Africans in America: America's Journey Through Slavery (1998–…): Season 1, Episode 1 - The Terrible Transformation: 1450-1750 - full transcript

Presenting history's
best on pbs.

They came from different lands,
all facing an uncertain future:

English and ashanti

mande and Portuguese

German and ibo

fanti and spaniard

French and Angolan...

Some seeking adventure or
riches or religious freedom.

Others were captives, bartered
and sold like cattle.

Together they would
build a nation

and struggle over the
very meaning of freedom



and create the America we
ha ve inherited toda y.

Woman: I don't think you can
understand race relations today

without understanding slavery.

Even though people will say

"I didn't do it, my
father didn't do it

even my grandparents,
they didn't do it"

one of the things that's
essential is to know

that slavery is not just
a Southern institution.

It's an American institution.

Man: What evolves
in north America

is the belief system
where to be black

meant to be a slave and to be
a slave meant to be black.

Man: "We hold these truths
to be self-evident..."

Why is it self-evident?



It came from god.

They're inalienable, the
government secures them...

Remarkable document, didn't
apply to black folks.

And the man who wrote those
words, Thomas Jefferson

kept slaves.

He also wrote sometime
later to a friend:

"If there is a just god, we're
going to pay for this."

Woman: Slavery and freedom existed
side-by-side in this country.

Did it always have
to be that way?

And the early history of America

indicates that it
probably did not.

Woman: ♪ your country ♪

♪ how came it yours? ♪

♪ Before the pilgrims landed ♪

♪ we were here. ♪

♪ Your country ♪

♪ how came it yours? ♪

♪ Before the pilgrims landed ♪

♪ we were here. ♪

Africans in America

has been made
possible by a Grant

from the national endowment
for the humanities

expanding America's
understanding of who we were

who we are and who we will be.

They were torn from
homes and families

yet they never let go of their
courage and perseverance

and our nation is
stronger because of it.

That's why africans in America
is proudly brought to you

by bankers trust,
architects of value.

A home is more than
four walls and a roof.

It's safer streets...

Better schools...

Stronger communities...

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Helping Americans on the
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this presentation of
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Additional funding
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Narrator: In the year 1645, in the
colony that was called Virginia

in the county of northampton,
after a season of disputes

a white man and a black
man went into the field

and there divided their
crop and their land.

According to the
testimony given in court

the man named Anthony, the negro

said, "Mr. Taylor and I
have divided our corn

and I am very glad of it, for
now I know mine own ground."

In America, it seemed,
all men would be equal

all men would be free.

In April 1607, three vessels
carrying 105 colonists

landed at a place
they named jamestown

at the edge of the
Virginia wilderness.

They hoped to establish

the first permanent
english settlement

in the new world.

There englishmen would
build a new promised land

the brave new world that their
poet Shakespeare dreamed...

A free land built by free men.

Man: The dreams were
utopian initially

of colonies without coercion,
without oppression

where each man would be
regarded as free and equal.

There was a lot of
idealism, I think

among the settlements
in the new world

a lot of ideas which I think

didn't stand much the test of...
Experience.

Narrator: Englishmen
believed that their god

had ordained them
to spread his word

and that they had
the god-given right

to drive out all unwilling to
live according to english law.

But in the first two years,
the colonists learned

that they were unprepared for
life in the American wilderness.

Man: "The fourth day of September
died Thomas Jacob sergeant.

"The fifth day, there
died Ben jamin beast.

"Our men were destroyed
with cruel diseases

"as swellings, flixes,
burning fevers, and by wars.

"And some departed suddenly

"but for the most part
they died of mere famine.

"There were never englishmen
left in a foreign country

in such misery as we were in
this new discovered Virginia."

George Percy.

Narrator: In 1609, 500 settlers
lived in the jamestown colony.

By the spring of 1610,
only 60 were left alive.

Man: "About the latter end of
August, a Dutch man-of-war

"arrived at point comfort.

"The commander's
name, captain jope.

"He brought not anything
but 20 and odd negroes

which the governor bought
in exchange for food."

John rolfe, Virginia colonist.

Narrator: In 1619, a year before

the pilgrims landed
at Plymouth rock

a mystery ship appeared

out of a violent storm
off the Virginia coast.

No one recorded the ship's name

but somewhere on the high seas
she had robbed a Spanish vessel

of a cargo of africans.

In search of supplies, she
traded the africans for food.

They had been baptized and
given Christian names.

As christians, they could
not be enslaved for life

under english law.

Like most Europeans
in the colony

they were purchased
to work as servants

for a limited number of years.

The new arrivals supplied
much-needed labor

for the tobacco crop that
was making men rich.

Settlers were planting tobacco
in the streets of jamestown

carving plantations out of
the surrounding wilderness

and shipping some 60,000
pounds a year back to england.

Man: Once tobacco is established
as a viable commodity

then the more land you control,
the bigger profits you can make

and in order to make those
profits, you'd need more labor

and you'd look for that labor
wherever you can find it.

Well, the colony builders
initially intended to rely

almost exclusively on
white indentured servants

as a labor force to
cultivate the crops

that were being
grown in Virginia

principally tobacco.

And in order to create these
raw materials or goods

you often needed labor.

Narrator: The world
the africans entered

was controlled by
wealthy englishmen

and populated by the english poor...
Most under the age of 25.

In return for
passage to Virginia

they had traded four to
seven years of their labor.

They were bound to a master
by an indenture form...

A contract that defined
length of service

and the conditions of servitude.

Most were promised "freedom
dues" after their service...

A bushel of corn, a new suit of
clothes and 100 acres of land.

