These documentaries do not reach as far back as the era of brutal servitude during which the American Colonies were founded as slave plantations for the extraction of natural resources. However, coming at the tail end of the iconic institutions central to British Society—that being child slavery, with millions involved in the selling of their own children and the steeling of others’ children—one does catch a glimpse at the horror that was once a child’s life in an age only hinted at by Dickens and denied by all.

A History of Runaway White Slaves in Plantation America: Part Two