History channel turns to Baltimore’s Constellation

BALTIMORE - The USS Constellation’s hunt for slave-smugglers is the focus of a documentary airing on the History Channel this month.
The ship’s crew freed 705 African men, women and children in 1860 when they seized the Cora, a ship headed for U.S. auction blocks.
“The Constellation represents a little-known aspect of U.S. history that the Navy actively tried to halt the trans-Atlantic slave trade before the Civil War,” said John Pentangelo, curator of the Constellation Museum in Baltimore.
As the flagship of an African Squadron, the Constellation patrolled over 2,500 miles of African coastline, including the mouth of the Congo River. Read on.