Black Americans made spectacular progress beginning in the decades after slavery, moving from cotton fields to the boardroom in just over a century.

But Caribbean planters did not stick around after slavery long enough to memorialize the past.

After slavery, they began to spread out, but they never forgot the tribes they lived with.

Immediately after slavery, African-American families struggled to reunite and rebuild what had been taken.

I am the fifth generation of my family after slavery.

They also discussed their culture during the period of the Civil War and life after slavery.

These recordings document the first-person accounts of several individuals whose life experiences spanned the period during and after slavery.

Generations after slavery has gone, the lowly status of these slave ancestors still matters.

After slavery, no one wanted anything to do with tobacco or cotton.

"After slavery, my great-great grandfather walked from Virginia to Texas," he said.