In this Roots we see the slaves fighting back and not acting so weak like the first one. I always thought that was missing in the original Roots, I don't know if was like that because of the racial times in the 70's but they portrayed slaves as being so weak. I think this Roots is more believable as far as the slaves fighting back. It's hard to believe that only Nat Turner was rebelling during those times.
shareThere were hundreds of revolts during Slavery, Nat Turner's was just the most successful.
The Slavery system tried to get the rebellion out of slaves as much as possible, because whites were vastly outnumbered by the slaves. And all they had to do to see what would happen if a revolt was successful was to look at Santa Domingo, which is now Haiti and the Dominican Republic: the slaves revolted there and killed all the planters and expelled the French completely. This was during the time that Napoleon Bonaparte ruled France,and sent his crack troops and generals, but Haitian Generals of African descent like the famous Toussaint L'Ouverture defeated the French armies and Haiti was founded.
So, the slavers were in terror of a revolt and did all they could to suppress any rebellious behavior or insubordination to white rule. That is why they were always whipping and crippling and killing slaves, as an example not to challenge white supreme control.
By all means, put Slave revolts into Google and many others than Nat Turner will come up. Series like Roots and Roots 2016 hopefully will stimulate people to learn more in depth about this period in American history and the rest of the African Diaspora, cause Toussaint L'Ouverture needs to be more widely known for sure! BTW, Don Cheadle tried to get a film version of Toussaint's life but that has been going on for 6 years without financing, smh.
Here is the Wikipedia summation of the Haitian Revolution for a general start on the subject:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Revolution
Good post.
share+1
shareI like the police by Kunta made when going to the plantation. "So many of them (slaves) and just one slave master."
I didn't learn much about black history in school. I actually remember a teacher smiling and saying many slaves were treated like family. While this was true for some others were not. I was shocked when I first saw Roots back in 1995 or so. I read many books on black history and slavery just to educate myself. I've always loved history.
So many did fight back and do what they could for freedom and rights. That took guts.