Minimasthead

A select list of films about slavery and related themes

Brazil

Abolicao or Abolizimo

DIRECTOR: Zozimo Bulbul YEAR Shooting/Premiere: 1988 GENRE: drama THEME: rural PICTURE ORIGINALLY CAPTURED IN FORMAT: 35mm Documentary about the end of the slavery in Brazil
ABOLIÇAO by Sozimo Bulbul Brazil, 1988, 150 minutes. In Portuguese with English Subtitles ABOLIÇAO is a startling look at the racial situation of Black Brazilians in contemporary Brazil. The director asks the following question to Black Brazilians from diverse walks of life -musicians, politicians, activists, people in government, ambassadors, social workers, sport stars, actors, street kids, farmers, etc. - "We are celebrating 100 years since the abolition of slavery in Brazil, what does the abolition of slavery mean to you?" Divided into sections addressing political, economic, social and cultural issues, ABOLIÇAO contributed to a new analysis of the Black experience in Brazil. An indispensable title for understanding the Black presence in Latin America.

Ax (?)

Marcia Meirelle e Maria Anglica with subtitles in English.1988 documentary about racism in Brazil and the history of the black slavery.

Chica da Silva

Carlos Digues. “About a black and very sex woman that became rich being the mistress of a Portuguese authority. ” Chico Rei or Chico Rey DIRECTOR: Walter Lima Junior (provobis/Germany) CAST highlights: Severo Gracelino (Chico), Zaira Zambeli, Cosme dos Santos, Antonio Pitanga, Othon Bastos, Rainer Rudolph DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Mario Carneiro, Jose Antonio Ventura STORYLINE: Galanga becomes Chico Rey when transported as a slave to Vila Rica, where he finds a golden mine and buys freedom.. The catholic church and the slavery in Brazil. Chico Rei is the first black man to own a private property. YEAR Shooting/Premiere: 1979/1984 1986 GENRE: epic THEME: history COLOR: yes PICTURE ORIGINALLY CAPTURED IN FORMAT: 35mm SOURCES/DATES&PAGES: Jornal da Tela EMBRAFILME Jul/84 p.1,4,5

Cortico, O (base: Aluisio Azevedo )

DIRECTOR: Luiz de Barros CAST highlights: Miguel Orrico, Alice Archembeau, Manoel Rocha, Hortencia Santos SCRIPT: Lulu de Barros DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Afrodisio de Castro, Carlos Felton EDITION: Lulu de Barros CREW: SET DECORATOR: Lulu de Barros STORYLINE: “White man lives with black slave that helps him to get rich, but he wants to marry along and rich silly girl.” YEAR Shooting/Premiere: 1945/1946 AWARDS/FESTIVALS/YEARS: Associacao Brasileira de Cronistas Cinematograficos/Estatueta do Indio GENRE: drama THEME: romance COLOR: yes PICTURE ORIGINALLY CAPTURED IN FORMAT: 35mm DURATION IN MINUTES: 111 min SOURCES/DATES&PAGES: Hist. Film. Bras./Salvyano p.39 (d, c, cr, s, y, a) || http://www.minc.gov.br,/filmes/sdavban.htm, May 1st, 1997

Cortico, O (base: Aluisio Azevedo ) (remake of the film above?)

DIRECTOR: Francisco Ramalho Jr. CAST highlights: Betty Faria, Mario Gomes, Armando Bogus, Beatriz Segall, Mauricio do Valle SCRIPT: Francisco Ramalho DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Zepas Malzoni EDITION: Silvio Reinoldi MUSIC: Jonh Neschling STORYLINE: “White man lives with black slave that helps him to get rich, but he wants to marry along and rich silly girl.” YEAR Shooting/Premiere: 1977/1978 GENRE: drama PICTURE ORIGINALLY CAPTURED IN FORMAT: 35mm DURATION IN MINUTES: 110 min SOURCES/DATES&PAGES: Hist. Film. Bras./Salvyano p.190 (d, c, cr, s, y, g) || http://www.minc.gov.br,/filmes/sdavban.htm, May 1st,1997

Escrava Isaura (base: Bernardo Guimaraes )

DIRECTOR: Eurides Ramos CAST highlights: Fada Santoro, Cyll Farney, Graca Mello, Sady Cabral, Joao Labanca, Dea Selva SCRIPT: Josip Bogoslav Tanko DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Helio Barroso Neto STORYLINE: The story of a white slave, daughter of a black slave and the lord of the house. YEAR Shooting/Premiere: 1949 GENRE: drama PICTURE ORIGINALLY CAPTURED IN FORMAT: 35mm SOURCES/DATES&PAGES: Hist. Film. Bras./Salvyano p.45 (d, c, cr, s, y, g)

Ganga Zumba or Ganga Zumba, O Rei Dos Palmares

DIRECTOR: Carlos Diegues / Caca Diegues tabajaras Filmes CAST highlights: Antonio Pitanga, Lea Garcia, Cartola, Luiza Maranhao, Eliezer Gomes SCRIPT: Leopoldo Serran DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Fernando Duarte EDITION: Ismar Porto MUSIC: Moacir Santos STORYLINE: Story of Quilombo dos Palmares, where fugitive slaves have found shelter YEAR Shooting/Premiere: 1964 GENRE: drama SOURCES/DATES&PAGES: Hist. Film. Bras./Salvyano p.110 (d, c, cr, y, g) || http://www.minc.gov.br,/filmes/sdavban.htm, May 1st, 1997 (w)

Human Behavior

Human Behavior by Flavio Leandro Brazil, 1995, 12 minutes, silent. In 1993, police officers opened fire on a group of sleeping street children camped on the steps of a cathedral in Rio de Janeiro's central financial district, killing six. This event, later called the Candelaria massacres, is vividly depicted in this short film about the plight of street children in Brazil.

Natal da Portela

Natal da Portela by Paulo Cezar Saraceni Brazil, 1988, 100 minutes. In Portuguese w/ English Subtitles The name 'Natal da Portela' is historically attached to the cultural identity of Brazil. Natal da Portela created the first scola de samba in Rio de Janeiro. The schools of samba are the soul of carnival in Brazil and major reservoirs of Afro-Brazilian culture. The film depicts the life of Natal da Portela as a young man from the favelas-the slums of the northern part of Rio de Janeiro-up to the creation of "la Portela," the school of samba he created. The principal role played by Milton Goncalves, one of the major Black actors in Brazil, gives the story an authentic flavor rarely seen in films portraying the contemporary life of Black people in Brazil. This is a film filled with joy, music and laughter. Natal da Portela is also a film that narrates the story of contemporary Brazil and the legacy of African people in that country. Several other major actors enrich the story, Zeze Mota well-known for her role in Quilombo and the dean of Black Brazilian actors, the great Grande Otello much remembered for his major role in Rio Zona Norte and Macunaima just to mention a few titles.