Under Virginia's
headright system

a planter was entitled

to 50 acres of land for each
servant brought into the colony.

Wood: The issue always was how
long that indenture would be

and under what conditions you
would be forced to work.

At its best, it was a short,
friendly apprenticeship.

At its worst, it was a long
and exploitative situation

in which you might die before
you ever obtained your freedom.

Narrator: By 1622,
3,000 new settlers

drawn by the opportunities
of the tobacco boom

had arrived in Virginia.

Two years later, the first negro
child was born in the colony.

He was named William Tucker,
after a Virginia planter.

The prosperity
that began in 1619

and the dream of a new Eden...

Of people peacefully co-existing
under english law...

Was seriously threatened
in march 1622.

On good Friday, some 30 nations
of the powhatan confederacy

angered by english
violation of land treaties

attacked without warning

and attempted to drive the
english back into the sea.

Along the James river, the
Indians killed 350 colonists.

On the Bennett plantation
alone, 52 people died.

Among the 12 who survived
was a man named Antonio.

Man: Here's an individual

that arrives as one of the
first African Americans

in the history of what
became the United States.

He does what almost no one in
early Virginia managed to do

and that is live.

Everyone is dying of
disease, of violence

and in a sense, he's lucky.

Narrator: He had been brought
to the colony the year before

to work tobacco along
the James river.

His name appeared in the
1625 Virginia census

as "Antonio, a negro."

He was listed as a servant.

Man: He comes to Virginia.

He finds a society that
is just developing.

He's getting in on the
ground floor, as it were.

I don't know if he was able
to immediately envision

that there would be
opportunities for him here

that weren't
available elsewhere.

I don't know that anyone
could have foretold that.

Narrator: When Antonio arrived

the laws of Virginia did not
as yet define racial slavery.

They governed only the
status of servants.

At some point, Antonio changed
his name to Anthony Johnson

and married a negro
servant named Mary

from a neighboring plantation.

She bore him four children.

By 1640, it is clear Anthony and
Mary were no longer servants.

They had acquired their
own modest estate

on Virginia's eastern shore.

Breen: As Johnson prospered,
as he obtained land and cattle

he also acquired
dependent laborers.

What made all this
society go was property.

Your identity in the society was
determined rather obviously

by the amount of land, the
amount of labor that you owned.

Narrator: Anthony Johnson
was en joying privileges

belonging to a free englishman.

He claimed five
workers as headrights

and expanded his
property to 250 acres

along the pungoteague creek.

At least some of his
workers were white.

By 1650, Anthony was one of
400 black people in Virginia

out of a population of
almost 19,000 settlers.

In northampton county,
where Johnson lived

nearly 20 African men
and women were free

and 13 owned their own homes.

Woman: As Anthony Johnson
is accumulating property

it seems as though his
situation is secure.

You get a sense of this
individual, this black man

being treated like
any white planter

and his wife and
daughters being treated

like the wife of a planter.

At an early moment

when men and women were
sorting themselves out

when the rules, the
etiquette of race and labor

were not so clear

at this moment, in one
county in Virginia

it was not foreordained
that race relations

would become what
they did become.

Narrator: In 1640, the year
Anthony Johnson purchased

his first piece of land

three servants had run away
from a Virginia plantation

and headed for Maryland.

Captured and returned
to their owner

they were tried for
breaking their contract.

Man: "The said three
servants shall receive

"the punishment of whipping and
to have 30 stripes apiece.

"One called Victor, a dutchman

"the other a scotchman
called James Gregory

"shall first serve
out their times

"according to their indentures

"and one whole year apiece after

"and after that to
serve the colony

"for three whole years apiece.

"The third being a
negro named John punch

"shall serve his said
master or his assigns

for the time of his
natural life."

Jamestown court recorder.

Narrator: "The time
of his natural life."

According to all the legal
records that survive

no white servant in America
ever received such a sentence.

Davis: So what begins
to happen in the 1640s

is that those who are
controlling the Virginia colony

say to themselves

the fluidity that we've
seen in the past

the fluidity that has
allowed an Anthony Johnson

to serve less than the life term

to acquire his own
piece of ground

to develop a free status

is not something that
we want to project

as going further in the future.

We want to close down
that opportunity.

We want to begin to
show some distinctions.

Narrator: The english definition
of who could be enslaved

began to shift from
non-Christian to non-white.

For Anthony and other
africans in America

the idea of an equal
chance in the colonies

was now under attack.

In 1641, Massachusetts
became the first colony

on the British-American mainland

to recognize slavery as
a legal institution.

Connecticut followed in
1650, Maryland in 1663

New York and New Jersey in 1664.

Virginia legally
recognized slavery in 1661

and a year later, a
Virginia court decided

that all children
born in the colony

would be free or slave according
to the condition of the mother.

In Virginia, slavery
would be defined by race

and perpetuated
through heredity.

Perhaps in the middle
of the 17th century

if you were one of several
thousand africans

living in Virginia

you certainly knew that
your children would be free

you might have that expectation.

And to suddenly find
themselves involved

in lifelong servitude,
and then to realize

that, in fact, their children
might inherit the same status

that was a terrible blow.

That was a terrible
transformation.

Narrator: For the first
50 years of the colony

most of the unfree labor
force had been European

but that was about to change.

Word of the hard
life in Virginia

had gotten back to england

and the colonial government
faced a growing shortage

of servant labor.

Also troubling the colony were
the thousands of free men

most former indentured servants

who were unemployed and
roaming the countryside.

Man: The problem they face

is not only a decreasing
supply of indentured servants

but they face this
increasing problem

of what to do with all
these indentured servants

once they live out their term

and a lot of them
were surviving.

