Enjoyable series but sanitised for the screen perhaps?

I have recently been researching my family history and discovered that my GGGG Grandfather was a Black Loyalist who ended up in Nova Scotia where my GGG Grandfather was born. He came to Australia and married an Irishwoman. This revelation prompted me to do a fair bit of reading about slavery and the most authoritative book I have found is "Rough Crossings" by Simon Schama, an English historian who is now a professor at Columbia University. As it is an historical book, not a novel, it is not an easy read but fascinating just the same.

All of Schama's descriptions of events are based on the writings (dairies, journals etc.) of people involved in the history of slavery in the US and the effect the War of Independence had on it. The conditions endured by the kidnapped Africans on Bance Island, on the crossing to America, on many of the plantations, during the conflict and in both Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone were much worse than depicted in this series. Their clothing and accommodation were much more rudimentary (sometimes none of either at all) than shown in the program. I suspect that it may have been sanitised so as not to offend a lot of people and even attract a higher classification.

I recommend "Rough Crossings" to anyone who is interested in a full, "no-holds-barred", accurate account of what really happened. It does not take sides, it just recounts events as they actually happened.

I have read some of the other threads on this series and (apart from the obvious troll or two) it seems that the series has evoked some strong feelings and even a bit of defensiveness. The treatment of Australia's indigenous people by the early settlers a couple of hundred years ago is a shameful and great tragedy. It is not for those of us who were lucky enough to be born in wonderful countries like the US and Australia to condemn or defend the actions of our forefathers but rather to make sure that those injustices never happen again - by talking openly and honestly about them, acknowledging that they happened but that also that it is in the PAST.