O negro no brasil: dias ou zumbi

Documentary about slavery and class conflicts. lcia Murad 1989

Quilombo

A brilliant Brazilian film. Subtitled. The quilombos were the cities created by runaway slaves in Brazil. This is the story of one of them. It takes the quilombo through three leaders. It also has a mystical component. It is available on video. Directed by Carlos Diegues With Zezé Motta, Antônio Pompeo, Vera Fisher This story derives from historical fact--in 17th Century Brazil, groups of runaway black slaves escaped to mountainous jungle strongholds, where they formed self-governing communities known as "quilombos." This film chronicles Palmares, the most famous of these "Black Eldorados" which flourished for several decades under the reign of the legendary chieftain Ganga Zumba. 114 minutes. In Portuguese, with English subtitles. $89.95 Quilombo (Brazil, 1984)

Soul in the Eye

Soul in the Eye by Zozimo Bulbul Brazil, 1974, 8 minutes, silent. This short film on the legacy of culture and survival bestowed by enslaved Africans brought to the Americas features the music of John Coltrane.

Xica

Directed by Carlos Diegues With Zezé Motta and Walmor Chagas A diamond rush in the 1700's transformed Brazil's interior into a place of fabulous wealth and excess. In this unrestrained atmosphere the slave Xica uses her iron will and her unique sexual talent to seduce her way into becoming the unofficial Empress of Brazil, lording it over her former masters and gleefully emptying the crown's treasury. 109 minutes In Portuguese with English subtitles. $89.95

Columbia

Los Palenqueros (2000)

Cote d'Ivoire, France, Columbia Dir: Sidiki Bakaba 52 min In Columbia the descendants of runaway black captives are known asci-marroons (runaway cattle). They live in inaccessible rural areas. Two continental-born African examines the cultural memory of a group of people cut off from their source for over 200 years. The present-day population through their culture, traditions, and African creativity is testimony to their resistance against enslavement.

Cote d'Ivoire

Adanggaman

Roger Gnoan M'Bala 2000, Ivory Coast / France Switzerland / Italyfrench subtitles 90 min / 35 mm / color The 17th Century. An African village has so far miraculously resisted the slave trade practiced along the West African coast with the help of the fearsome King Adanggaman, a tyrant hungry for power, gold and rum. The village chief, N'Go, rules over his family as a patriarch. He attempts to force his son, Ossei, into an arranged marriage with a young girl from a well-to-do family. But the young man refuses his father's law and takes another woman as his wife. After a violent argument with his father, Ossei leaves the village. Addangaman chooses this moment to burn and sack the village capturing men, women and children… "The time has come to speak out for ourselves and for others. Four centuries of a shameful and abominable commerce with millions of victims lost to the seas and treated like animals. Let's address this neglect. Addangaman is my contribution. Let us forgive, but never let us forget." In Adanggaman, Roger Gnoan M'bala of the Ivory Coast deals with a taboo subject, the African role in the slave trade. However, he does so in a relatively conventional and predictable fashion. By David Walsh and Joanne Laurier http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/sep2000/tff1-s25.shtml 25 September 2000 director: Roger Gnoan M'Bala country: Ivory Coast year: 2000 length: 90 min. scenario: Jen-Marie Adiaffi, Roger Gnoan M'Bala, Bertin Akaffou camera: Mohammed Soudani sound and music: Jean-Pierre Féni, Lokua Kanza editing: Monika Goux producer: Tiziana Soudani
In 17th-century West Africa, a village on the Slave Coast is attacked and plundered. Ossei goes looking for his imprisoned villagers. Confrontational reminder of 400 years of slavery. 17th Century, West Africa. In a typical village on the so-called Slave Coast, the old chief N'Go insists that his son Ossei marry the daughter of a rich family. Unable to be with the girl he truly loves, the rebellious Ossei decides to leave the village. That night, Ossei's village is burned and pillaged. Many are killed, while the others are taken prisoner. The bloody massacre is not executed by European slave traders, but by the Amazon warriors of the neighboring tyrant Adanggaman. When Ossei returns to his destroyed village, he finds out that both his father and girlfriend have been killed. He rushes to search for his missing mother Mo Akassi. Ossei catches up with the captured villagers led by the cruel Amazons on the difficult voyage toward Adanggaman's kingdom. Ossei tries in vain to rescue his mother and is wounded. He finds himself among the many men, women and children in chains, humiliated and beaten like pathetic beasts. Adanggaman is filled with joy at the results of his Amazons' recent manhunt, the inhuman source of his prestige, fortune and power. It is evident that his own kingdom has not escaped the hands of European slave traders by accident. Adanggaman was as a memorial to four centuries of slave trade. Forgive, but don't forget, is M'Bala's message.
http://www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com/2001/film.shtml?en+363
http://www.france.diplomatie.fr/culture/france/cinema/fdsud/fds00/film09.html
http://www.cinemaniacs.be/FIFA/fifa17/films/index.html?-adangamman.html
http://www.3continents.com/cinema/films/africa/cote_d_ivoire/adanggaman.html
Dir: Roger Gnoan M'Bala 90 min An epic film as powerful and intriguing as it is controversial, Adanggaman courageously exposes the untold story of the despotic African rulers who fed the transatlantic slave trade. In 17th century West Africa, powerful King Adanggaman is a tyrant and slaver with a thirst for gold, power, rum and baubles. To feed his greed, he terrorizes and enslaves his neighbors. "A disturbing and provocative mix of political comment and emotional drama that compels us to face uncomfortable truths about the African holocaust" June Givanni

Los Palenqueros (2000)

Cote d'Ivoire, France, Columbia Dir: Sidiki Bakaba 52 min In Columbia the descendants of runaway black captives are known as ci-marroons (runaway cattle). They live in inaccessible rural areas. Two continental-born African examines the cultural memory of a group of people cut off from their source for over 200 years. The present-day population through their culture, traditions, and African creativity is testimony to their resistance against enslavement.

Cuba

Cecilia Panned by one and all, it has an intriguing thread about slavery and resistance.

The Last Supper (La Ultima Cena?)

