Documentaries

Enslaved: uncovering the history of the transatlantic slave trade

Actor Samuel L. Jackson leads a six-part investigation now CBC Gem

Actor Samuel L. Jackson leads a six-part investigation now on CBC Gem

Watch Enslaved, Starting Oct. 18

4 years ago
Duration 1:00
Join Samuel L. Jackson, as well as team of journalists and divers, as they uncover the hidden history of the transatlantic slave trade.

Led by actor and activist Samuel L. Jackson, Enslaved is a six-part series that sheds new light on 400 years of human trafficking from Africa to the New World. Each episode follows three separate story lines: the quest for a sunken slave ship, a personal journey by Jackson, and a historical investigation led by investigative journalists Simcha Jacobovici and Afua Hirsch.

Now streaming on CBC Gem.

Based on a DNA test identifying his ancestral tribe, the series traces Jackson's personal journey from the U.S. to Gabon for his induction into the Benga tribe, with rare and unprecedented access to secret ceremonies and local customs. 

Samuel L. Jackson standing on a boat surrounded by a team of scuba divers.
Samuel L. Jackson and the Diving with a Purpose team off the coast of Florida. (Fremantle)

Using new diving technology — such as advanced 3D mapping and ground-penetrating radar — to locate and examine sunken slave ships on three continents, the series reveals an entirely new perspective on the history of the Transatlantic slave trade. The series also tracks the efforts of Diving With a Purpose (DWP), a collaborating organization with the National Association of Black Scuba Divers (NABS), as they search for and locate six slave ships that sank, drowning the enslaved people aboard. Featuring the most dives ever made on sunken slave ships, Enslaved also chronicles the first positive identification of a "freedom ship," an American schooner that ferried African American runaways to Canada. 

Enslaved celebrates stories of resistance, accomplishment and hope, as well as the cultures left behind and the culture that we live in presently: a culture that, in many ways, was born in the bowels of those sunken slave ships.

 

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