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Film Discussion: "The Forgotten Slavery of Our Ancestors"

Let’s view "The Forgotten Slavery of Our Ancestors" together. Share your thoughts and insights as we discuss what makes this film on Native American history significant.

"The Forgotten Slavery of Our Ancestors" offers an introduction to the history of Indigenous enslavement on land that is now the United States. As the film's featured historians point out, the enslavement of Indigenous peoples stretched from Alaska into South America. It predated and helped shape the system of African enslavement in New England, and it lasted until throughout the 19th century in the West. “This,” explains historian Andrés Reséndez, “is our shared history.” He estimates that between 2.5 and 5 million Indigenous people were enslaved from the time of Columbus to 1900 in the Americas.

Directed and edited by Howdice Brown III, this 12-minute film is part of the Teaching Hard History Program from Learning for Justice, which seeks to improve classroom lessons about the history of slavery in the U.S. The film was produced by Marie Acemah and Alice Qannik Glenn in 2020.

—From Learning for Justice website.

Rated: Not Rated

12 minutes in length