The Last Supper, 1977; 110 minutes; Cuba An excellent film about slave resistance. Plantation owner, trying to teach Christianity to his slaves, has them re-enact the Last Supper of Jesus, resulting in a pageant that is wickedly funny and hideously sadistic. A very un-religious and uniquely political film by director Tomas Gutierrez Alea, based on an real incident in Cuban history. Cast: Luis Alberto Garcia José Antonio Rodriguez Silvanno Rey Nelsom Villagra It is (or was) available on New Yorker video.

The Last Rumba of Pape Montero (and see Martinique below)

The Last Rumba of Papa Montero by Octavio Cortazar Martinique/Cuba, 1992, 52 minutes. In Spanish with English subtitles A fascinating film on the rhythmic dance genre known as Rumba, La Ultima Rumba de Papa Montero dances around the life of Papa Montero, one of the famous rumberos of Cuba, assassinated during carnival. A discovery of Cuban traditions and every-day life told through beautiful images, sensual music and dance. The use of Afro-Cuban mythology is the force behind the characters as orishas guide the characters' fate.

France

Tamango

1958; 98 minutes. Tamango was made in France in the late 1950s by the Hollywood black-listed writer and director, John Berry. Starring Curt Jurgens, as a slave ship captain, and Dorothy Dandridge, as his slave and mistress, the film takes place entirely on the middle-passage and treats a revolt on that ship, led by an African, named Tamango. Although technically, very much a film of the 1950s, ideologically it is very much ahead of its day and is very modern in outlook. The screen play by John Berry is based on a novelette of the same name by Prosper Merimee, the 19th century french author. The film is available in video.
Another view: Slaves revolt on a ship commanded by a brutal captain. Confused, unpleasant drama, not helped by dubbing of minor roles into English.
Charlottesville, Virginia: - The Virginia Film Festival is pleased to announce that director John Berry, sent into exile nearly fifty years ago by the infamous Hollywood blacklist, will be a featured guest at the four-day event which runs October 30 through November 2, 1997 in Charlottesville, Virginia. Berry will attend the screenings of two of his most famous films, He Ran All The Way (1951) starring John Garfield, in his last role, with Shelly Winters (Oct.30, 7pm, Regal Downtown Mall) and Tamango (1957) with Dorothy Dandridge (Nov. 1, 4pm, Vinegar Hill). Berry will also participate in the discussion of Red Hollywood (1996) which examines the work of blacklisted directors and the cultural and ideological struggles that were taking place within Hollywood and America in general following the second World War (Nov. 1, 1pm, Vinegar Hill). The blacklist, which began exactly fifty years ago, is a form of surreptitious imprisonment being explored as part of the Virginia Film Festival's 1997 theme, Caged!
A protege of the legendary Orson Welles and John Houseman, Berry got his first break at 17 when he joined their Mercury Theater in New York. It was also thanks to Houseman that Berry got his major break in Hollywood when, in 1944, Houseman, then a producer at Paramount, tapped him to replace Harold Clurman as director of Miss Susie Slagle's. A child of the Great Depression, Berry was a political leftist with a strong belief in the need to fight against social oppression. He did, however, learn to temper his comments and until 1950 had managed to avoid the attention of the blacklisters. In 1951, however, he agreed to direct a film in defense of the Hollywood Ten. Although his involvement was meant to be unrecognized, his role was exposed and he came under investigation by the FBI. To avoid questioning when agents arrived at his door, Berry went out the window, literally, and fled to Paris.
The intercession of the FBI came just as Berry's career as a director was poised to take off. 1951 was the year in which, as Berry ran to Paris, He Ran All The Way was released. The first film to focus on a family held hostage in their own home by convicts, He Ran All The Way is a powerful film noir that has developed a loyal following over the years.
In France, Berry continued to examine the issues of friendship and betrayal he tackled so powerfully in He Ran All The Way. In 1957, he directed Tamango, the tale of an attempted slave rebellion on a pirate slave ship in 1820. In a triangle formed by a revolutionary slave leader and the captain of the ship, Asche, the bi-racial concubine portrayed by Dorothy Dandridge, is trapped between her own self-interest (her lover, the captain, offers her the promise of freedom) and loyalty to her fellow slaves. Tamango is often described as a parable for Dandridge's own experiences as a black actress in the 50s when Hollywood offered money and recognition but withheld respect.
While the majority of Berry's films since the 50s were filmed for a French audience (and, according to a recent Film Comment story, are overdue for re-discovery in the U.S.), he directed Diahann Carroll and James Earl Jones to fine reviews in Claudine (1974). steve: i've brought to the attention of the slavery list before, Tamango. Made in France in 1957, by the black-listed American screen writer/director John Berry, it deals with a revolt aboard a slave ship. Stars Curt Jurgens (who plays the ship captain) and Dorothy Dandridge (who plays his mistress/slave); Tamango is the African who leads the revolt. Technically, very much of the 50s, ideologically very much of the 90s.
2 links about Tamango (Which was first a French novel as it has already been said) on http://perso.wanadoo.fr/yekrik.yekrak/kino.htm

Los Palenqueros (2000)

Cote d'Ivoire, France, Columbia Dir: Sidiki Bakaba 52 min In Columbia the descendants of runaway black captives are known asci-marroons (runaway cattle). They live in inaccessible rural areas. Two continental-born African examines the cultural memory of a group of people cut off from their source for over 200 years. The present-day population through their culture, traditions, and African creativity is testimony to their resistance against enslavement.

Germany

Slavers

Slavers (1978), was made in Germany and stared Trevor Howard, Brit Ekland and Ray Milland. Its narrative evolves around slave trading in Africa during the 19th Century.

Italy (+France?)

Queimada (aka Burn)

