The long war against slavery begins centuries before the American Civil War; Professor Bell offers a survey of resistance among enslaved Africans in the 17th and 18th centuries; five generational periods in the long struggle to end slavery.

The American slave trade begins in Africa; African rulers and merchants play a hand in supplying slaves to Europeans; the first strategies of resistance; defensively trying to elude capture; offensive efforts to get away from the hellish confinement.

Leaving the continent of Africa, the second place for resistance is aboard the slave ships as they depart for the Caribbean; this episode explores the suicides, runaways and revolts on slave ships; the efforts by Europeans to control the enslaved.

The Chesapeake tobacco economy in the 17th century; a time when colonial law changes in a way that promotes the slave economy; Anthony Johnson is a freed slave who in turn holds his own slaves; slave codes that change the social order in Virginia.