one on the way out, one on the way home. The deck has 36 cards.

Good news 21 of 36

×18 Favorable Winds Nothing happens. Sail on.
×1 Free Passage! Keep it. Later it cancels one card that costs you goods. Not the Admiralty Court.
×1 Lucky Winds! Add 1 good from home to the ship.
×1 Governor's Favor Choose any port to visit next.

Lose cargo 9 of 36

Lose 1: Storm at Sea, Sprung a Leak
Lose 2: Pirates Spotted!, Bad Weather, Rough Seas, Ship Needs Repairs
Lose 3: Severe Storm!, Pirates Board Your Ship!, Fire Below Deck!

The Captain picks which goods.

Pay a duty 2 of 36

×1 Customs Inspection Pay 1 good. They go to England.
×1 British Tax Collector Pay 2 goods. They go to England.

Admiralty Court 4 of 36

×4 Admiralty Court! The court checks your trade log. Any mistake: England takes the whole cargo. Free Passage can’t stop it.

Questions and answers (1 of 5)

What if we don’t have a ship?: Hire one or trade for one (see Ships). In Negotiation, only teams with a ship may send their Merchant out, so other Merchants will come to you.
Do we have to follow the triangle?: No. A ship can sail between any two ports.
Can we trade with England directly?: Yes. England is a port like the others.

Questions and answers (2 of 5)

Can we trade for something we don’t need?: Yes. Sometimes you get a good so you can trade it again for something you do need.
Can the Merchant and the Captain both leave?: No. Only one of them is away from port at a time.
What if we lose goods on a chance card?: The Captain picks which goods from the ship. A Free Passage card can cancel it. Chance cards never take a ship.

Questions and answers (3 of 5)

What if the other team won’t hand over the goods?: The deal was voted on in Negotiation, so it stands. The Dock’s record is what happened. The teacher decides any argument.
What if the Dock’s count and ours are different?: The Dock’s count is the official one. Tell the teacher if you think it is wrong.
Why write every trade in the log?: The Admiralty Court can check it. A mistake means England takes the whole cargo.

Questions and answers (4 of 5)

What happens with rum in New England?: “Rum rule: each 1 rum traded uses up 2 molasses.” That goes for any rum that leaves Boston, on any ship. The Dock takes the molasses and won’t load more rum than your molasses allows, so trade for molasses first.
Who wins if nobody finishes?: The team with the most of its needs list. A tie goes to the team with more voyages.
Why did the teacher stop the game?: Sometimes the teacher pauses the game to ask the whole class a question. That’s part of the game. Each trading day also ends with a few minutes on the standings.

Questions and answers (5 of 5)

Can we tell other teams what we need?: You can, but be careful. Your needs list is TOP SECRET. If others know what you need most, they can ask for more.

The history behind the game

This game scores goods. The real Triangle Trade also traded people.

On the second leg of the trade, ships carried enslaved African people across the Atlantic Ocean by force. That crossing is called the Middle Passage. Many people died on the way.

The sugar, tobacco, rice and indigo in this game were grown by enslaved people. They were forced to work and were never paid.

We’ll hold the game and the history together in the debrief.

Teacher notes

Shown only with ?teacher in the address. Not part of the board panels; the student PDF leaves it out.

Pause points

After Round 2 on the first trading day: press B (Curtain) on the Dock to cover the board, then a 2–3 minute whole-class check:
- Which good is everyone chasing?
- Why can’t every region finish?
- Who holds the power, and where does it come from?
End of each trading day: about 5 minutes on the standings.

Likely misunderstandings, and what to say

“England always wins.” / “This is unfair.”: That’s the point. Ask why the system favored England: a monopoly on manufactured goods, the most ships (8), and duties paid to it.
“No one will trade with us.” (usually the Middle Colonies): True to history: food and lumber were plentiful. Ask what they could carry or broker instead.
“We traded a lot, so we did well.”: Trading isn’t winning. The score is the share of needs secured.
“The game was fun, so the trade was good.”: That’s the debrief’s job: the scoring left out who did the work, and the people carried on the second leg.

Debrief plan

Open the debrief circle in the last ~10 minutes of the second trading day, while the results are fresh. Start from the map: during play it draws only the voyages the class sailed (plus the Middle Passage, which no one sails). After End Game, 🗺 Compare with the historical routes lays the real triangles over them. Did our trades make a triangle? Where did the wealth go, and whose labor produced it?
The next day (short, early release) is the written CER: Why would colonists be angry about England's trade rules, even though the rules helped some colonists too?

Running the Dock

One visit per voyage. The Dock holds one voyage at a time, so run the whole thing while the Captain is there: cargo out from the log, first card, cargo back from the log’s “Coming in”, second card. The Captain then swaps cards at the other port, leaving behind whatever the cards took. About 45–60 seconds each.
One voyage per team per Shipping round keeps the line to five, and keeps the teams with the most ships from also getting the most turns.
The return cargo was agreed in Negotiation. If the other port no longer holds it, the Dock won’t offer it; load what’s there or sail home empty. A one-way delivery (a fee, a sale) is just a voyage with nothing loaded back.
The rum rule is automatic. Whenever rum leaves Boston, on New England’s ship or loaded there onto another team’s ship for the trip back, the Dock takes 2 molasses per rum and won’t load more rum than the molasses allows. Collect those molasses cards from New England then. A storm doesn’t give them back.

Rules the Dock doesn’t enforce

Payment for a hired ship: the fee rides as cargo. Load the fee goods in the hold with the rest (they count toward the limit). If the voyage sails to the ship’s owner, the Dock delivers the fee with everything else. If it sails somewhere else, leave the fee out of the Dock’s cargo: the Captain hands those cards to the owner’s port at the end of the voyage, and you move them with Log » Adjust Goods.
A traded ship card moves only when you use Log » Transfer Ship.