They had to be given land.

They had to be given
their freedom dues

and one of those dues
included even guns

and there was a lot of
unrest in Virginia.

Narrator: In 1661, servants
rebelled in York county.

Two years later

gloucester county authorities
foiled a plot by nine servants

to steal arms and ammunition

and march on the seat
of colonial government.

In 1676, the unrest in Virginia
exploded into civil war.

An army of 500... free men,
servants and slaves...

Rebelled against the colonial
establishment's restriction

on available lands.

They attacked peaceful
Indians, ransacked property

and burned jamestown, sending
the governor into hiding.

Blight: This disorder that the
indentured servant system

had created made racial slavery

to Southern slaveholders
much more attractive

because what were
black slaves now?

Well, they were a permanent,
dependent labor force

who could be... could be
defined as a people set apart.

They were racially set apart.

They were outsiders.

They were strangers, and in
many ways throughout the world

with a couple
possible exceptions

slavery has taken
root especially well

when the people who are enslaved

are defined as
strangers, as outsiders

and can therefore be put into

an inheritable, permanent
status of slavery.

Man: "I understand there
are some slave ships

"expected into York
river now every day.

"I desire you to buy
me five or six slaves

"whereof three or four to be
boys, a man and a woman...

"The boys from eight to 17 or 18

the rest as young as
you can procure them."

William fitzhugh,
Virginia planter, 1681.

Narrator: Few ships
coming from Africa

made the voyage
beyond the Caribbean

to sell their cargoes on the
mainland of British America.

In 1672, the king of
england chartered

the royal African company

encouraging it to expand
the British slave trade.

Shareholders included 15
english lords and 25 sheriffs

the governor of Virginia,
and John Locke...

"The philosopher of Liberty."

In its first 16 years,
the company transported

nearly 90,000 africans
to the americas.

Breen: In the last decade
of the 17th century

it was possible to imagine
that in a single year

the number of new
africans arriving

would equal the total black
population in the colony

or close to it.

These were men and women

that had no sense of the world
they were getting into.

And they seemed to whites as
very alien, foreign, unknowable.

Davis: The Europeans
look upon these people

and they project an image on
them, they project an identity

and that identity is African.

What that means is non-American.

What that means is non-European.

What that means is separation.

Man: "All servants imported
and brought into this country

"who are not Christian
in their native land

shall be counted and be slaves."

Man: "If any slave resists his
master correcting such slave

"and shall happen to
be killed in such

it shall not be
accounted felony."

"If any negro shall
absent himself

"from his master's service
and lie hid and lurking

"and if he shall resist
any person employed

"to apprehend the said negro

"then it shall be
lawful for such person

to kill the said negro."

Virginia general
assembly, June 1680.

Woman: We think about slavery
as this complete package

that just came to
evil landowners

and it didn't happen that way.

It happened one law at a
time, one person at a time.

As landowners felt the need to
control a different behavior

year after year,
they added more laws

until finally 1691
they passed the law

that made it illegal
to free a black slave

unless they were
leaving the colony.

So by then, it was
pretty much set

that this was going to
be a slave society.

Blight: To move from indentured
servitude to racial slavery

means that they're setting
their own history

on a course where freedom is
going to depend on slavery

where the political economy of a
major portion of these colonies

is going to depend on slavery

where the freedom of some

is going to depend on
the bondage of others.

It means that the
American colonies

this Jewel of the British empire

is living this
contradictory history now

of a society that is
increasingly rooted

in a labor system
that's human bondage

that's racial slavery.

Narrator: Anthony Johnson moved
his family out of Virginia

and north to Maryland.

There he leased 300 acres he
called "tonies vineyard."

On that farm, Anthony
Johnson died.

Back in Virginia

a jury decided that the land
Anthony had left behind

could be seized by the state

"because he was a negro and
by consequence, an alien."

Breen: One wonders how
Johnson would have viewed

this changing world of Virginia.

He lived a very long time.

He survived and did quite well
by the standards of the day

in building up properties

hundreds, hundreds of
acres, and cattle.

By the standards of the time

anyone would say
he did quite well.

There's no reason to believe,
as of, say, the 1670s

that the Johnson family is
going to be squeezed out.

Narrator: Within a few years,
Anthony's grandson John

purchased another 44 acres

and in memory of his
grandfather's homeland

called the farm "Angola."

Latimer: By the time the
end of the century came

Anthony Johnson's children
and grandchildren

may well have been
fighting to stay free.

Many free people were
sold into slavery.

No, they couldn't prove
that they were free.

They had no way of
letting anybody know

that they were free

so if a plantation
owner came by and said

"this is my slave and I want
to sell him," you were sold.

Narrator: By the
end of the century

nearly 58,000 people
lived in the colony.

16,000 were listed as negroes.

In 1705, the Virginia
assembly passed laws

clearly defining the distinction
between a slave and a servant

relegating all slaves to
the status of real estate.

The next year

John, the third generation
of Johnsons in America

died without an heir.

That would be the last mention

of the plantation named
for Anthony's birthplace.

Angola plantation, like
the Johnsons themselves

disappeared from the record
books of colonial America.

Man: "The African
trade is a trade

"of the most advantage to
this kingdom of any we derive

"and as it were all profit

"it is indeed the best
traffic the kingdom hath

"as it doth occasionally
give so vast an employment

to our people both
by sea and land."

John Cary, Bristol, england.

Narrator: In 1698, the english
parliament ended the monopoly

of the royal African company
on the African slave trade.

It became the right of every
free-born British subject

to trade in slaves.

