Beginning in the seventeenth century, millions of African people were

kidnapped, enslaved, and shipped across the Atlantic Ocean to the

Americas under horrific conditions that frequently resulted in starvation
and death. Nearly two million people died at sea during the agonizing
journey.
As American slavery evolved, an elaborate and enduring mythology
about the inferiority of black people was created to legitimate, perpetuate,
and defend slavery. This mythology survived slaverys formal abolition
following the Civil War.
In the South, where the enslavement of black people was widely
embraced, resistance to ending slavery persisted for another century
following the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865. Today, 150
years after the Emancipation Proclamation, very little has been done to
address the legacy of slavery and its meaning in contemporary life.

When the North American continent was first colonized by Europeans,

the land was vast, the work was harsh, and there was a severe shortage of
labor. Men and women were needed to work the land. White bond
servants, paying their passage across the ocean from Europe through
indentured labor, eased but did not solve the problem. Early in the
seventeenth century, a Dutch ship loaded with African slaves introduced a
solutionand a new problemto the New World. Slaves were most
economical on large farms where labor-intensive cash crops, such as
tobacco, could be grown.
By the end of the American Revolution, slavery had proven
unprofitable in the North and was dying out. Even in the South the
institution was becoming less useful to farmers as tobacco prices
fluctuated and began to drop. However, in 1793 Northerner Eli Whitney
invented the cotton gin; this device made it possible for textile mills to use
the type of cotton most easily grown in the South.
Slavery affected blacks more than whites
Slave revolt was in the period of President Lincoln