(Gillo Pontecorvo, 1968 Drama, 1970; 112 minutes France, Italy Starring Marlon Brando
Ambitious film about an island in the Caribbean during the mid-19th century, but made in Italy by the Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo, who directed the remarkable Battle of Algiers. Story concerns the troubled course of a slave revolt and a small island's battle for nationhood while brutalized and exploited by a succession of colonial powers. A fine film about decolonization, too. While Brando was preparing for his role in the movie "Burn!", he was prompted to seek out Black Panther leader Bobby Seale. The film, is about a fictional 19th century black uprising, and Brando wanted to meet some real black revolutionaries. Bobby Seale was very receptive to Brando, having admired his films as a kid, and allowed Brando into Panther headquarters. In meeting with the Panthers, Brando was most taken with the volatile spokesman Eldridge Cleaver.
Brando apparently kept trying to get Cleaver to read the "Burn!" script, but Cleaver was not so impressed with Marlon, and never read the script. Bobby Seale however, continued to let Brando accompany him around. Seale has stated that Brando was always more interested in his feelings as a revolutionary, than the basic political agenda of the Panthers. Nevertheless, Brando was truly supportive of Seale and the rest of his "revolutionaries". He contributed a great deal of money bailing the Panthers out of jail, and contributing money to their cause in general. Brando also attended Panther treasurer Bobby Hutton's funeral and appeared on "The Joey Bishop Show" denouncing the police for Hutton's death. Brando was sued for the statements he made during the TV broadcast. A $6 million damages suit filed by the Oakland Police was dragged on for three years until Brando finally freed himself of it on appeal.
After Martin Luther King's death, Brando began making fevered militant speeches in LA. He even declared that he was going to give up acting and pursue civil rights. However, many people close to Brando felt he was not as interested in civil rights as he seemed to be. He would rarely show up at organized fundraisers, and when he did, he seemed bored.
Brando's affiliation with the Black Panthers finally came to an end after Brando read a manifesto entitled "The Catechism of a Revolution." This Panther party manifesto endorsed the killing of anyone, including one's own parents, if necessary to achieve the party's goals. Brando didn't agree with these statements, and even though Bobby Seale didn't agree either, he was out voted by the Panthers and the manifesto remained. That became the end of Brando's affiliation with the Black Panthers. He never publicly denounced them, but he did reassert his commitment to the late Martin Luther King. Soon after the whole Panther affair, Brando went to Colombia to shoot "Burn!" Incidentally, Brando considers "Burn!" to contain some of his "finest acting".
Well done and fascinating film about the place of slavery in the global economic shifts of the early 19th c.

Martinique ( and see Cuba above)

The Last Rumba of Pape Montero

by Octavio Cortazar Martinique/Cuba, 1992, 52 minutes. In Spanish with English subtitles A fascinating film on the rhythmic dance genre known as Rumba, La Ultima Rumba de Papa Montero dances around the life of Papa Montero, one of the famous rumberos of Cuba, assassinated during carnival. A discovery of Cuban traditions and every-day life told through beautiful images, sensual music and dance. The use of Afro-Cuban mythology is the force behind the characters as orishas guide the characters' fate.

Middle Passage (2000)

Martinique Dir: Guy Deslauriers 85 min Both devastating and breathtakingly beautiful comes a film from the Africans in the Caribbean. One of the most powerful and insightful films to date on the transatlantic slave trade, a phenomenon during which 250 million Africans died or were deported to the Americas. With illuminating emotional detail into the horrifying and dehumanizing experience that remains an essential part of the cultural heritage of American people of African descent, the voice-over story is told by an anonymous dead African whose spirit haunts the ocean route.

Mauretania

Sarraounia by Mauritanian filmmaker Med Hondo

Senegal

Ceddo (1978) Ousman Sembene

Asientos by Senegalese filmmaker Franois Woukoache

South Africa

Slavery of Love

Cross-posted from african-cinema-conference Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 1999 9:52 AM Subject: Slavery of Love
By the grace of God and a lot of help from our friends, we have completed principal photography (1-22 August) on Slavery of Love, produced by Three Worlds Films and Afrikan Connection Productions.
Shot on digital video, this 90-minute made-for-television film tells the story of slaves and settlers at the Cape of Good Hope in 1714. The main character, the slave woman Tahira (formerly called "May" by the settlers), curses the Van Branden family after her brother, Saliem, is killed for having a romantic encounter with Sara de Molenaar, who came from Holland to live with her relations.
Whilst the main plot is fiction and the framework is a romantic historical story, the actual facts of the Cape slavery, (sexual abuse, impalement, burning alive, castration, chaining etc etc) are all based on historical record and not featured on screen before.
An empowerment project in every sense, SLAVERY OF LOVE featured a lot of newcomers to the screen, crew who were working "one-step-up" and trainees. Funding is by SABC3, the Cape Town City Council, the Film Resource Unit and (requested) the SA Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology. John Badenhorst is writer/producer/director & the executive producer is Shane Mohabier. Sven Vosloo is the DOP, Kenny Fischer the lighting designer, John Caviggia the production designer. Key cast are Chantell Stander, Zorina Malick, Joanie Combrink, Mark Bilbe, Aldrin Hendrickse, Bart Fouché, Susanne Beyers, Denise Newman, Carolyn Lewis, Morné Visser, Nielen Marais, Freddie Mwalo and Roshina Ratnam. Historical advisors were Professor Nigel Worden, Dr Achmat Davids and Dr Cas de Wet. The film was shot on 10 locations in the Western Cape.

Switzerland see Adanggaman

United Kingdom

The Old African Blasphemer

A BBC production (docu-drama) from the mid-70s called The Old African Blasphemer focused upon the middle passage and features a slave uprising during the voyage. The film was part of a series on abolition, so other films in the series may also include something on slave resistance. On both 16 mm and 3/4" video. . .
Of the films I have seen, the most accurate depiction is a one-hour film called the "Old Blasphemer." It was part of a BBC series called the Struggle against Slavery and is about John Newton, but it contains extensive footage on the trade. . . There is also a short BBC film on Equiano. Martin Klein, University of Toronto

Uruguay

Candombe

by Rafael Deugenio Uruguay, 1993, 16 minutes. In Spanish with English subtitles. More than two hundred years ago, there was an influx into Uruguay of slaves from Africa whom, after being freed, continued to make up the poorest and most marginalized strata in society. Fernado Nunez, a black man, a musician, and a maker of drums, sees himself as the heir to "Candombe", an important social and cultural legacy from his slave forefathers. The official history and culture of Uruguay, on the other hand, which has never acknowledged this contribution to the degree which it deserves, continues to marginalize expressions of black culture. Fernando Nunez and his friends from the Barrio Sur back street quarter of Montevideo have decided to fight to keep these important cultural roots alive in the consciousness of the Uruguayan people.

United States

Africans In America: America's Journey Through Slavery

This fall (1998?), a ground breaking, four-part documentary series called Africans In America: America's Journey Through Slavery, executive produced and directed by Bagwell, will air on PBS and will be available on PBS Video the third week in October. The series covers American history from the colonial period to the eve of the Civil War, and is centered on enslaved Africans' experiences and well as slavery's impact on American culture and society as a whole. The film's list of consulting historians is quite impressive and each episode strives to incorporate the most recent scholarship on the period. The visuals are stunning, especially the handling of early, pre-photography history-challenges the notion that filmmakers can't include African Americans in colonial history because of a lack of artifacts and images!

