What are the origins of American Slavery?
In 1690, one out of every nine families in Boston owned a slave. In New York City, in 1703, two out of every five families owned a slave. From Newport, Rhode Island to Buenos Aires, black slaves could be found in virtually every New World area colonized by Europeans. Black slaves arrived in the New World at least as early as 1502. Over the next three centuries, slave traders brought at least fifteen million Africans to the New World (another twenty percent or more Africans died during the march to the West African coast and an additional twenty percent perished during the “middle passage” across the Atlantic Ocean). Why beginning in the sixteenth century did Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch, Danish, and English colonists all bring African slaves to their New World colonies? Why did they do something that we find wholly repugnant morally? Few questions have aroused more bitter debate or evoked more impassioned controversy than the origins of black slavery. Was it, as some have argued,
