Black in Period Films

Welcome to our first ever Outlander Episode Recap! As this is Blacks in Period Films, this recap will be specifically about any black characters that appeared in the season 4 premiere of the hit series.  Each week we  will discuss costumes, characterization, and the larger context of their place in history.   At the start of the episode we are told that we are in North Carolina 1767. I appreciate this timestamp, as it positions myself within the time and place of the story that I am about to watch unfold. 1738 map of North Carolina We get our first glimpse of black characters 44 minutes into the episode. They are enslaved servers. This is to be expected of a series taken place in 18 th century America. In 1767 there were about 40,000 slaves in the North Carolina colony. This was a sharp increase from the 6,000 enslaved persons that resided in 1729 North Carolina. Of those 40,000 slaves, about 90 percent of these slaves were field workers who performed...