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Brings us the imagined memoirs of the first black explorer of America--a Moroccan slave whose testimony was left out of the official record. In 1527, the conquistador Pánfilo de Narváez sailed from the port of Sanlúcar de Barrameda with a crew of six hundred men and nearly a hundred horses. His goal was to claim what is now the Gulf Coast of the United States for the Spanish crown and, in the process, become as wealthy and famous as Hernán Cortés....
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English
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The Interesting Narration of the Life of Olaudah Equiano created a sensation when it was published in 1789. Written by ex-slave Equiano, the autobiography vividly described the horrors of being kidnapped from Africa, the Middle Passage, and life in captivity, and fueled the growing abolitionist movement. This program employs dramatic reconstructions of this slave narrative, archival material, and interviews with scholars such as Stuart Hall and Ian...
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English
Description
In 1607, 105 Englishmen crowded onto three ships to cross the Atlantic and make a new life for themselves in North America. They built a fort at Jamestown and established trade with the indigenous people, but things quickly turned bad: the Native Americans became hostile, the land proved unforgiving, and disease broke out. How did Jamestown, long thought to be a near-failure due to the colonists' apparent incompetence, manage to survive to become...
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English
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As the tale goes, Pocahantas, age 12, saved the gallant John Smith from the "savages" in her tribe. The relationship blossomed into love, and Pocahontas went with Smith to London, where British society undoubtedly perceived her as an exotic creature. This program holds that legend up to historical scrutiny by examining questions such as: How gallant was John Smith? Who were these so-called "savages"? How could Pocahontas, from a culture with strict...
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English
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The tobacco farmers of the Old Belt of Virginia represent a history and a way of life that began with the founding of Jamestown and the colony of Virginia on the Chesapeake Bay. But tobacco farmers in Southside Virginia, like coal miners in Appalachia, have come upon hard times. Declining quotas, production moving overseas, society's changing attitudes, and the 2004 tobacco buyout have radically altered the cultural landscape of the Old Belt, the...
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English
Description
Katrina Browne was shocked to discover that her distinguished Rhode Island forebears had been part of the largest slave-trading dynasty in American history. Once she started digging, Browne found the evidence everywhere-in ledgers, ships logs, letters, even a local nursery rhyme. This film documents one family's painful confrontation with their ancestors' involvement in the slave trade, and in so doing, reveals the pivotal role slavery played in the...
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English
Description
This episode of New York: A Documentary Film begins by identifying the key themes that shaped New York's history: commerce and capitalism, diversity and democracy, transformation and creativity. Filmmaker Ric Burns charts the development of the city founded by the Dutch as a purely commercial enterprise, first as New Amsterdam, a freewheeling enclave of trade and opportunity; then as the British colony of New York, bestowed as a birthday gift upon...