>> book tv is on the campus of ucla in los angeles and talking

to professors who are authors. brenda stevenson teaches histories. what courses to due teach? >> here i teach course's on slavery and women's history and interracial dynamic. >> how long have you been here. >> guest: 26 years. >> oh husband is changed. >> guest: tremendously. it's gone in student population, grown in the kind of students we have. it's grown in the kinds of faculty we have and the kind odd of thinkings we focus on in the history department which is where my heart and is my mind is as well. it's been a wonderful time to be here, though, just seeing the change be and being part oftite you came they ever year before the l.a. riots. >> guest: i did. it was quite a shock to move from texas, where i was, having been born and raised in virginia, and coming here and being part of that.

seeing it first hand. >> host: have you written about that? >> guest: yes, i have. i was so impacted by it that i had to write a book called the contested murder of latasha harlan." i wrote a book published in oxford university press in 2013. >> host: who was la at-ha harlan. >> guest: she was a 15-year-old girl who walked into a liquor market, a grocery store, in march 16, 1991, and close to her home and picked up a bottle of orange juice that cost 1.9. she put her in the packback went to doesn't counter with 2 thing. the shop keeper thought she was trying to steal the juice. a fight began and latasha knock the clerk down and the went out the door and was shot in the

head. a major case that began the eruption that we now know as the 1992 riots or invex -- insurrection of what you want to call it. >> host: we talk to you about the book. >> guest: it has. we had a wonderful conversation and i hope it's in your archives where people can see and it learn bert more and the book and other vents. we have the 25th anniversary. >> host: it is in our archived be we're here to talk about your most recent back, here it, called "what is slavery. what the answer to that question. >> guest: an institution, a bondage that hat really been a part of who we are as a people since the very beginning. if you look at every civilization, every major civilization, in the world, greeks, romans other egyptians, the chinese, latin america, what is north america, every place in the world has had slavery.

we still have it today. there are million of people enslaved every day in almost every country in the world, even in the united states. so slavery is one of those enduring horrific institutions that we created and that we tend to turn a blind eye to, which i why it's still with us today. >> host: we'll get into the contemporary in a little bit it how did it begin? >> guest: well, it began with people organizing their societies and deciding that some people had to work and some people didn't. and so once you had a hierarchy, people were thinkers, artists, administrators, leader only et cetera, the decide they wanted other people to work for them. most institutions of slavery evolve from those persons who are conquerors, conquer other people and then they really subject those other people to becoming their workers. the people who are going to work for them.

and so this is really what slavery comes out most of the time. so slavery is being used as a form of conquering, as a form of labor, also been used as a way of indicating one's wealth because to be able to own a slave mean outside have a certain amount of money and a certain amount of status in your society. so slavery is all of those things. >> host: is american slavery unique in any way. >> american slavery is unique to a certain extent. i think what a lot of people don't understand about slavery in the united states is it's an institution that lasts from the 1500s when the spanish first arrived until 1865. it's an institution that became very racialized. race was associated with slavery. if you were a black person wow

were thought of as a slave first. you could prove you were free if you had freedom paperment but it became sort of conflated with blackness, with being african descent. what else is unique about slavery in the united states it that we have come the largest institution of slavery in the americas. often pipe think about brazil or latin america or the caribbean in particular, but at no place no time were there four million slaves on the ground as there was in the united states in about 1862. so, these are the kind of things that make the institution of slavery, the history of slavery in the united states unique. >> host: how did it guinn the states and why africa? >> guest: well, it began in the americas. at the time of discovery, or european discovery of africa. and so when we had the portuguese arriving on the west coast of africa in 1450 or so,

and beginning trade relations was africans who were already organized in their own societies, own governments, own trading system, and so the first thing they were traded were not slaves for the most part. very few slaves. and so what they were looking for mostly were riches and thing that were exotic. so, ivory, gold, spices. those were the kind of things that initially were traded between europe and africa. but as europe also at the same moment began to quote-unquote discover the americas and to decide that the wealth in those americas to a certain extent lay in agricultural pursuits and the desire or the need for labor was very keen, and so at the same time that you europeans were

trading for ivory and gold they began to also trade for people who could now be used in these colonial sites, where the agrarian economy was being developed and very laneyear intensive crops such as sugar, coffee, later tobacco, and then of course very much later, cotton. were introduced and became bases for trade between the americas, africa, and europe, then more? and more africans who were part of the trade were pushed into the trade. >> was. >> host: was there slavery in europe. >> guest: there was slavery everybody. we think that feudal societies in europe that were similar to slave societies. of course there were slaves in eastern europe. the word slave comes from the

word slav because so many slaves in the part of the world at the time and one of the thing doings about the slave trade it does encourage globalization. ...

