USS Constellation: Battling for Freedom

From DocuWiki

1 General Information
2 Cover
3 Information
4 Screenshots
5 Technical Specs
6 Links

[edit] General Information

History Documentary hosted by David Robb, published by History Channel broadcasted as part of HC Time Machine series in 2006 - English narration

[edit] Cover

[edit] Information

The long nightmare of the trans-Atlantic slave trade had multiple dimensions and phases, from the first forced arrivals of Africans in the New World in the 17th century through the outbreak of civil war and abolition of slavery. Even after the international slave trade became illegal in the United States in 1808, slave traders violated the law fifty years later in order to bring highly profitable human cargo across the ocean for sale. The paths of these human beings into slavery comprise a collection of countless interlocking and horrific stories. USS Constellation: Battling for Freedom tells one of them – the dramatic and little-known tale of a flagship U.S. Navy vessel's dogged pursuit of the Cora, an illegal carrier attempting to transport over 700 slaves to the United States. This gripping two-hour feature-length documentary opens in 1859, with the United States bitterly divided over the issue of slavery. A small fleet of U.S. naval ships known as the African Squadron had been charged with the task of policing illegal slave ships off the coast of Africa. In a fast-paced chase at sea, the drama of their efforts to halt the slave ship Cora is recounted in rich detail, showing what it was like to exchange firepower with the slave smugglers during some of the heated battles at sea. First-person stories from the journals and letters of sailors aboard the Cora paint a vivid portrait of the chase. Woven into the story is the plight of a young hunter captured from his village. We follow his journey from the Congo interior to his imprisonment with 700 other Africans on the slave ship Cora, and see the harrowing methods through which Africans were captured, enslaved, and transported abroad as human cargo. Program provides a human perspective on the complex realities of the slave trade, from its origins in Africa to its ramifications overseas. Filmed on location in the UK, we realistically recreate the horror of the slave trade and Constellation's heroic effort to put an end to the trade in human lives. Director: Mike Loades ; Produced by Indigo Films for The History Channel

[edit] Screenshots

[edit] Technical Specs

Video Codec: x264 CABAC High@L3.1
Video Bitrate: 3 218 kb/s
Video Resolution: 1280x720
Display Aspect Ratio: 16:9
Frames Per Second: 25.000
Audio Codec: AC3
Audio Bitrate: 256 kb/s CBR 48000 Hz
Audio Streams: 2
Audio Languages: english
RunTime Per Part: 1 h 30 min
Number Of Parts: 1
Part Size: 2.18 GB
Source: HDTV
Encoded by: ViLD