Slavery and the Making of America
Slavery and the Making of America is a four-part series documenting the history of American slavery from its beginnings in the British colonies to its end in the Southern states and the years of post-Civil War Reconstruction.
Drawing on a wealth of recent scholarship, it looks at slavery as an integral part of a developing nation, challenging the long held notion that slavery was exclusively a Southern enterprise.
At the same time, by focusing on the remarkable stories of individual slaves, it offers new perspectives on the slave experience and testifies to the active role that Africans and African Americans took in surviving their bondage and shaping their own lives.
1. The Downward Spiral. Episode one opens in the 1620s with the introduction of 11 men of African descent and mixed ethnicity into slavery in New Amsterdam. Working side by side with white indentured servants, these men labored to lay the foundations of the Dutch colony that would later become New York. There were no laws defining the limitations imposed on slaves at this point in time. Enslaved people, such as Anthony d'Angola, Emmanuel Driggus, and Frances Driggus could bring suits to court, earn wages, and marry.
2. Liberty in the Air. From the 1740s to the 1830s, the institution of slavery continued to support economic development. As the slave population reproduced, American planters became less dependent on the African slave trade. Ensuing generations of slaves developed a unique culture that blended elements of African and American life. Episode two follows the paths of several African Americans, including Thomas Jefferson's slave Jupiter, Colonel Tye, Elizabeth Freeman, David Walker, and Maria Stewart, as they respond to the increasingly restrictive system of slavery.
3. Seeds of Destruction. One by one the Northern states, led by Vermont in 1777, adopted laws to abolish and phase out slavery. Simultaneously, slavery in the Southern United States entered the period of its greatest expansion. Episode three, which starts at the beginning of the 1800s, examines slavery's increasing divisiveness in America as the nation develops westward and cotton replaces tobacco as the country's most valuable crop.
4. The Challenge of Freedom. Episode four looks at Civil War and Reconstruction through the experiences of South Carolina slave Robert Smalls. It chronicles Smalls' daring escape to freedom, his military service, and his tenure as a congressman after the war. As the events of Smalls' life unfold, the complexities of this period in American history are revealed. The episode shows the transformation of the war from a struggle for union to a battle over slavery.
To some extent we are and always will be slaves in some manner to the dollar.We chase it all our lives yet it won't be of any-use once we are dead a fake god if ever there was one.It cares little how you get it or how much you have but while alive it is as valuble as the very air we breath.It also has a heaven called a bank where it is worshiped on mass but seldom used to improve life .
This has been the most interesting, long term discussion I've ever had! I love all of the opinions, points of view, and historical knowledge. The beauty about this discussion is that we all have information to share, whether we agree or disagree with one another. Here is the situation: African Americans do not need to earn the respect of our fellow citizens, no matter what your perceptions are of us. None of us are perfect...not even close. The good book says that the hearts of men are so treacherous that we don't know our own hearts! With that said, we are all imperfect. However, if African Americans and other Africans that were victims of the slave trade have it in our hearts to forgive the atrocities committed against our ancestors, why do we need to prove ourselves to be respectable people to the world? Our ancestors built this beautiful country to enable you and new immigrants to enjoy the luxuries and benefits that it offers, and to become the best you can be. Why do you think my people should earn your respect? You should be earning our respect!!! You should be happy, proud, respectful, and behave in a respectable manner toward African Americans, being that my ancestors were mentally, emotionally, and physically strong enough to survive a 400 year holocaust in which you and everyone else in the country have benefited from their labor of building this great nation!!! You should be grateful to us, we don't need to earn your respect!!! You need to earn our respect!!!! And start respecting us as Americans, and African Americans. You need to respect us for our contribution to the existence of our country, our tenacity to survive, our ability to forgive, our love and devotion that we've given to you and your ancestors; and our intellectual contributions - and we've only been free from physical slavery less within the last 90 years. I have friends with family members that lived on plantations in the 20th Century!! So you should respect what my ancestors and I have contributed to this great nation!