Over the next half century

the number of
africans transported

to the British colonies
in British ships

increased from 5,000
to 45,000 a year.

England became the largest
trafficker in slaves

in the western world.

"It is the first principle and
foundation of all the rest"

said one British writer:

"The mainspring of the machine

which sets every
wheel in motion."

He was born ibo...

The son of a tribal elder,
the favorite of his mother.

He died an englishman...

The father of two daughters and
the husband of an englishwoman.

At the age of 11,
olaudah equiano

was kidnapped by africans
and sold to Europeans.

Man: "When the grown people were
gone far in the fields to labor

"the children generally
assembled together to play

"and some of us often used
to get up into a tree

"to look out for any
assailant or kidnapper

that might come upon us."

"One day

"when only I and my sister
were left to mind the house

"two men and a woman
got over our walls

"and in a moment seized us
both without giving us time

"to cry out or to
make any resistance.

They stopped our mouths
and ran off with us."

Olaudah equiano.

Who are we looking for?

Who are we looking for?

It's equiano we're looking for.

Has he gone to the stream?

Let him come back.

Has he gone to the market?

Let him come back.

Has he gone to the farm?

Let him return.

It's equiano we're looking for.

Narrator: For more
than four centuries

people disappeared from the
savannas, the rain forests

and the villages
of black Africa...

Farmers and craftspeople,
commoners and African nobility.

Most were strong young
men, age 15 to 25

but women and children
were also taken and sold.

To obtain slaves,
africans waged war

destroying communities,
stealing people.

To escape the spreading violence
many moved into the interior

abandoning family compounds,
farms, entire villages.

In west Africa

more than 20 million people
were kidnapped into slavery.

Only half would survive
the journey to the coast.

The boy equiano was
one of the survivors.

Equiano: "At last I came to
the banks of a large river.

"I was beyond measure
surprised at this

"as I had never before seen

any water larger than
a pond or rivulet."

"And to my surprise was
mingled with no small fear

"when I was put into
one of these canoes

and we began to paddle and
move along the river."

Narrator: On the
journey to the coast

equiano passed from one
African master to another.

Once he was sold for
172 cowrie shells.

He learned three
different languages

traveled some 800 miles

and encountered
people and customs

unfamiliar and
frightening to him.

After close to seven months
of travel on foot and by boat

he reached the African coast.

Equiano: "The first object
that saluted my eyes

"when I arrived on the coast
was the sea and a slave ship

"which was then riding at anchor
and waiting for its cargo.

"These filled me
with astonishment

but was soon converted
into terror."

Olaudah equiano.

Narrator: It was an
ancient business

this trade in human beings
between Africa and Europe.

50 years before Columbus
sailed to the new world

Portuguese explorers had
sailed to west Africa.

At first seeking gold,
they built a fort in 1482

and called it El Mina, the mine.

The Portuguese pointed their
guns toward the Atlantic

to guard, not against africans

but against European
competitors.

Over time, the
castle changed hands

from the Portuguese to the
Dutch and finally the British

and the trade changed from
gold to human beings.

Man: "Concerning the
trade on this coast

"we notified your
highness already

"that is has completely
changed into a slave coast

"and that nowadays the natives
no longer occupy themselves

"with the search for gold

"but rather make
war on each other

"in order to furnish slaves.

The gold coast has changed
into a complete slave coast."

William de la palma

director, Dutch
west India company.

Narrator: Along the
west coast of Africa

from Senegal in the north to
the cameroons in the south

the Europeans built some
60 forts and castles

warehouses for
European merchandise

and for African slaves.

Called "factories," they
were commercial centers

where agents or "factors"
traded rum, cloth and guns

for human beings and gold.

Man: "The most notable
item is the slave house

"which lies below ground.

"It consists of vaulted cellars
divided into several apartments

which can easily hold
a thousand slaves."

Captain John barbot,
French slave trader.

Narrator: In dungeons built
deep into the ocean rock

people waited, sometimes
a day, sometimes a year.

These chambers would be their
last memory of Africa.

When a slave ship arrived
and anchored off the coast

they would be led out from
the darkness to the beach.

Barbot: "As the slaves come down
to fida from the inland country

"they are put into a booth,
or prison, near the beach.

"When the Europeans
are to receive them

"they are brought out
into a large plain

"where the surgeons
examine every one of them

"all stark naked.

"Each which have passed as
good is marked on the breast

"with a red-hot iron
imprinting the Mark

"of the French, english
or Dutch companies.

"In this, particular
care is taken

that the women, as tenderest,
be not burnt too hard."

Captain John barbot,
French slave trader.

Achebe: The white people
did not need to be present

in the interior of Africa.

All they needed to do was
to supply the weapons.

The people they dealt with were

those coastal peoples
right on the coastline

who controlled the
territory down there.

So equiano would not have
met, maybe not even heard

of white people.

Man: "I have found no place where
I can enlarge my fortune so soon

"as where I now live.

"In this manner, we spend the
prime of youth among negroes

"scraping the world for money,
the universal god of mankind

until death overtakes us."

Nicholas Owen, slave trader.

Unsworth: Europeans died
like flies in that climate.

The average expectation

was three or four years,
you know, really.

And so they had to make
money while they could

because they knew they
didn't have much time

so in that sense, of
course, they were trapped.

They were caught in the web
of the system and held there

and died there.

Narrator: The Europeans made
more than 54,000 voyages

to trade in human beings.

No one will ever know

the exact number of people taken
from the shores of west Africa

but more than 11 million
have been counted

in the records that remain.

Most headed for south America
and the Caribbean islands

some half a million to the
mainland of north America.

Man: "December 29,
1724, no trade today

"though many traders
came on board.

