Based on true events, the filmmakers explore antebellum America, using period documents to examine in graphic detail the racist ideology and degrading conditions faced by Africans under slavery.

[3] The film was shot primarily in Haiti, where directors Jacopetti and Prosperi were treated as guests of Haitian dictator Papa Doc Duvalier.

[3] Hundreds of Haitian extras participated in the film's various depictions of the cruel treatment of slaves, as well as white actors portraying historical characters (including Harriet Beecher Stowe).

[2] The directors' cut of Addio Zio Tom draws parallels between the horrors of slavery and the rise of the Black Power Movement, represented by Eldridge Cleaver, LeRoi Jones, Stokely Carmichael, and a few others.

In Roger Ebert's 1972 review of the shorter American version, he asserts that the directors have "Made the most disgusting, contemptuous insult to decency ever to masquerade as a documentary.