"Bloodlines of the slave trade examines the lives of two people whose only connection is a genetic link to John Armfield, one of the most notorious slave traders of the 1830s. Rodney Williams, who is Black, and Susanna Grannis, who is white, each trace their ancestry back to Armfield, detailing the diverging paths their lineages took. While their relationship to this past is fundamentally different, and they never meet in the film, they both share in the telling of the horrific domestic slave trade and the ongoing reverberations of slavery. While for a long time Susanna tried to ignore her family's history, Rodney and his siblings would not have that privilege. Tracing the ongoing impact of this shared ancestry in each of their lives, Susanna finds it to be an awakening, while for Rodney it is an exploration of the ongoing damage inflicted by the slave traders. Through telling these two family histories Bloodlines of the Slave Trade also traces the history of the United States"--Container.
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