My opinion is that the European hated the black race mainly because of the color of their skin and they wanted to control because they thought they were the superior race.
The things that were done to black Africans in the Americas and Caribbean islands is in no way shape or form justifiable and the fact that these racists ideologies and practices continue and ASININE comments like yours further perpetuate the problem!!
The Ottoman Empires and almost all dark ages colonial conquerors had slaves as spoils of wars and they were middle easterners, they had black as well as white ones! So get over it and go forward to earn respect instead of whining about it!
Would African American bee better off if there were never any slaves from Africa? Who sold African to England and America to be slaves? How is Africa doing lately? Probably slaves to their warlords just like their very distant cousins...?
"America was a slave owning country longer than it has been a free one"? Not unless this documentary was made in the 60s.
Industry used to go down soth for slave labor, now it goes to prisons, and overseas. Modern America has now proved what Southerners always knew: slavery works to make money. But no one ever said it was fair or equitable!
whoa Morgan freeman lol
I can't find any academical journeys about John Punch. Can someone help me?
The advent of the combine harvester made slavery, white and black no longer economically viable, so slaves were 'liberated' as indentured servants of state (via birth certification, the introduction of 'sir' names generally for tax ID purposes). We need to get over that the term 'slavery' does not exclusively apply to 'black'. Slavery is slavery and is not colour predjudiced - never was.
This entire World System was built on slavery: of all peoples. This should surely be evident generally by now.
Note: 'indentured servants' is a misnomer to give a false impression (for divide and rule purposes) that the term 'slavery' is and was exclusively 'black'. Not in the colonies, it wasn't. It was almost exclusively white until late into the process. Black slaves were purchased from African tribal chiefs or kidnapped (as were whites) by Barbary Pyrates (Muslim Moroccons) and traded with the Arabs via the Merchants (Jews). Blacks were pivotal to the justification of the butchery in the Southern States, on the 'slavery' ticket whlst the Founding Fathers one and all in the North (City of London controlled) were flagrant slave owners. Wilberforce argued for an end to Black Slavery and won it for the landgrab and looting of the South, forcing a confederacy all under CoL control. Whilst he was doing this, whites in Britain and Europe were from very young children, through to pregnant women, slaving up to 18 hours a day under brutual conditions long after 'slavery was abolished'. It never was. The blacks got taxed same as the whites is all that happened there.
The practice of holding people in bondage and coercing them to serve the predators who had weapons and used them on other less well-armed goes well back into the human experience. I encourage anyone interested to go online and type in The History of Slavery or a variation thereof. No one can claim that their ancestors were not at one time or another predator/prey. This is not meant to excuse the actions of those involved in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, but to encourage the readers to investigate for themselves the experience of bondage through the millennia. Don't be too surprised if you discover that the slave and master, in many cases, look like family.
If not for slavery, where would the African Americans be...Still in Africa!...I never read of any Africans rowing their dugout canoe across the oceans to discover America...Just face the facts...Without the slavery...Where would you be now...
And to all yes, yes but the time is at hand that the very plan that was plan to enslave is at its end. Fear and freedom no longer define who we are, what the condition by which we/our ancestor endured. What was done and continued for generation to generation no longer has its hold over our heads. The plan and purpose for those that were to stay in the "state" of internalized oppression, the institutions that form the good old boys way of thinking is now dead. It can not return because although African Americans have been condition not think on one accord, it was known then to be dangerous. The time is now we made it and the very words of truth by Thomas Jefferson ask they lingered in his mind, vibrated down his arm, therefore his hand confessed the one thing that when our time to unite is, remember (Thomas one of the oracles that formed the "Constitution") said in his letter to his friend, "truly if there is a God, we will pay for what we have done". Yes, yes we are going to have to exercise the very nature that was intended to keep us down and humble, in that we have surpassed the intended plan, we exceeded the purpose, now we have been chosen to rise up, unite and make a conscious decision because the very ones that had the plan for us, are now living the plan and they never took note how we survived nor did they care. Well now as a people we have to make individual yet united the decisions should we now care for those that have no idea how we did it, we now have to decide if we want to allow them to understand and show them what and how we did it, or do we truly act out the very acts by which we know would only bring us to another "state" that they started, yet along we were chosen (yes Yes) to bring it all to the "end" of the mentality of the slave masters pin, we know it ran out of ink way before we gave up and gave in. I ask you as "people of color will you take a stand no matter where or ancestors have been, and allow ourselves to be the chosen, according to the divine end that was planned. We made it, we got it, now how will we deliver and recondition the earth and the land. We are the answer to "OUR MASTERS PLAN" will you say yes, yes I/we to can.
