Finally, my American friends, you will be able to watch The Book of Negroes mini-series. It debuts in the United States on BET and will be broadcast February 16, 17, and 18 at 8:00 p.m. Eastern time, 7:00 p.m. Central time. The mini-series debuted in Canada in early January.
Based on the award-winning novel by Lawrence Hill, The Book of Negroes tells the story of Aminata Diallo who was abducted as an 11-year-old child from her village in West Africa and forced to walk for months to the sea where she is sent to live as a slave in South Carolina. The book description says, “But years later, she forges her way to freedom, serving the British in the Revolutionary War and registering her name in the historic ‘Book of Negroes.’ This book, an actual document, provides a short but immensely revealing record of freed Loyalist slaves who requested permission to leave the US for resettlement in Nova Scotia, only to find that the haven they sought was steeped in an oppression all of its own.”
