As the North adopted laws to abolish slavery, the South saw its greatest expansion of slavery. The abolitionist movement began to gather strength, 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.

Tells the history of African Americans from the end of the Civil War through the nation's reconstruction.

Runaway slaves in Virginia and the Carolinas had limited options. They could head for the coast or down to Spanish-controlled Florida, but some runaway slaves simply disappeared into the backcountry. Find out where these "maroons" went, how they lived, and what dangers they faced if discovered.

David Walker's words and Nat Turner's actions had a galvanizing effect upon white abolitionists, most notably William Lloyd Garrison. See how Garrison and others shifted from an attitude of slow, gradual change to a stance of immediacy. Survey an unprecedented campaign to challenge slaveholders' moral authority in the 1830s.

The end of the Civil War brought legalized slavery in the United States to an end, and 3.5 million freed slaves in the South stepped into an uncertain future. Dive into some of the many challenges Americans (white and black, southern and northern) faced in the subsequent years.

Leaving the continent of Africa, the second place for resistance was aboard the slave ships as they departed for the Caribbean. Although we have limited historical records, this episode explores the suicides, runaways, and revolts on slave ships, as well as the efforts made by Europeans to control the enslaved.

The American Revolution marked a watershed in the history of opposition to African slavery in America. In northern states, Pennsylvania led the charge in legal changes that would lead to gradual abolition. While abolition efforts failed in southern states, some individual slaves were able to strike deals with their masters for manumission.

The American slave trade began in Africa. It is an uncomfortable truth that African rulers and merchants played a hand in supplying slaves to Europeans. However, a look at the African continent also shows us the first strategies of resistance, from defensively trying to elude capture to offensive efforts to get away from the hellish confinement of European forts.

Where were the moral voices among white Europeans speaking out against the heinous system of slavery? The American Quaker community had a long history of antislavery activism, from legal pamphlets to spiritual protests. Learn more about the Quaker community, its views on slavery, and its limitations in the early American economy.