"They informed us

"that the people are
gone to war within land

"and will bring prisoners
enough in two or three days

in hopes of which we stay."

"December 30, 1724, no trade yet

"but our traders came on
board today and informed us

"the people had burnt four
towns of their enemies

so that tomorrow
we expect slaves."

Liverpool surgeon.

Man: "Received on this cargo 46
men, 34 women, 14 boys, six girls

"and 147 chests of corn.

"The rest of the goods
delivered onshore

to cape coast and Accra to Mr.
harbin."

William Dexter, ship's captain.

Narrator: Ship captains
were cautioned

not to buy all their
slaves from one place.

Africans who knew each other,
who spoke the same language

were more likely to
conspire and rebel.

Unsworth: There would be maybe 25
seamen and the ship's officers.

There might have
been a crew of 30

and these 30 had to
control maybe 300 men...

Black men and women... who
were aware of being abducted

and who were desperate
and who were dangerous

because they were obviously
waiting to seize any opportunity

that was offered to rebel

and to take over the ship
and to kill the crew

and that did happen
fairly frequently.

The only way that this
could be contained

was by a system of fear.

Equiano: "I was now persuaded that I
had got into a world of bad spirits

"and that they were
going to kill me.

"Their complexions, too,
differing so much from ours

"their long hair and the
language they spoke

"which was very different
from any I had ever heard

"united to confirm
me in this belief:

"I no longer doubted my fate.

"I asked if we were going to
be eaten by those white men

with horrible looks, red
faces and long hair."

Olaudah equiano.

Narrator: Captains called the voyage
from west Africa to the new world

"the middle passage"...

The middle leg of a
triangular course

that began and ended in Europe.

From english ports,
ships sailed to Africa

to trade goods for slaves.

Then the human cargo was
taken to the americas

and traded for raw materials

which were then carried
back to england and sold.

The crossing from
Africa to the americas

usually took 60 to 90 days

but some voyages took as long
as four or even six months.

Bad weather and sickness could
turn any trip into a nightmare.

Man: The cramped quarters of
ships being packed in such a way

that a slave will be between
the legs of another slave

and having to lie in the feces.

The lack of air.

The longer this trip takes,
the more suffocating.

Man: "The surgeon, upon going
between decks in the morning

"to examine the
situation of the slaves

"frequently finds several dead

"and sometimes a dead
and living negro

"fastened by their
irons together.

"When this is the case, they
are brought upon the deck.

"The living negro is disengaged

and the dead one
thrown overboard."

Alexander falconbridge,
ship's surgeon.

Jones: There are no doubt
people who went mad...

Inability to communicate,
decisions having to be made

and this person is
suffering as yourself.

Does one help?

Does one simply try to make it
the best that one can alone?

Not knowing, where am I being
taken, what is my fate?

For weeks, months, depending
what the point of origin was.

Equiano: "One day, two
of my wearied countrymen

"who were chained together

"somehow made it
through the nettings

"and jumped into the sea.

"Immediately another
quite dejected fellow

"also followed their example

"and I believe many more would
have very soon done the same

"if they had not been
prevented by the ship's crew

who were instantly alarmed."

Olaudah equiano.

Unsworth: The idea, I think was

that the slave cannot
be allowed to die

by his own will and intention.

He cannot be allowed
to die voluntarily.

If he's going to die, it must
be at the hands of his captors

so that in that case he doesn't
spread a dangerous example.

Man: "Monday, 11 December.

"By the favor of
divine Providence

"made a timely discovery today

"that the slaves were forming
a plot for insurrection.

"Surprised two of them

"attempting to get
off their irons

"and in their rooms found
knives, stones, shot, etc.

"And a cold chisel.

"There appeared eight
principally concerned

"in protecting the mischief

"and four boys in supplying them
with the above instruments.

"Put the boys in irons and
slightly in the thumbscrews

to urge them to a
full confession."

Captain John Newton.

Man: "We stood in arms,
firing on the revolted slaves

"of whom we killed
some and wounded many.

"And many of the most mutinous

"leapt overboard and drowned
themselves in the ocean

with much resolution."

James barbot, english
sailor, 1701.

Equiano: "Often did I think many
of the inhabitants of the deep

"much happier than myself.

"Every circumstance I met with

"served only to render
my state more painful

"and heighten my apprehensions

and my opinion of the
cruelty of whites."

Olaudah equiano.

Unsworth: The slavers,
they knew at one level

that these were human beings

because they were obviously,
clearly, human beings.

At the same time, they
were objects of profit

and those two concepts couldn't
obviously be really reconciled

and they never were reconciled.

It was just I think
that the humane...

The sense of the humanity
of these people...

Was simply suppressed
for the sake of gold.

And the shocking thing

is that human beings
are able indefinitely

to suppress the urgings
of their common humanity

and to deny it for the
sake of making profits.

Equiano: "Is not the slave trade
entirely a war with the heart of man?

"And surely that which is begun

"by breaking down the
barriers of virtue

"involves in its continuance
destruction to every principle

and buries all
sentiment in ruin."

Olaudah equiano.

Narrator: The middle
passage ended for equiano

on the island of Barbados...

One of the most profitable
colonies in the British empire.

On Barbados, it was calculated

that it was cheaper to
work slaves to death

and replace them with new slaves
than to treat them humanely.

Within three years of arrival

one out of three
slaves would die.

The boy equiano, judged too
small to cut sugar cane

was shipped north to the
mainland of British America.

On the mainland, the
plantation system of Barbados

was admired and imitated

particularly on the
Carolina coast.

Man: South Carolina was started
as the colony of a colony.