>> host: worthy african nations aware of what was happening to these young men and women? >> the first that were taken thanks to spain and portugal and england and france and other places as well even in places like norway and amsterdam and the dutch had them as well so they had these societies just like everyplace else in the world and a day where persons already enslaved in africa and the first ones that fit into the slave trade.

did they know what was going on? some of them themselves had been taken as slaves and fell into bad circumstances themselves, so they were witnessed that most people didn't know the extent of the brutality and that's what we believe. it is a brutal institution no matter where you find it. the desires for their lives are denied by control of their bodies, labor capacity, it's not there is any more, so it is brutal wherever you find it. >> all 13 colonies in the u.s.? >> guest: all of them have slaves. other parts in the u.s. at the

time that didn't belong to what became the united states whether we look at the french colonies and louisiana for example was a colony in florida or texas or new mexico all those places had slaves. so when the europeans first arrived, the first people they colonized were native people and native people themselves. >> host: as we move south, when was it being a polished, massachusetts or new york for their sleeves leading up to those colonies? >> aide david and to a certain extent in the united states. so, we see in 1776 in virginia

saying that if you come fight for the british, you can gain your freedom and that is one of the emancipation proclamation's of course he needed it in order to get soldiers. he didn't have tha and he was ot there in norfolk virginia trying to figure out what to do and he just decided i better take advantage of these people who want to be free and will fight for me. so that was one of the first emancipation proclamation's if not the first. but at the same time the american revolution brought a kind of moral conflict to those persons that were founders of the nation and people that begin to abandon the institution of slavery in the northeast. so, we see that by 1816, 1817,

it was outlawed in most of the other territories became the united states of america. >> and it was baked into the constitution for the southern states. >> it did allow them to contin continue. what it did suggest is that it could be ended by 1808 in the african slave trade and there were a lot of people that were smuggled in afterwards, out 50,000 or so. but it is after the american revolution that we began to see if conceptualized the south. >> host: there is a series that your book is a part of, what is that? >> guest: it is the what if series and that is the leading audience an opportunity to learn about important issues and

topics and world history that they might be interested and soo it gives them a broad introduction to various topics whether it is the french revolution etc., etc., those that capture the imagination and perhaps you didn't have a chance to take this class in college or you didn't have a chance to see the pbs series or something like that. where did you do your research? >> first of all i am from virginia which is the center in the colonial period and it remains important up until the time of the civil war and through the civil war so i didn'kindof grew up in this hisn any way going to all of those

locations. in north carolina and south carolina and texas, etc. and thought i tried to do is help people understand enslavement from the position of those persons who were enslaved. i think a lot of it prior to the 1970s in particular really focused on the perspective of the persons who owned slaves and so, we had a great revision that occurred in the 70s in which people begin to focus on. but what did the slaves themselves think and what kind of document would provide their perspective so that is what i try to do. i try to get their voices into what i write. >> is there an extensive archive around the country of their

voices? wasn't a lot of oral history? >> guest: of the things that happened in the great depression and the country was that the government paid for people to develop and capture u.s. history and one of those great projects that we called in the association went into the south association went into the south and they began to interview a aging men and women and find out what were the memories of their experiences, so we have that archive but also other archives where people have with this story is avistastories at the tm for the 1840s and 1850s and 1860s with some very early accounts that come out in 18th century where people gained their freedom and moved to england and were able to publish their stories but stayed in the

abolitionist movement as a people understood what institution was like so they could get people to abandon this and so we have a lot of publications during the time as well. >> host: they were the first abolitionists because they would just run away and establish of the society and try to get away as soon as they basically landed. you would have these advertisements about escaping from the harbor before they had a chance to even be sold or just arrived. these were the first that arrived and said i have to get back to africa.

i have to get back to someplace i can't be treated this way. then we had thought quakers early on and methodists early on as well. some germans as well. and then as africans began to gain their freedom and they begin to push themselves and create an abolitionist movement. were slave revolts a common occurrence? >> people were always applauding and in the institution or in their part of the institution they were quite prevalent. but most of them were not realized because someone would spill the beans or hear something or something that looks unusual.

so those persons that were in charge of controlling the population including their owners as welcome as a militia, the government commits patrollers committee were always on the lookout for those persons who were applauding the slave result. so people wanted to undo their bondage and they were always trying to figure out how to keep them when they were always trying to figure out how to get out of it. >> you have a list of nearly all of the rebellions in the back of your book. why did we learn about this? >> wwe've learned about matt turner because it recognized the

great institution. there was a great fear in the revolts that they would rise in the middle of th the knife and t peoples throat and bur burned dn their houses and things like that. this happened in 1831 in southampton county virginia. -- turner was a brilliant young man who was illiterate and a preacher and a leader. one of the interesting things about him is that he truly and deeply believed that he had been chosen for this for greatness. that is one of the common things i see in the leadership is we can see the leadership in general.

