SLAVERY AND THE MAKING OF AMERICA
SLAVERY & THE MAKING OF AMERICA (PBS, DVD)
Each episode is contained on its own DVD; there is a brief intro before the start of each transcript. Times are approximate; PBS provided the transcript, but the times and highlighting has been added by the reviewer. There are some remarkable scenes and commentary in the first three episodes. For the last one, the compelling road of Robert Smalls is the focus, if you are looking for an angle on Civil War/Reconstruction. If you want to show some historians’ interpretation of Reconstruction, you can show the last few minutes of Episode 4 for a good, somewhat hopeful view.
[pic]
[pic]
[pic]
Episode one opens in the 1620s with the introduction of 11 men of African descent and mixed ethnicity …show more content…
They will need to perform at least two jobs -- which is to be sexual partners for the men but to be hard workers as well. The men are going to be very important then in helping these women navigate since the men have been there for slightly longer than the women and understand the terrain.
9:03 Scene#2 “Rights of Slaves” --This could be summarized, but I think it would also surprise students to see slaves in this half-free status
Leslie Harris: Slaves in New Amsterdam during this time have rights that we think of as unusual for enslaved people. They have the right to earn wages. They have the right to keep those wages. Europeans are dependent on enslaved people and so they need to in a sense appease them.
Morgan Freeman, Narrator: Because slavery had no legal structure, the Atlantic Creoles were able to negotiate for greater autonomy. In 1635, several of them petitioned the Dutch West India Company for wages they believed the company owed them. Anthony Portuguese sued a white merchant in 1638. A year later Pedro Negretto and Manuel D. Rues successfully sued Europeans for wages due. Court records indicate that Atlantic Creoles made the system work for them when they …show more content…
And by the beginning of the 18th century it is clear that through law in the Chesapeake slavery is being made a racially based institution and people are being considered property.
33:05 Scene #5 Societies with Slaves Shows the econ embedding of slavery
Morgan Freeman, Narrator: New Amsterdam was renamed New York in 1664 after the British took over the colony. New York and other British colonies including Massachusetts, New Jersey and Maryland, were societies with slaves. Of the original thirteen colonies Carolina was the first in which slavery was the center of economic production, making it the first slave society. Racial slavery was sanctioned by Carolinas' 1669 constitution.
Peter Wood: The Carolina colony, which was originally South Carolina and North Carolina -- founded in about 1670. It's one of these gifts from Charles the second to his friend. Here's a place to exploit fellows -- go to it.
Edward Ball: Many South Carolinian whites came initially from Barbados where the British had established a giant sugar economy with some 50 thousand Afro-Caribbean slaves. The plantation system was merely transplanted like a kind of virus from the Caribbean to the American
Each episode is contained on its own DVD; there is a brief intro before the start of each transcript. Times are approximate; PBS provided the transcript, but the times and highlighting has been added by the reviewer. There are some remarkable scenes and commentary in the first three episodes. For the last one, the compelling road of Robert Smalls is the focus, if you are looking for an angle on Civil War/Reconstruction. If you want to show some historians’ interpretation of Reconstruction, you can show the last few minutes of Episode 4 for a good, somewhat hopeful view.
[pic]
[pic]
[pic]
Episode one opens in the 1620s with the introduction of 11 men of African descent and mixed ethnicity …show more content…
They will need to perform at least two jobs -- which is to be sexual partners for the men but to be hard workers as well. The men are going to be very important then in helping these women navigate since the men have been there for slightly longer than the women and understand the terrain.
9:03 Scene#2 “Rights of Slaves” --This could be summarized, but I think it would also surprise students to see slaves in this half-free status
Leslie Harris: Slaves in New Amsterdam during this time have rights that we think of as unusual for enslaved people. They have the right to earn wages. They have the right to keep those wages. Europeans are dependent on enslaved people and so they need to in a sense appease them.
Morgan Freeman, Narrator: Because slavery had no legal structure, the Atlantic Creoles were able to negotiate for greater autonomy. In 1635, several of them petitioned the Dutch West India Company for wages they believed the company owed them. Anthony Portuguese sued a white merchant in 1638. A year later Pedro Negretto and Manuel D. Rues successfully sued Europeans for wages due. Court records indicate that Atlantic Creoles made the system work for them when they …show more content…
And by the beginning of the 18th century it is clear that through law in the Chesapeake slavery is being made a racially based institution and people are being considered property.
33:05 Scene #5 Societies with Slaves Shows the econ embedding of slavery
Morgan Freeman, Narrator: New Amsterdam was renamed New York in 1664 after the British took over the colony. New York and other British colonies including Massachusetts, New Jersey and Maryland, were societies with slaves. Of the original thirteen colonies Carolina was the first in which slavery was the center of economic production, making it the first slave society. Racial slavery was sanctioned by Carolinas' 1669 constitution.
Peter Wood: The Carolina colony, which was originally South Carolina and North Carolina -- founded in about 1670. It's one of these gifts from Charles the second to his friend. Here's a place to exploit fellows -- go to it.
Edward Ball: Many South Carolinian whites came initially from Barbados where the British had established a giant sugar economy with some 50 thousand Afro-Caribbean slaves. The plantation system was merely transplanted like a kind of virus from the Caribbean to the American