Freedom's Irony: Trails of Tears & Manifest Destiny

The fifth title in the America's Quest for Freedom series, which "teaches students that the Land of the Free didn't just happen," Freedom's Irony: Trails of Tears & Manifest Destiny looks at life in the 1830s, an exciting time to be an American…if you were of European descent. Eschewing finger-pointing or rationalization, this solid program simply and honestly chronicles unfolding events, illustrating how the growth of the cotton industry in the South fueled the "peculiar institution" of slavery, and how massive emigration to the West resulted in the displacement of Native Americans from their ancestral lands. Combining live-action reenactments, period maps and documents, and current footage, together with excellent first-person narratives drawn from primary sources such as letters, this program reminds viewers that America is a land where freedom hasn't always meant "free," but also one where the continual desire and struggle for equal rights for all has moved us forward as a nation. Highly recommended. Other titles in the series are: Freedom & Repression in Colonial America, Ideas of Freedom in Revolutionary America, Freedom & Justice: The Civil War Era, and Free at Last? WWII & After. Aud: J, H. (E. Gieschen)