Hollywood actor and human rights activist Samuel L. Jackson offers viewers a deep look into slavery in his latest documentary offering, “Enslaved: The Lost History of the Transatlantic Slave Trade”.
Focused on 400 years of human trafficking from Africa to America by Western European slave traders, the documentary zones in on the story of how over 12 million Africans were ripped from their homes against their will and sold into slavery.
It chronicles a story of brutality and inhumanity, but at the same time is a story of resistance, accomplishment, and hope.
The show uses new diving technology to locate and examine sunken slave ships with its human cargo in the UK, the Caribbean and Florida, retrieving information and underwater artefacts that help reveal more about the transatlantic slave trade.
Diving with a Purpose (DWP), an offshoot of the National Association of Black Scuba Divers, put together a multi-racial group of men and women, to search for and locate the six slave ships that went down including Dutch ship “The Leusden”, in Suriname.
On this ship the crew nailed the hatches, drowning over 640 Africans that could have been saved. These modern-day adventures serve as springboards to tell the stories of the ideology, economics and politics of slavery.
Along the way, a part of the series looks at the Africans who resisted slavery in Africa and the diaspora where thousands of “runaways” risked their lives as part of the “Underground Railroad”.
“Enslaved: The Lost History of the Transatlantic Slave Trade” is directed by award-winning journalists, Simcha Jacobovici and Afua Hirsch and executive produced by Samuel L. Jackson.
“Enslaved: The Lost History of the Transatlantic Slave Trade” will air from June 23 at 9pm on S3.