If slavery really did begin here in 1619, America became independent from England in 1776, and slavery was ended in 1865 in the US, then slavery existed here under English rule for 157 years, while it only existed under the American government for 89 years. Sounds to me like the Brits are the ones who owe reparations, not the American government.
Slavery didn’t exist in all parts of America in some of those 89 years because some states were free states. There was a lot of resistance to allowing slavery in new states as well. I don’t know much about the fugitive slave law (free states obliged to return runaway slaves to the slave state) or how much it was enforced. Having said all that, factory and mill owners in the free northern states certainly exploited the labor of their workers.
Yep.