The history of humanity knows many tragic and dark moments. On the road to progress and enlightenment, virtually all races have resorted to such a terrible form of social development as slavery. The United States, too, did not escape this dark phase in its eventful history. From its inception, according to the studies and media files reviewed, slavery in the United States has been an integral part and norm of American life. The United States, in my opinion, has developed perhaps the strangest form of slavery in history. Formed in the depths of American capitalism, slavery reflected its formation in the agricultural sector of the young country’s economy.
American planters, according to the authors, were forced to resort to the exploitation of enslaved Black people because of the extreme scarcity of the labor market. The use of slave labor left an indelible mark on the plantation bourgeoisie, making it perhaps the strangest and most unusual slave-owning class in the planet’s history. The American planters of that time were an unimaginable and bizarre synthesis of typically capitalist and slave-owning traits. Slavery in the United States is a complex set of socio-economic, civic-legal, ideological, racial, and socio-political problems rooted in the depths of American history. This form of social development is due primarily to vast land areas in North America. Not for nothing, according to researchers, it was here that all the prerequisites for the formation of such a liberal form of slavery as patriarchal slavery, in which enslaved Black people were considered simply powerless members of white planters’ families. It was predominantly true in the northern states.
Slavery in the United States served not only to enrich and develop the rural economy but also to strengthen the political and social influence of the big slave-owning planters. It all began with the Dutch slave traders. Somewhat later, British shipowners also joined this lucrative business. The first Dutch ship with “live goods” docked on the coast of the North American continent in the late summer of 1619. It delivered twenty enslaved Black people, who wealthy white colonists instantly purchased. From then on, advertisements for selling “live goods” appeared regularly in port cities and towns. Finally, in 1863, the Declaration of Independence was adopted, which, among other things, mentioned the unacceptability of using slave labor.