The History of Slavery, Part 4: African Slavery in the New World, 1500-1865

History Unplugged Podcast · Jul 31, 2018 · 1h 21m

Slavery predates European entry into the Atlantic world in the Age of Exploration, but the system that developed during the 16th and 17th centuries was arguably a more inhumane and racially tinged institution than anything that had previously existed. The first English colonists in the Americas believed they could become wealthy through mutual trade with Native Americans. This system failed and was replaced by chattel enslavement of Africans to work on cash-crop plantations. American slavery grew and metastasized until it swallowed up over 10 million lives in the Atlantic Slave Trade.

This…