Barbados had become
overpopulated

with the younger sons of english
merchants and with their slaves

and in both cases

they began to look around,
cast around for new places

and within the first decade

after south Carolina's
initial settlement

there were just loads of
immigrants from Barbados

who brought with them
slaves from Barbados

but more important than
just bringing slaves

unlike Virginia, they brought a
fully conceived idea of slavery.

Narrator: On the shores of the
Ashley river stands middleton place

home to one of Carolina's
oldest families.

Middleton family members

were destined to become part
of the Carolina elite...

A governor, a congressman

a signer of the declaration
of independence.

The family had been among
the first settlers

arriving from Barbados in 1678

with a land Grant in goose creek

just 14 miles north
of Charleston...

Carolina's slave-trading center.

By 1706, a second
generation of middletons

had almost tripled the size
of the family's landholdings

to 5,000 acres of
Carolina wilderness.

At age 25, young
Arthur middleton

was master of the
oaks plantation.

Man: "Dear Sarah... Mr.
Arthur middleton

"is married to my sister

"and was a schoolfellow with
me when I was at Carolina.

"He is a sensible man and one
of the richest in the country

with upwards of 100 negroes."

Thomas amory.

Wood: Racial slavery turns out
to be extraordinarily profitable

for the people who
have seized control.

The planter can
complain in his diary

that it's been a bad
year or the crop is weak

or the rainy season
lasted too long

but year in and year out

tremendous profits
are being made.

Narrator: The immigrants
from Barbados

had searched for a cash crop
that would make them rich.

Families like the middletons found it...
It was rice.

The most prized
africans in Carolina

were from Angola, sene-Gambia
and the windward coast...

People who brought the
rice-growing skills

the Europeans did not have.

Man: "Rice is the
most unhealthy work

"in which the slaves
were employed

"and they sank under
it in great numbers.

"The causes of this
dreadful mortality

"are the constant moisture
and heat of the atmosphere

"together with the alternate
floodings and drying

"of the fields on which the
negroes are perpetually at work

"often ankle-deep in mud

with their bare heads exposed
to the fierce rays of the sun."

Captain basil hall.

Man: "Many masters
can't be persuaded

"that negroes and Indians
are otherwise than beasts

"and use them like such.

"I daily perceive that
many things are done here

out of a worldly principle,
little for god's sake."

Francis lejau,
anglican minister.

Narrator: In 1706, the middletons
donated four acres of land

for a church in goose creek.

Francis lejau, the first
full-time anglican minister

was not opposed to slavery

but he preached that all men...
Regardless of color...

Had immortal souls.

He earned a reputation for
spending time with the negroes

baptizing and teaching
them to read the Bible.

He spoke out often against

the brutality of
Carolina slaveholders

who were seeking to control the
growing population of africans.

Lejau: "I have had of late

"an opportunity to
oppose with all my might

"a very unhumane law in
relation to runaway negroes.

"Such a negro must be mutilated

"by amputation of
testicles if it be a man

"and an ear, if a woman.

"I have openly declared
against such a punishment

grounded upon the law of god."

Francis lejau.

Washington: The
anglican missionaries

probably described
the black community

better than anyone at the
time in early Carolina.

They described it as a
nation within a nation.

The africans lived separated
from the rest of society.

Being freshly from Africa, their
frame of reference was African.

They were very much familiar

with this kind of
subtropical environment

that they found themselves
in in Carolina.

They're still communities
of people who live, love

raise children and work, and
they feel that as people

as humans, they have a
right to come and go.

They have a right to visit
their wives and their husbands

on other plantations.

It was, as one traveler
said, "a negro country."

Man: "Their numbers
increase every day

"as well by birth
as importation.

"And in case there should arise
a man of desperate courage

"exasperated by a
desperate fortune

"he might kindle a servile war.

"Such a man might be
dreadfully mischievous

"before any opposition could
be formed against him

and tinge our rivers as wide
as they are with blood."

William byrd, Virginia planter.

Narrator: In 1710, just 15 years
after rice took hold in Carolina

africans began to outnumber
Europeans in the colony.

As the number of africans Rose

so, too, did white
fear and retaliation.

Equiano: "Mr. D. Told me once

"he cut off a negro man's
leg for running away.

"I asked him if the man
had died in the operation

"and how he, as a Christian

"could answer for the
horrid act before god

"and he told me

"answering was a thing
of another world.

What he thought and
did were policy."

"He then said his scheme
had the desired effect:

It cured that man and some
others of running away."

Olaudah equiano.

Wood: If you're a
white authority

you're constantly
trying to figure

how tightly you want
to impose the lid

with respect to
people running away.

How fierce should the
punishments be, you know?

Should it be a whipping?

Should it be the loss of a
finger or a hand or a foot?

You know, should it be wearing
shackles perpetually?

The entire system of control is
based on physical punishment

often making examples
out of people

so that others will
be intimidated.

Narrator: The colonial
legislature passed laws

designed to more tightly control
the growing black majority.

Planter records reveal
punishments inflicted

for infractions large and small.

Byrd: "8 February, 1709.

"I Rose at 5:00 this morning
then read a chapter in Hebrew

"and 200 verses in
homer's odyssey.

"I ate milk for breakfast.

"I said my prayers.

"Jenny and Eugene were whipped.

"17 April... anaka was whipped
yesterday for stealing the rum

"and filling the
bottle up with water.

"I said my prayers and
I danced my dance.

"Eugene was whipped again
for pissing in bed

"and Jenny for concealing it.

"I took a walk about
the plantation.

"Eugene was whipped
for running away

"and had the bit put on him.

"I said my prayers.