Amistad Directed by Steven Spielberg (1997)

From: "paul.finkelman@law.csuohio.edu" 31-JAN-1998 00:44:43.87 I am surprised people think Amistad should talk about the laundry list of issues raised by Prof. Deyle. After all, this is not what the case was about. It was about the illegal African trade to Cuba and how the political institutions of the U.S. responded. It seems as though some of us want it both ways; that is, we want a historically accurate film but at the same time we want it to attack American slavery or at least show the evils of American slavery; but it would be hard to do that in a historically accurate film, since the revolt took place on the high seas and the legal issues were all in Connecticut, along with the Amistads themselves. Not much "evil" American slavery there in the 1830s. It seems to me this is not a fair criticism on the movie; now, we can complain that the movie is not about U.S. slavery, only if we complain that it should not be about Amistad. How about a movie about the Creole incident; or Nat Turner; or Vesey; or a biog. of Fred Douglass; there are LOTS of topics to do a movie about U.S. slavery, but Amistad is not one of them. As for the anti-Spanish bias; are we now going to hear a defense of Cuban slavery, or the Spanish govt in all this? That will be an interesting take on history. Paul Finkelman Chapman Distinguished Professor University of Tulsa College of Law 3120 East 4th Place Tulsa, Oklahoma 74104-2499918-631-3706 (office) 918-631-2194 (fax) paul-finkelman@utulsa.edu
From: "prael@polar.bowdoin.edu" "Patrick Rael" 2-FEB-1998 09:11:38.99 I took Steve Deyle's point differently. It's not that _Amistad_ "should've" done all the things Steve suggests; it's that it sure would be nice if just one commercially viable film did. The issue is Spielberg's choice of making *this* of all possible films about slavery in America. It's that _Amistad_ presents itself as a critical examination of slavery in antebellum America -- hence the ludicrous propaganda put out by Dreamworks (and easily picked up by news media and popular discussion) that _Amistad_ is somehow a liberating film.
I agree with Steve, and ask the same question Professor Finkleman raises: why did we have to get *this* film? Why *not* Nat Turner's revolt? Or a slave narrative (Douglass, the Crafts, or Tubman)? Or, if we want to focus on the North, the rescue of Shadrach or Jerry? Perhaps because telling those stories might have made telling a crowd-pleasing, saccarine tale of national unity and democratic triumph more difficult to tell.
The Amistad incident lends itself easily to a portrayal in which "slavery" becomes a figure associated with the silly, moribund, reactionary, monarchical, and antirepublican despots of the Old World rather than as a fundamental economic, social, and ideological component of American society. The film reinforces this. _Amistad_ portrays antislavery in crass one-dimensional terms, fails to wrestle with the catastrophic cleavages slavery wrought not just sectionally but intraregionally, fails to capture the texture of contemporary racial thought, and winds up presenting us with yet another glorified image of American history in which *the nation* triumphs without ever coming to grips with its own moral failings.
The film's sanctimony, nowhere more apparent than in its insulting portrayal of Spain, is of a piece with virtually every other film made in this genre (the historical black freedom struggle). To me, _Amistad_ has even less bite than _Glory_, _The Long Walk Home_, or _Ghosts of the Mississippi_. At least those films make a token effort to cope with homegrown racial demons by presenting the difficulties of "caste betrayal." I want a film that might actually have some teeth in it. I'm not asking that every film challenge us to actually wrestle with our own racial demons; I'm asking for just one film. And I must say I'm tired of these films self-righteously presenting *themselves* as enlightening, emancipatory moments.
Patrick Rael, Assistant Professor of History, Bowdoin College prael@polar.bowdoin.edu | http://www.bowdoin.edu/~prael/index.htm
The history of slavery, the slave trade, abolition and emancipation [SLAVERY@LISTSERV.UH.EDU] The following message is cross-posted from H-SHEAR, which is moderated by Peter Knupfer (repub@h-net.msu.edu> From: "Robert P. Forbes"
Howard Jones makes the best case I have seen for the usefulness of Amistad. It accords with the opinion of my friend Alfred Marder, president of the Amistad Committee in New Haven, who has had as much to do with bringing the story to the public, and as much cause to be disappointed with Spielberg's historical treatment of it, as anyone. He's not, for the same reasons Howard cites. And, to respond to Richard Bernstein's question, the importance of the film has been demonstrated for me many times by nonhistorians telling me how much it has opened their eyes to realities about American history of which they were unaware. I am willing to acknowledge that many of my objections to the film, as a historian, are somewhat rarified.
I would like to take issue with, or have clarified, one of Howard's points. He asserts that Amistad "has brought focus to the timeless issue of which element should reign supreme in society--human or property rights." Is that true, since the essential legal point at issue was precisely that the Amistad captives were _not_ slaves--had been transported from Africa in contravention of international law? If Cinque and his fellow captives had been born in slavery in Cuba, as Ruiz and Montez asserted, they would have been slaves in law, however immorally. In actuality, however, they never were.
Howard continues that the film "further expos[es] the great chasm between morality and the law, between the natural rights doctrine undergirding the Declararation of Independence and the property rights in slavery guaranteed in the Constitution..." Here again, this was not the message I took from the film, or from the event.
Rather, what is most striking to me about the affair is the fact that such tough practitioners of judicial _realpolitik_ as Andrew T. Judson and Roger B. Taney actually decided the cases before them on the _basis of the law_, rather than on the basis of political expediency.
The U.S. cutter at anchor in New Haven Harbor, ready to spirit the captives instantly to Cuba, testifies to Van Buren's conviction that Judson, a hand-picked, antiabolitionist champion,would not let him down. Perhaps the prudent Judson had sniffed the shifting of the political wind in Connecticut since he had jailed Prudence Crandall for violating the law _he_ wrote prohibiting the teaching out-of-state black children. But the Taney Court, with life appointments, had no such pressures, and no inclination toward a broad construction of the respect due to the rights of Africans, as the Dred Scott decision would show. And yet the Court declared that Africans who had murdered whites in reclaiming their freedom were fully justified in doing so, and should be set at liberty.
The basis for this decision was not John Quincy Adams's eloquent appeal to the Declaration of Independence, which Justice Story accurately cited as "extraordinary for its power, for its bitter sarcasm, and its dealing with topics far beyond the record and points of discussion," but "upon the eternal principles of justice and international law" (40 U.S. 518; 10 L. Ed. 826). The Government tempted the Court to "retreat to formalism" by asserting that it had no authority to look beyond the documents declaring the captives to be slaves, even while acknowledging that those documents were fraudulent; the Court turned down the offer. As in the famous Somerset case, the Amistad decision was rendered on the principle of "let justice be done though the heavens fall."
Would seizing Adams's appeal to the Declaration have hastened the end of slavery? In spite of its "glittering generalities" about equality and liberty, the document's bottom line is: "That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States"--plural. By contrast, the Constitution establishes a powerful national ideal: "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. " I would argue that in the long run, these words offered a more telling indictment of slavery, as well as a practical mechanism for moving against it. And judging by the changes that they made, I would argue that the framers of the Confederate Constitution would agree.
Robert P. Forbes Visiting Assistant Professor Department of History Wesleyan University Middletown, CT 06459

Anthony Adverse

Anthony Adverse (Warner Brothers. 1936) starred Frederick March..... the story does I believe have a section in which March was involved with the African slave trade.

