With the first 20 Africans brought to Virginia in 1619, the United States initiated a labor system characterized by extreme ...

It also perpetuated the practice of slavery, sparked the Civil War and left a difficult legacy," he said. The Southern British colonies depended on agriculture for their wealth. The white elite ...

Although Jefferson's description of the slave trade was as much an indictment of the colonies as of Britain ... both northern and southern slaveholding delegates objected to its inclusion, and ...