Samuel L. Jackson is hosting a new six-episode series that delves back into what is arguably the most shameful period in American history.
The EPIX channel's "Enslaved" (airing in Canada on CBC) finds Jackson tracing his ancestral journey from the African nation of Gabon to America for the new series, which looks at 400 years of human trafficking for profit.
Joining the "Avengers" star are British author/broadcaster Afua Hirsch and Canadian investigative journalist Simcha Jacobovici, with each episode tracking three individual story lines: searching for a sunken slave ship, Jackson's personal journey of discovery (which includes his induction into a local Benga tribe in Gabon) and a historical look at what took place.
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“When the project was presented to me they told me that they identified these ships that were in the Atlantic that were ships that were taking enslaved people all the way to the New World and they sank,” Jackson told IndieWire. “And that’s a story that we’ve never talked about: Who were these people? Where did they came from? Who commissioned the ships? Those were the kinds of questions I needed answered.”
In the trailer for the series, Jackson points out that more than 12 million people were trafficked, with 2 million dying during the perilous sea voyage from Africa to the U.S.
“We never talk about the ships that did not make it and what that meant, or what the profitability of that was for the people that sponsored the ships — because even though people didn’t make it, someone still made a profit off them,” Jackson said. “I mean how did they still profit from those ships going down?”
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As Jackson explained, slavery may have been abolished by the racism that drove it has yet to be eradicated. “The business of our bodies continued and still continues,” he said. “We were considered property at one time, and you look at what’s happening now, the argument can be made that not a lot has changed," he said. "This is important American history that has resonance today.”
"Enslaved" premieres in Canada on Oct. 18.
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