Band of Angels

Band of Angels (1957) Clark Gable, Sidney Poitier, Yvonne De Carlo In 1865 a Kentucky girl learns that her mother was black and is sold as a slave, but quickly becomes her owner's mistress. Long-winded romantic adventure, rather lamely scripted and developed. The star's presence reinforces the impression of sitting through the ghost of Gone with the Wind. `Too absurd to be dislikeable' MFB

Beloved Toni Morrison's "Beloved" made into a film by Jonathan Demme and Oprah Winfrey.

Daughters of the dust

You must include "daughters of the dust" which i use to discuss transition from pre 1900 to 1900 to the present for former slaves. many issues raised!” No further information available

Frederick Douglas: When the Lion Wrote History In the PBS American Experience TV series. Directed by Orlando Bagwell for WETA

House Divided

Dramatic Series Each drama in this three-part series considers the actions and experiences of an important but little-known African-American who addressed the problems of slavery and inequality during the nineteenth century. 1. Denmark Vesey's Rebellion In 1822, a prosperous free black carpenter in Charleston, South Carolina, leads an abortive rebellion to free the city's slaves. PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: WPBT/Community Television Foundation of South Florida, Inc., Miami, FL YEAR PRODUCED: 1981 EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Robert S. Morgan PRODUCER: Yanna Kroyt Brandt DIRECTOR: Stan Lathan WRITER: William Hauptman EDITORS: John Carter and Paul Evans CINEMATOGRAPHY: Larry Pizer CAST: Yaphet Kotto, Ned Beatty, Cleavon Little, Antonia Fargas, DonaldMoffat, Brock Peters, William Windom, Mary Alice, Bernie Casey AWARDS: Ohio State Award; Freedom Foundation Award; National Black Programming Consortium, Best Drama; Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame, Best Drama; NAACP Image Award FORMAT: Video (90:00) DISTRIBUTOR: Not currently available
2. Experiment in Freedom: Charlotte Forten's Mission In 1861, the daughter of a wealthy black family gives up her comfortable life in Philadelphia to teach and help freed slaves build a new society on the Sea Islands of South Carolina. PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Past America, Inc. YEAR PRODUCED: 1985 EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Robert S. Morgan PRODUCER: Yanna Kroyt Brandt DIRECTOR: Barry Crane WRITER: Samm-Art Williams EDITOR: John Carter CINEMATOGRAPHY: Joseph Wilcots CAST: Melba Moore, Ned Beatty, Glynn Turman, Mary Alice, Moses Gunn, Carla Borelli, Micki Grant, Anna Marie Horsford, Bruce McGill, Jay Paterson, Vyto Reginis, Roderick Wimberly FORMAT: Video (120:00) DISTRIBUTOR: Not currently available
3. Solomon Northup's Odyssey (aka Half Slave, Half Free) A free black man from Saratoga, New York struggles for twelve years to regain his freedom after being kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841. PRODUCTION ORGANIZATION: Past America, Inc. YEAR PRODUCED: 1984 EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Robert S. Morgan PRODUCER: Yanna Kroyt Brandt DIRECTOR: Gordon Parks WRITERS: Lou Potter and Samm-Art Williams EDITOR: John Carte CINEMATOGRAPHY: Hiro Narita CAST: Avery Brooks, Petronia Paley, Rhetta Greene, John Saxon, Mason Adams, Lee Bryant, Janet League, Joe Seneca, Kent Broadhurst, J.C.Quinn, Michael Tolan AWARDS: CINE Golden Eagle; Organization of American Historians, Erik Barnouw Award (for outstanding historical drama) FORMAT: Video (113:00) DISTRIBUTOR: SVS, Inc. (retitled Half Slave, Half Free)

Nightjohn

STARRING: Carl Lumbly as a mythical slave who escapes to freedom, only to return willingly to slavery to pass on the tools of literacy. Beau Bridges plays Clel Waller, an autocratic plantation owner. Allison Jones is Sarny, the young slave girl who becomes Nightjohn's first pupil. Lorraine Toussaint plays Delie, Sarny's protective surrogate mother who disapproves of Nightjohn's teachings. Bill Cobbs plays the wise Old Man, whose cautions for Nightjohn and Sarny become realities when both pay an enormous price for confessing their literacy. "Nightjohn" is based on Gary Paulsen's acclaimed young adult novel.

Roots of Resistance

Sankofa

Sankofa (1993) by Haile Gerima Mypheduh Films, Inc The Only Authorized Video (Color 125 minutes, drama, 1993)
SANKOFA is an Akan word that means one must return to the past in order to move forward. Mona, a contemporary model, is possessed by spirits lingering in the Cape Coast Castle in Ghana and travels to the past, where, as a house servant called Shola she is constantly abused by the slave master. Nunu, an African-born field hand, and Shango, Sholas West Indian Lover, continuously rebel against the slave system. For Nunu this means direct conflict with her son, a mulatto benefiting from the system as a head slave. Inspired by Nunu and Shango's determination to defy the system, Shola finally takes her fate into her own hands.
Sankofa is an Akan word that means, "We must go back and reclaim our past so we can move forward; so we understand why and how we came to be who we are today." Written, directed and produced by Ethiopian-born filmmaker Haile Gerima, SANKOFA is a powerful film about Maafa - the African holocaust. Done from an African/African-American perspective, this story is a vastly different one from the generally distorted representations of African people that Hollywood gives us. This revolutionary feature film connects enslaved black people with their African past and culture. It empowers Black people on the screen by showing how African peoples' desire for freedom made them resist, fight back, and conspire against their enslavers, overseers and collective past through the vision on Mona, who visits her ancestral experience on a new world plantation as Shola. We share the life she endures as a slave and experiences her growing consciousness and transformation. Gerima chose to create a film that blends the contemporary reality of African descendants with the experience of slavery to help us deal with and heal from the psychological, cultural and political impact of that brutal event on all of our lives. His hope is for SANKOFA to be used as platform for diaspora Africans to discuss the African Holocaust, its distortion by European historians, and its continued impact on Africans throughout the world. SANKOFA demonstrates why it is important for African people to tell our own stories and write our own histories.
Sankofa Now on Video Price: $39.99 price is subject to change There are a few informations about Sankofa on the Pointe-a-Pitre (Guadeloupe, FWI) Office Municipal de la Culture (OMC) site : http://www.fwinetwork.com/omcpap/sankofa.htm

