This volume is the first of a three-part course of study for secondary students. The entire course is designed to take six to eight weeks. This unit is concerned with life as Africans knew it in their homeland, before the incursions of the slave traders. While the introductory section describes the traumatic process of being uprooted and enslaved, the primary focus of this unit is on the life of the Ibo, a West African tribe organized on the governing principle of voluntary agreement of consensus. How they viewed the world, the nature of their community, their concept of justice and their social organization are the major topics developed in this section. The final section of this book discusses what was lost to the Africans enslaved and brought to the New World. Footnotes and acknowledgements are listed at the end of the volume. (FDI)