we remember this particular slave revolt in particular because it caused such a shutter throughout the south. for the white people were killed. almost hundreds of black people were killed in retaliation. there was a public trial in which matt turner who was a minister and talks about god choosing him for this. it was at that moment to say this is what will happen if you continue to enslave people that no one wants to be enslaved and you are at the greatest risk for having people in this condition living with you and it's really

slavery dramatically in the country because the wall effecting enslaved people changed greatly after. they knew how to read and write and for example people that were free now were pushed out of southersouthern states and couly for a year. there were certain occupations that allow the mobility for example that you were not allowed to have. so it really did change it caused a great amount. >> how large was the population during this period? >> about one tenth of the population. so, forgive for example if you d 200,000 slaves in 1820 or so or

1830, you have about 200,000 people of color. most of them were located in the northeast and in the midwest, but you also have in terms of the urban populations large southern urban populations in baltimore maryland. brenda stevenson, what was the impact. beecher stowe's uncle tom's cabin? >> it was very insightful and important. she captured the brutality of institution into the imagination of the world. that became the most important

book of the 19th century. it was read up more than any other book except for the bible. it was translated in so many different languages even in chinese, and it was so popular at the head to produce enough copies of it. it was the big hit. so even thomas edison had an early movie of uncle tom's cab cabin. >> it was banned in the south so you have to read it to be able to protest it.

they were producing literary tracks and stories about slavery taking the uncivilized people and people that were idling and making them productive and teaching than christianity and teaching them to have skills and organized a family life. it fed into the literary industry of time in the speaking industry. they thought back.

>> the man that wrote used to be a slave trader do you know anything about that? >> he was affected by the of it all and became an abolitionist in both she wrote the song amazing grace. >> the team 61 dot civil war starts. give us a snapshot of the population and its culture etc.. >> in 1861 it was the richest part of the nation, extremely wealthy and elitist. those persons that were at the treetops were slaveholders on the state level as well as the national level and the south had

the industrial revolution. they wanted to hold onto it. it was the place that had a large population of almost 4 million people at the time. it was a place that was not slowing down in the institution of slavery. they wanted to reopen the african slave trade and wanted more territory in the west to expand. they wanted to territory in latin america particularly in the caribbean and central america to expand their plantations and they were not taking any prisoners.

what's interesting is this what's happening in the united states and it was booming at the time it started to dwindle in the americas. britain had emancipated slaves in the 1830s, france had emancipated in the 1840s and cuba and brazil was still pushing for slavery when it was thriving in these places. >> middle of the civil war, emancipation proclamation in 1863. any affect? >> one of the things that is interesting because they are so interested and invested in freedom that as soon as the union forces archive in virginia

and south carolina in 1861, they flee and go behind the union lines. of course it is not. they were not the army liberation but just like in the war of 1812, any time a force came down to fight which was they thought these people must be here for me. so you know, the emancipation proclamation of 1863 did give the legitimacy to those persons who were allowing them to stand behind the lines. >> april 65 is when the war ended. what happened to them the next day?

>> guest: there was a series of days because in some places like texas, for example, they didn't find out they were free until june and all during the war they would say if i could just get to texas and they never thought that it would impact them in texas and that is why you see this big gap in time. some people left the plantation and immediately because of the notion of being able to walk free. it was intriguing to them and the sun people went on to the next and became sharecroppers or just wanted to get away from their owner. some people stayed and felt like they didn't have any other place to go.

so there were all kinds of responses to it and of course it did take a lot of organizing some of its them by the military and som solidified that societis who came down initially to establish the schools that educate people to prepare black man eventually for the vote voto be part of the electorate to prepare black men to be ministers because they wanted to christianize the people that had been enslaved so it took about an effort of kind of organizing how to help these people who had been oppressed intellectually, socially, culturally, politically to be prepared to become citizens of the united states. >> you write 20 to 30 million people are still enslaved.

who are they and where are they? >> they are mostly children and women. one of the great truths is most of the people have been children and women. the people we consider to be the most vulnerable in our society. that is one of the differences of slavery in the united states is during this era that we were talking about is that you have the most equal numbers of men and women who are slaves but most of them are young of course because throughout time and across time it's mostly been women and children as it is today.

it's the people who are forced into work were shot in and who's travel papers and documents are taken away from them and they are forced into prostitution. they can't escape, they are beaten, some of them are starved and turned to drug addicts and so they have no control over what happens to them. many of them come out of these war-torn situations that we see happening in africa. these are the most vulnerable people as the refugees as we call them and they are still subject to slave trading. these are people whose parents are so impoverished that they

are enslaved today. >> brenda stevenson teaching history at ucla. the most recent book what is slavery. this is book tv on c-span2.