lucifer_sam

Because it was the most widespread and solidifying usage of slavery in world history. Other cultures have employed slavery during tragic times, but America was the first to use it to build an economy and build a stratified system of procuring and utilizing Africans for labor. Most of us are aware of the enslavement of Eastern European peoples ("slave" is actually a derivative of "Slav") during the sixteenth century and earlier. However, it was not as widespread and for the most part, it was domestic slavery, much like an unpaid civil servant (no I'm not condoning it). Africans were viewed as prized possessions, objects which confirmed the owner's wealth.

When the New World was settled, the white invaders tried and failed to use labor from native peoples. I do not know if Africans were that much stronger or more "fit for physical labor," but that was the stigma. And so, Africa was raped of her culture and heritage as millions upon untold millions were shipped from west African nations because the white man assumed he was the superior being. And there they toiled for three hundred years under the burning sun.

The thing that sets the United States apart from all those other countries that legalized slavery is the fact that the American economy was built upon slave labor.

__________________
first.am