Producer:		Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Year:		1999
Language:		English
Time:		60 minutes

This film is part of a six-part series produced and presented by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. on PBS television. It explores the African side of the slave trade. According to Gates: "Europeans often acted as junior partners to African rulers, merchants, and middlemen in the slave trade. . . .When Europeans first initiated a trading relationship with West Africans in the mid-15th century they encountered well-established and highly-developed political organizations and competitive regional commercial networks. . . . Understanding the dynamics of African complicity in the slave trade is important in understanding Africans as historically active and diverse human beings. This understanding should not detract from the horrors of the slave trade or from its American legacy of inequality and racism."

Not rated.

Post-film discussion led by David Hostetter.

Links

About Henry Louis Gates.

About the PBS series.

About the 2007 Appalachian Writer in Residence program.