Slavery and the Making of America
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. Looks at slavery as an integral part of a developing nation, challenging the long held notion that slavery was exclusively a Southern enterprise. Simultaneously focuses on the remarkable stories of individual slaves, offering new perspectives on the slave experience and testifying to the active role that Africans and African Americans took in surviving their bondage and shaping their own lives.
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S1 E4 • 2/16/2005
The Challenge of Freedoms
Civil War and Reconstruction. The war shifts from a struggle for union to a battle over slavery. Blacks, such as South Carolina slave and future congressman Robert Smalls, contribute to the war effort and experience gains and losses from Reconstruction. The 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments abolish slavery and guarantee black civil rights, and the Freedmen's Bureau offers aid to former slaves throughout the 1870s. But militant groups such as the Ku Klux Klan threaten the future of racial equality, and segregation laws begin appearing across the country. Slavery's eradication does not end black oppression.
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