Africa's great civilizations. The Atlantic age. Episode 5

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In his six-hour series, Africa's Great Civilizations, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. takes a new look at the history of Africa, from the birth of humankind to the dawn of the 20th century. The series' fifth hour examines the tremendous changes wrought in Africa by the opening of the Atlantic World between the 15th and 18th centuries. For centuries, Eastern Africa, West Africa and Northern Africa had all been tied deeply into long-distance commercial networks linking across the Eastern Hemisphere. However, the encounter between West African kingdoms and, first, Portuguese mariners travelling farther and farther south along Africa's Atlantic coast, and then the European colonization of the New World, transformed those relations. Across the continent kingdoms and empires would rise and fall, with some 12.5 million Africans suffering enslavement in the crosshairs.