Slavery and the Making of America

In the 1620s, there were no limitations imposed on slaves. But by the early 18th century, the expanding slave trade caused many colonies to adopt strict "black codes," transforming the social system into one of legal racial oppression.

From the 1740s to the 1830s, slavery continued to support economic development, but the Revolutionary War revealed the contradictions of a nation seeking independence while denying freedom to its black citizens.

While the Northern states adopted laws to abolish and phase out slavery, in the southern United States, slavery entered the period of its greatest expansion as cotton became the country's most valuable crop. The abolitionist movement, led by Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and others, gathered strength in the North, contributing to the widening fissure and imminent break-up of the nation.

The complexities of the Civil War and Reconstruction are chronicled through the experience of slave Robert Smalls. The rise of militant groups and new segregation laws show that slavery's eradication had not ended black oppression.