Slave Ship

1937; 90 minutes Black and white Atmospheric adventure of a slave-ship captain who resolves to quit the trade, only to face a mutiny by his greedy crew. Well-made adventure movie in the old tradition, a model of studio production. William Faulkner was one of the screenwriters. Director Tay Garnett Cast included; Wallace Beery, Mickey Rooney, George Sanders, “Plenty of action and deluxe scenic trimmings . . . good box office blood and thunder.” -- Variety It shows on AMC every once in a while. The whole thing revolves around a revolt aboard a slaver, but it's actually the crew who mutinies, although the slaves do try to revolt at one moment in the film.

Slaves

1969; 110 minutes Eastmancolor In 1850 Kentucky a slave stands up for his rights and plans escape. “Well-meaning but muddled and old-fashioned melodrama, hardly well enough done to raise comparision with Gone with the Wind. “Serving of lust and villainy on the old plantation as a sensitive slave (Ossie Davis) fights for freedom against the dastardly overseer” Director Herbert J. Biberman

Souls at Sea

Souls at Sea (USA 1937) in which a ship involved in slave trading sinking..... 93 M BW `First rate slave ship adventure,' - Variety

The Journey of August King

Drama, 1995; 91 minutes The date is April 27, 1815, the place North Carolina. August King (Jason Patric) is a young widower who has emerged from the forest to buy livestock and make a final payment on some land he owns, high in the Appalachian Mountains. On his way back, he stumbles across Annalees (Thandie Newton), a runaway slave, hiding in a muddy river. Without knowing why, he misleads the men who are trying to track her. He continues on his way, only to find her tagging along. Before he knows it, he is her involuntary chaperone through these mean woods. Over the next day or so, August encounters the bulky, Simon Legreedy slave owner (Larry Drake, who played Benny on L.A. Law) who is pathetically eager to have Annelees back. His obsession is blatantly sexual and, as August puts two and two together over the next few days, even incestuous: she is not only his forced mistress, but his daughter. Writer John Ehle and director John Duigan provide a wealth of horrific, well-researched storybook illustrations of life during the prime of American slavery. August and Annalees are in enough physical danger to make the suspense outwardly excruciating. At one point, they're witness to an act of brutality so ghastly (mercifully committed off-screen) that it can stand in for the whole three centuries of the white race's inhumanity to the black. In this respect, The Journey of August King has power. In the inmost sense, though, it is a bit dull--rather like August himself.
His interior journey from rustic nonentity to passionate rebel is entirely outward, and made authentic chiefly by the subtle gradations in Patric's performance. As written, he murmurs only the most token resistance when Annalees hops into his wagon--and that doesn't feel right, given the danger. If he resisted a little harder, his transformation might have more grandeur. Likewise, Newton would have been able to make richer use of that wispy, rather sugary slave persona that also hobbled her in Jefferson in Paris. Flannery O'Connor once observed that the Stepin Fetchit manner--which seems dumb to white eyes--is actually the subtlest and most elaborate mask, "a way of protecting one's privacy." Newton is such an excellent actress that she makes this idea felt even when the script won't quite let her make it clear.
Weakness in the writing promotes weakness in the direction. Quite quickly--and after awhile, quite unavoidably--these smoking mountains and primordial American pathways closely recall Michael Mann's Last of the Mohicans, to the deficit of August King. Both were filmed in North Carolina. Indeed, many identical vistas and trails are on display, right down to the waterfall. There is even the same passionate music (based on the Scots Irish traditionals of the region) surging up from under mighty landscape. This wouldn't be the problem it is if there were more going on underneath the performances. --F.X. Feeney Rated PG-13 for violence.
The Journey of August King "Movie Magazine International" Review (Air Date: Week Of 03/27/96) By Michael Fox
Move fast, friends and neighbors, if you're going to catch "The Journey of August King" on the big screen. Not that this small-scale, period tale of a widowed farmer sheltering a runaway slave isn't a worthy picture. It's just that Miramax, which had high hopes for the movie last October when they sent director John Duigan out to meet the press, is hustling the film into theaters with little fanfare after disappointing Oscar-qualifying runs in Los Angeles and New York. So much for the back story. The film itself features Jason Patric giving an refreshingly low- key performance as August King, a man of few words and much privacy. August is competent and decent, all right, he just sticks to his own business and expects others to do the same. But neutrality isn't always easy to maintain in North Carolina in 1815. After all, how do you simply ignore the sight of a slave hanging from a makeshift gallows, executed by his master after running away? Despite both the danger and his best instincts, however, August conceals a young, desperate runaway slave named Annalees in his wagon. Played by Thandie Newton, the precocious teenager in Duigan's fine earlier film, "Flirting," Annalees is smart, resourceful and tough. And all those traits prove crucial during the long journey north to Jason's farm. August's efforts to protect Annalees entail the loss, one by one, of his geese, oxen, wagon and horse. In effect, August sacrifices his property to aid someone who many people viewed as property in antebellum times. "The Journey of August King" isn't the kind of movie that elicits deep passions and ecstatic exclamations from audiences. It works in a gentle, seductive way, insinuating you into a time and place where civilization was a necessary hedge against nature's threats, and the rules were clearly defined. We think of frontier America as a haven for iconoclasts and rebels, but "The Journey of August King," like Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter," illustrates that the pressure to conform was as great then as it is now. What hasn't changed all that much is the taboo of mixing the races. "The Journey of August King" suggests a hint of sexual tension between August and Annalees, but titillation and carnal frenzy would cheapen the film's loftier aspirations. This is a movie about doing the right thing, and its consequences. Copyright 1996 Michael Fox
Producer Richard N. Gladstein Sam Waterston Nick Wechsler Bob Weinstein Harvey Weinstein Director John Duigan Director of Photography Slawomir Idziak
The history of slavery, the slave trade, abolition and emancipation [SLAVERY@LISTSERV.UH.EDU]14-04-98
I am surprised no one has mentioned the film AUGUST KING which was in and out of New york theaters I think I and the fifty or so patrons as a Saturday screening were the only ones who saw it. I was glad to catch it again last week on cable. Maybe its because it does not fall into the general notion of slave resistance like Quilombo or The Last Supper.
In this film, it is a white male rural farmer who recently lost a wife to disease, who helps a black woman runaway escape her brutal master. This is a form of "resistance" to the slave regime that results in the loss of his home as punishment for helping an escaped slave. This too fits the "resistance" model.
Ron McGee Graduate African Studies Association Rutgers University(eegret@rc.rutgers.edu)