One important difference between slavery and indenture--Slavery was inherited--hence, the term chattel--bartered, bred, owned, and inherited in perpetuity (the child shall follow the condition of the mother) . . . African slaves first traded, and then bred domestically after the trade ended--disconnected from cultural or ethnic backgrounds and denied the rights of national citizenry (de jure) until Civil War, and then for a century afterwards de facto until 1965 - - - the condition and situation of African Slavery in the United States is unique --- a fact that does not in any way diminish other forms of slavery and oppression of non-Africans--or for that matter atrocities suffered throughout the world by many of multiple "races" etc.
Last week CNN's Anderson Cooper claimed that slaves were not married until the 20th century as he "intelligently" attacked Michele Bachmann. It turns out that she was right - this documentary claims that she was right with the first documented slave marriage being in 1641.
dav: There certainly were instances of slavery all over the world in all periods of history but NEVER has there been such a prolonged, atrocious and cruel period than the slave trade from Africa to America.
The Irish slave trade eventually stopped and there also were many instances of indentured servitude where the people were set free after a number of years while that (almost) never happened to African slaves.
The point that you are missing is that the African American slave trade and slavery eventually stopped but the atrocities kept going on during Reconstruction and beyond.
How many of the former Irish slaves were made share croppers with no rights? How many former Irish slaves had to suffer segregation? How many of the former Irish slaves were denied their right to vote?
And if you want to equivocate, I'll have to ask you this: What are several million people who are in large parts still not free compared to several thousand people who have been free for centuries?
Thanks Charles for reminding all of us. The birth right shall be restored.
Men, women and children both black and white died so that the label of slave would never again be placed upon any ethnic group.
The untold number of unmarked graves sing out the names of the many who lived and died for our cause. To be reminded that in 2011, 392 years after the first slaves made port that some choose to ignore this information is sadly not surprising. Our women whose beauty was made a curse form early childhood our fathers whose strength was the cause of their deaths. Our time is now to be the fathers and mothers that out ancestors crave to see us be from their graves is now. The history of us proclaimed African-Americans us so-called "blacks" history goes farther than American soil. We are the sons and daughters of Moses, Abraham, David. Be strong with a sense of history not weaker without it. To my Hebrew!!! brothers and sisters I love you all. Be significant to your family and friends. Thank you if you read
Men, women and children both black and white died so that the label of slave would never again be placed upon any ethnic group.
The untold number of unmarked graves sing out the names of the many who lived and died for our cause. To be reminded that in 2011, 392 years after the first slaves made port that some choose to ignore this information is sadly not surprising. Our women whose beauty was made a curse form early childhood our fathers whose strength was the cause of their deaths. Our time is now to be the fathers and mothers that out ancestors crave to see us be from their graves is now. The history of us proclaimed African-Americans us so-called "blacks" history goes farther than American soil. We are the sons and daughters of Moses, Abraham, David. Be strong with a sense of history not weaker without it. To my Hebrew!!! brothers and sisters I love you all. Be significant to your family and friends.
Thanks for the post, Sparkling!
As for STONEMAN and co.: Take your ignorant, racist troll-ramblings elsewhere!
Sparkling addressed the issues quite well. It is amazing to me how the comments themselves begin to reveal racists values in about no time at all.
@ Philip Van der Mude
any relation to Eric?
Yes monsanto has papal approval so I hear.
One feed of GM soy to ratlets in (banned) research) GMed then completely.
New face of farmed humans.