What happens
In 1541 in Peru, Omar, an Indian slave, and Alvaro, a Negro slave and former teacher from Seville, dig a grave for the murdered explorer Francisco Pizarro. As they work, Alvaro recalls his past, including his service as a pilot with Christopher Columbus and his later journeys alongside the explorers Balboa and Cortez. Alvaro reflects on the greed and violence each man brought to the New World. The episode is the chapter Dark Explorers in the Destination Freedom series, which dramatizes the history of Negro Americans, and it was first broadcast on July 11, 1948.
Outside the city of Lima, Peru, in 1541, with flashbacks to Seville, Spain, the Atlantic voyages, Panama, and Mexico.
Characters: Omar, Alvaro, Francisco Pizarro, Christopher Columbus, Balboa, Cortez, Alonso Nino, Rillan
Listen for: Alvaro's recollections of sailing with Columbus, Balboa's execution, and Cortez's conquest of Mexico, as Alvaro reflects on the explorers' greed.
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.