Through The Door of No Return by Shirikiana Aina (Mypheduh)

Through the Door of No Return is a personal journey of the filmmaker, Shirikiana Aina, on a search for her father's footsteps, an ordinary African-American, who she tells us, traveled to Ghana to set up a business and died as a result of malaria and a punctured kidney. She goes back at night, over the water, called by her father's voice and the voice of her questions surrounding Aina's journey are numerous: "Will they remember us? Did they remember her father? Should they remember us?" The entry point: The Elmina Slave Fort. Entering through the ominous "door of no return," Aina encounters the point of departure for millions of Africans during the African slave trade. One of the 360 such forts in west Africa, 60 are in Ghana- places where Africans were "stored" along with ivory and gold waiting for the ships to come to collect them. It is at this point that Aina meets other "returnees" who are confronting this difficult past, embracing the strength it represents. They are being guided on a solemn tour of the slave dungeons, emerging into the light of day with a renewed sense of identity. It is with this group of returnees, that Aina continues her journey, seeing in them the same yearning that must have drawn her father to this place. As Aina's journey continues, we meet not only new comers to this African experience, but those who have taken up permanent residence in Ghana, integrating themselves in the Ghanaian framework. In speaking to some of these seasoned returnees, Aina and the viewers are introduced to ways in which they have confronted issues of recognition, acceptance and identity. They reflect on childrearing; "I've been able to give my son an identity that he is so strong and secure in... I couldn't give him that in America." As Aina penetrates further past the facades of misunderstandings, she travels with the returnees she met in the forts to the village of Abembrobe. Here the returnees themselves engage in a reunion process. In travels with the returnees she met in the forts to the village of Abembrobe. Here the returnees themselves engage in a reunion process. In the village where the group leader has already been made an honorary chief, money is given as support for electricity being brought to the village, a young, unsuspecting African-American is whisked on top of the shoulders of some of the village men and carried off into an initiation as an honorary linguist. Though one young woman in the village is not quite sure who these visitors are another describes them in detail and all participate in this process of resolving centuries of distance and misunderstanding. Aina's search for her father's footsteps takes her to his grave site in Detroit with her children, his grandchildren by her side. She has discovered his footsteps, his presence among many, many others she met in Ghana.
Now on home video. If your organization or institution is interested in bringing this important "docu-journey" to your town contact Mypheduh Films at 800-524-3895

Venezuela

Mestizo

by Mario Handler Venezuela, 1989, 82 minutes. In Spanish with English subtitles. The action takes place in a village on the Venezuelan coast, a place of fishermen and big haciendas. Jose Ramon, son of a white aristocrat and a humble black fisher-women, is trying to define his own identity while dealing with social and sexual conflicts, power, culture, the law, and the impossible relationship he has with both his parents.

***

Postings

Postings on Films on African Slavery: Rachel Malcolm-Woods, Martin Klein, Bela Vassady, Tama Hamilton-Wray H-NET List for African History and Culture [H-AFRICA@H-NET.MSU.EDU] Films on African Slavery: Replies [2]


Academic standards

A video program may be used to address the following academic standards, provided by the Mid-ContinentRegional Educational Laboratory (McREL). See credit sectionbelow for details. http://www.school.discovery.com/spring98/programs/slaveship/index.html

Grade level: 9-12 Subject area: world history Standard: understands the causes and consequencesof the agricultural and industrial revolutions from 1750 to 1850. Benchmark: understands different perspectivesregarding the nature of the African slave trade (e.g., how the African slavetrade might be compared to the migration of Chinese workers to North and SouthAmerica, and Indian workers to the Caribbean in the 19th century; thesignificance of the book, “The Interesting Narrative of the Life of OlaudahEquiano or Gustava Vasa, Written about Himself,” about the slave trade).

Grade level: 9-12 Subject area: world history Standard: understands the causes and consequencesof the agricultural and industrial revolutions from 1750 to 1850. Benchmark: understands reasons why variouscountries abolished slavery (e.g., evangelical arguments against slavery, andthe economic, evangelical, and “Enlightened” reasons for Britain’sabolition of slavery; why Brazil was the last nation to abolish the slave trade;the importance of Enlightenment thought, Christian piety, democraticrevolutions, slave resistance, and emancipation of the slaves in the Americas).

Grade level: 9-12 Subject area: world history Standard: understands the causes and consequencesof the agricultural and industrial revolutions from 1750 to 1850. Benchmark: knows the extent of slave imports toBrazil, Spanish America, the British West Indies, the French West Indies,British North America, and the U.S. and how the influx of slaves differed in theperiods 1701 to 1810 and 1811 to 1871.

Grade level: 9-12 Subject area: U.S. history Standard: understands how the values andinstitutions of European economic life took root in the colonies and how slaveryreshaped European and African life in the Americas. Benchmark: understands the characteristics ofmercantilism in colonial America (e.g., overseas trade and the Navigation Acts,the Atlantic economy and the triangular trade, economic development in French,English and Spanish colonies).

Grade level: 9-12 Subject area: U.S. history Standard: understands how the values andinstitutions of European economic life took root in the colonies and how slaveryreshaped European and African life in the Americas. Benchmark: understands the conditions of slavery(e.g., “the middle passage”) and the response of enslaved Africans (slaveresistance in different parts of the Americas).

Grade level: 9-12 Subject area: civics/government Standard: understands issues concerning thedisparities between ideals and reality in American political and social life. Benchmark: knows the discrepancies betweenAmerican ideals and the realities of American social and political life (e.g.,the ideal of equal opportunity and the reality of unfair discrimination).

Credit: These standards are from ContentKnowledge: A Compendium of Standards and Benchmarks for K-12 Education, based onthe standards put forth by the major national standards groups, including theNational Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), the National Council ofTeachers of English (NCTE), the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA),the Geography Education Standards Project, and many others. The compendium hasbeen provided to Discovery Channel School courtesy of Mid-Continent RegionalEducational Laboratory (McREL) in Aurora, Colorado.