[Sacajaweau]

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/05/31/travel/l-slavery-s-traces-893092.html

[Pelham]

Imagine that. The New York Times taking another opportunity to denigrate America’s past. Not that there isn’t a cabal of posters here at FR who do the same on a regular basis.

[afraidfortherepublic]

Berkeley did not start with slaves, although I'm sure that they utilized them later on.

The other crucial event that would play a role in the development of America was the arrival of Africans to Jamestown. A Dutch slave trader exchanged his cargo of Africans for food in 1619. The Africans became indentured servants, similar in legal position to many poor Englishmen who traded several years labor in exchange for passage to America. The popular conception of a racial-based slave system did not develop until the 1680's.

ref:(A Brief History of Jamestown, The Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, Richmond, VA 23220, email: apva@apva.org, Web published February, 2000)

[ansel12]

We already know about Indians and their practice of slavery, the potlatch slave killings, to display wealth, were the worst elements of it.