"I had good health, good
thoughts and good humor.

Thanks be to god almighty."

William byrd, Virginia planter.

Washington: When you
enslave a person

in some ways you become
a slave yourself

because masters and slaves
are natural enemies

and that's what the
Europeans had to deal with.

They had to deal with a
population living amongst them

sometimes the majority of the
population, in hostility.

They lived amongst enemies.

And as one Carolina planter said

"nowhere on earth is
mankind so plagued

by enemies living within them
as we are in our own homes."

Man: "The Spanish are
receiving and harboring

"all our runaway negroes.

"They have found out a new way

"of sending our own
slaves against us

"to Rob and plunder us.

"We are not only
at a vast expense

"in guarding our
Southern frontiers

but the inhabitants are
continually alarmed."

Arthur middleton,
acting governor, 1728.

Narrator: On the south
Carolina frontier

word spread of
africans and Indians

coming up from Spanish
Florida to attack planters

and of Spanish authorities

offering runaways freedom
on Florida soil.

In goose creek, an anglican
minister complained

of "secret poisonings and
bloody insurrections

by certain Christian slaves."

Wood: South Carolina is a
pot ready to boil over.

Imagine coming into a setup
that seems almost unbearable

and finding that people have...

Many of them have
somehow rationalized it

or are enduring it, that's
the best they can do.

But you as a newcomer might feel

"I'm not going to
put up with this.

Better to die trying
to change this."

And there must have been
hundreds of people like that

in south Carolina in the 1730s.

Narrator: By the 1730s,
close to 2,000 africans

were arriving at the port
of Charleston each year.

From 1735 to 1739, out
of 11,000 slaves landed

more than 8,000 were
listed as Angolans.

Davis: What develops is
a sense among Europeans

that slaves from certain areas
have particular characteristics.

Slaves from the Angola area

are reputed among the english
to be particularly difficult

to be rebellious.

Narrator: In St. Paul's parish

there were close to a
thousand new people

who just a few years before

had been taken from the
Angola region of Africa.

Wood: One of them, we only know
his name, a man named jemmy

apparently had come
recently from Angola.

He may not even
have spoken english

but he may have had strong
contacts with other Angolans.

He had to try to build alliances

not only with other Angolans,
other new arrivals

but with other africans,
African Americans

people from a community that
he was not that familiar with

and apparently he succeeded.

Narrator: During the early morning
hours of September 9, 1739

almost as soon as word is
received in south Carolina

that england and
Spain are at war

some 20 Angolan slaves, led
by the man named jemmy

began marching toward St.
augustine

and the promise of freedom.

Just 30 miles from the
middleton's oaks plantation

at the stono bridge, they
seized a general store

where there were
arms and powder.

They killed the storekeepers

and left their heads
on the doorstep.

Wood: What better moment
to start an uprising

and try to strike out for St.
augustine

and find freedom in Florida

in the hope that the
Spanish authorities

are willing to Grant freedom
to english-speaking slaves

who escape from the
carolinas into Florida.

Narrator: On the march south

the africans did not kill
every white they encountered.

They spared Mr. Wallace

an innkeeper they knew to
be kind to his slaves.

But before the day ended, they
had killed more than 20 people.

As other slaves joined them

they became an army
of almost a hundred

camped at the edisto river

waiting for others to
gather under their flag.

Davis: The entire force
of english north America

was going to come down on them

because this was an issue

not merely for those
in south Carolina

immediately surrounding
this area.

This was an issue for
every European colonist

everywhere in the colonies

to quash this and to provide
some exemplary punishment.

Narrator: Around noon, the nearest
white settlers were alerted.

By 4:00 in the afternoon

they caught up with the negroes
along the edisto river

and fired upon them.

Eyewitnesses recorded that
the rebels fought boldly

but at least 14 were killed or
wounded in the first attack.

Others were surrounded,
questioned and then shot.

The armed colonists then
turned toward Charleston

and on mile posts along the way

they left the heads
of the executed men.

Wood: Just the way war
transforms people

this terrible transformation
into race slavery

had changed people by the
middle of the 18th century.

The violence you see at stono

is a violence that had become
pervasive in the culture.

By the middle of
the 18th century

this had become a way of life
in the english colonies.

Washington: Stono was sort of
the beginning of the concept

that the black population had
to be utterly controlled

and the legislation that came
out of stono, the negro act

took away whatever liberties
the africans had.

Narrator: Freedom of movement,
freedom of assembly

to earn money, to learn to
read, all were outlawed.

South Carolina imposed duties
on all slave importations

and encouraged
European immigration

in order to change the
ratio of whites to blacks.

The negro act became the
model for slave laws

throughout the mainland
of British America.

Equiano: "Why do you use those
instruments of torture?

"Are they not fit to be applied

"by one rational
being to another?

"And are you not struck with
shame and mortification

"to see the partakers of
your nature reduced so low?

"But above all

"are there no dangers attending
this mode of treatment?

Are you not hourly in dread
of an insurrection?"

Olaudah equiano.

Narrator: News of the rebellion
traveled quickly to New York

now the third largest
city in British America.

Most of Manhattan island
was unbroken wilderness

crossed by streams emptying into
both the Hudson and east rivers.

By 1740, except for
Charleston, south Carolina

no city in colonial America

had so high a density of slave
population as New York.

Crowded onto the Southern tip of
the island lived 11,000 people

of which more than
2,000 were black.

Foote: There was really an illusion
of intimacy between enslaved blacks

and their white slave owners
who lived under the same roof.

These people could not
trust one another.

In fact, the slave owners
considered the enslaved blacks

domestic enemies.

