Spans the 1740s through the 1830s and explores the continued expansion of slavery in the colonies, the evolution of a distinct African American culture and the roots of the emancipation movement. Reveals the many ways the enslaved resisted their oppression, their role on both sides of the Revolutionary War and the strength and inspiration many of them found in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, despite the inherent contradictions that lay in what those documents expressed and what this country practiced.