Man: "New York,
November 18, 1731.

"Be it ordained by the
authority of this city

"that all negro, mulatto
and Indian slaves

"that shall die within this
city be buried by daylight.

"And for the prevention of
great numbers of slaves

"assembling and meeting
together at their funerals

"under pretext whereof they
have great opportunities

"of plotting and confederating
together to do mischief

"be it further ordained
that not above 12 slaves

shall assemble or meet
together at the funeral."

Minutes of the common
council of New York.

There were probably a lot
of other issues going on

in New York City at that time

that made whites
suspicious of blacks.

There was, among the lower
classes of blacks and whites

a lot of racial amalgamation.

There was a lot of
activity in the grogshops

between blacks and whites,
blacks frequenting taverns.

New York City was a
Cosmopolitan place

with people from various
ethnic groups converging

lots of seamen, and blacks
were very much a part of that.

Narrator: In taverns, black
men illegally gathered, drank

and mingled with white
New York residents.

Many enslaved men in New York
were hired out by their masters.

They had relative
freedom of movement

and control over their own time.

Davis: The African-American
adult male is seen

as the most troublesome,
the most intractable

the most rebellious.

Those are the persons who are
growing in the population.

By law they're not supposed
to be out after sunset;

by law they're not supposed to
have any currency of their own;

by law they're not
supposed to go and gather

in numbers of three or greater;

by law they're not supposed
to be out drinking

yet every night they're out
doing all of these things.

There developed in colonial new
York city a lively street life

amongst black men and...
Enslaved and free.

These black men
organized into clubs

or, uh... gangs

and they were a constant
presence on the streets.

They even gathered at nights
at the docks or in taverns

and they presented, according
to the english authorities

and anxious white
residents, a public threat.

Narrator: On march 18, 1741, a
fire broke out at fort George

the governor's
official residence.

Whipped by violent winds

it burned until a rain
shower cooled the Blaze

keeping it from torching
the entire city.

A week later, another
fire broke out

and then in the next three
weeks, fires raged.

Davis: As this rash occurs

a sense that there is some
evil hand behind this develops

and then people begin
to see a black hand.

They begin to worry that
slaves are behind this

that this is some
act of vengeance

that this is some
prelude to rebellion.

In 1741, england was
now at war with Spain

and many of the colonial
authorities in New York City

feared that the enslaved blacks
would have been influenced

by the promises from
Spain of freedom.

It was the english authorities

who claimed that
they had discovered

a combination between
enslaved blacks

and the lower orders of
white town dwellers...

Transients and vagabonds...

To destroy the town, to
burn it to the ground

and to set up a black
or negro regime

that would owe
allegiance to Spain.

Narrator: Just 30 years
earlier in New York

fire had been instrumental
in the negro plot of 1712

where nine whites were killed and
five were seriously wounded.

Now the city's officials
did not waste any time

finding an explanation for
the mysterious events.

Davis: A general
dragnet goes out

and just about every
African-American male

over 16 years of age

is taken up and put in jail,
crowded under the city hall.

Narrator: The court used the
testimony of Mary Burton

a 16-year-old indentured servant

to accuse the alleged
conspirators.

Burton worked at a tavern
and brothel in the city...

A business that regularly
served black customers.

Promised her freedom
from servitude

Mary Burton started implicating

a constant stream
of men and women

some white, but most
young black men.

For close to four months

black men were dragged into
court off New York's streets.

Washington: New yorkers
are so incensed

over what they conceive
of as a conspiracy

that they create this
wave of paranoia

that leads to incredible murders
and incredible punishments.

It speaks to the whole
entrenchment of slavery

even in the north

and also it speaks to
racial attitudes as well

that they are very much afraid
of racial egalitarianism

and people in the lower echelons
of their society coming together

to form any kind of bond.

Narrator: In may, new yorkers
witness the public execution

of Caesar and prince,
two black men

accused of participating in a
robbery connected to the fires.

Caesar's corpse was then hung
in chains until it decomposed.

From the spring of 1741
through the following winter

and into the spring of 1742

some 160 slaves and at
least a dozen whites

were accused of conspiracy
against the city of New York.

31 africans were put to death,
13 of them burned at the stake

and four whites were hung.

Man: "23 June 1741.

"To Dr. Cadwallader colden

"governor's council,
province of New York.

"Sir, the horrible
executions among you

"puts me in mind of our
new england witchcraft

"in the year 1692.

"I am humbly of the opinion

"that such confessions
are not worth a straw

"for many times they are
obtained by foul means

"by force or torment

"or in hopes of a
longer time to live

"or to die an easier death.

"I entreat you not to go on
making bonfires of the negroes

"and loading yourselves with
greater guilt than theirs.

"For we have too
much reason to fear

"that the divine vengeance
does and will pursue us

"for our ill treatment
to the bodies and souls

of our poor slaves."

Anonymous letter
from Massachusetts.

Narrator: The encroachment of
slavery in American society

that began in Virginia,
culminated in 1750

with the decision to
legalize slavery in Georgia

the last free colony.

It had been a little
over 100 years

since Anthony Johnson first
arrived in Virginia.

Now slavery existed everywhere
in the 13 colonies.

But the argument over who would
be free and who would be equal

had just begun.

For generations to come

slavery would continue to
trouble the soul of America.

Equiano: "When you
make men slaves

"you deprive them of
half their virtue

"you set them in
your own conduct

"an example of fraud and cruelty

and compel them to live with
you in a state of war."

Olaudah equiano,
enslaved African.

Woman: ♪... how came it yours? ♪

♪ Before the pilgrims landed ♪

♪ we were here. ♪

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