Did the United States inherit slavery from the British Empire?

Yes, the United States inherited the institution of chattel slavery from the British Empire, as it was already well-established in the British colonies of North America long before the American Revolution and independence in 1776–1783.

The first recorded arrival of Africans in the English colony of Virginia occurred in August 1619, when an English privateer ship (the White Lion) brought "20 and odd" Africans—seized from a Portuguese slave ship—to Point Comfort (near modern-day Hampton, Virginia). These individuals were initially treated as indentured servants rather than lifelong chattel slaves, but this event marked the beginning of African forced labor in the English mainland colonies. Over the following decades, the system evolved into full chattel slavery (hereditary, race-based, and treating people as permanent property). Key developments under British colonial rule included:

By the mid-17th century, laws in Virginia and other colonies formalized slavery, such as rules making the status of children follow that of the mother (partus sequitur ventrem, starting around 1662 in Virginia).

Indentured servitude (mostly white Europeans) gradually gave way to African slavery as a cheaper, more controllable labor source for tobacco, rice, and indigo plantations, especially after events like Bacon's Rebellion in 1676 heightened elite fears of unrest among white servants. By 1700, slavery was entrenched across the colonies, with slaves replacing most indentured labor in the South. Every British North American colony had enslaved people to varying degrees, though it was most concentrated in the Chesapeake and later the Deep South.

British merchants (from ports like Bristol and Liverpool) dominated the transatlantic slave trade that supplied the colonies, and the British Crown granted monopolies like the Royal African Company. Slavery formed a cornerstone of the British Empire's economy in the Americas, including the Caribbean sugar islands, which influenced practices on the mainland.

When the 13 colonies declared independence in 1776, they inherited a colonial system where slavery was legal and economically vital, particularly in the South. The U.S. Constitution (1787) implicitly recognized and protected it through provisions like the Three-Fifths Clause, the Fugitive Slave Clause, and a delay until 1808 on banning the international slave trade. Slavery was not "created" by the United States as an independent nation; it was a direct continuation of British colonial practices.

Slavery existed in many societies worldwide long before (including among Native American groups, in Africa, the Islamic world, and earlier European colonies by Spain and Portugal), but the specific system in what became the U.S. was shaped by English/British colonial law, trade networks, and plantation models—especially influences from Barbados and other Caribbean holdings.

Britain: Continued the slave trade until abolishing it in 1807 and slavery itself in most of its empire via the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 (effective 1834 in many colonies, with an "apprenticeship" transition period). Slavery had never been legal on the soil of England itself (confirmed in the 1772 Somerset case), but it persisted in colonies.

United States: Banned the international slave trade in 1808 (effective alongside Britain's ban), but allowed the domestic trade to flourish. Slavery expanded dramatically with the cotton gin and westward settlement, leading to its entrenchment in the South until the Civil War (1861–1865) and the 13th Amendment in 1865.

In short, the U.S. did not invent or originate slavery in its territories—that was already underway under British rule for over 150 years by the time of independence. The new nation inherited, expanded, and eventually fought a war over the system it received from its colonial predecessor. Claims that America "created" slavery overlook this colonial timeline.

A King the Pillar of the Slave Trade

And now for more history that the progressive professors don't want you to know.

In the book The Wrong of Slavery, the Right of Emancipation, and the future of the African race in the United States (Recently released as an open source public domain audiobook), the following is written: (page 85)

Since so small a proportion out of the whole export was directed to the United States, it is evident that the demand for slaves at that time could not have been great. Nor do we find, throughout the Report, any allusion to a direct trade by slavers from the African coast to the Continental colonies. Of course it existed, but evidently not to a large extent. The public opinion, as well as the legislation, of the colonies had uniformly been against it. (footnote 1)
(footnote 1) The agency of the British Government in fastening slavery upon the Continental colonies is well known. Bancroft has placed it distinctly on record: —
"The inhabitants of Virginia were controlled by the central authority on a subject of vital importance to themselves and their posterity. Their halls of legislation had resounded with eloquence directed against the terrible plague of negro slavery. Again and again they had passed laws restraining the importation of negroes from Africa; but their laws were disallowed. How to prevent them from protecting themselves against the increase of the overwhelming evil was debated by the King in Council, and on the 10th day of December, 1770, he issued an instruction, under his own hand, commanding the governor, 'under pain of the highest displeasure, to assent to no law by which the importation of slaves should be, in any respect, prohibited or obstructed.' In April, 1772, this rigorous order was solemnly debated in the Assembly of Virginia. They were very anxious for an Act to restrain the introduction of people the number of whom already in the colony gave them just cause to apprehend the most dangerous consequences. * * * Virginia resolved to address the King himself, who in Council had cruelly compelled the toleration of the nefarious traffic. They pleaded with him for leave to protect themselves against the nefarious traffic, and these were the words: —
"The importation of slaves into the colonies from the coast of Africa hath long been considered as a trade of great inhumanity, and, under its present encouragement, we have too much reason to fear, will endanger the very existence of your Majesty's American dominions. We are sensible that some of your Majesty's subjects in Great Britain may reap emolument from this sort of traffic; but, when we consider that it greatly retards the settlement of the colonies with more useful inhabitants, and may, in time, have the most destructive influence, we presume to hope that the interest of a few will be disregarded when placed in competition with the security and happiness of such numbers of your Majesty's dutiful and loyal subjects.
Deeply impressed with these sentiments, we most humbly beseech your Majesty to remove all those restraints on your Majesty's governors of this colony which inhibit their assenting to such laws as might check so very pernicious a commerce."
"In this manner Virginia led the host who alike condemned slavery and opposed the slave-trade. Thousands in Maryland and in New Jersey were ready to adopt a similar petition; so were the Legislatures of North Carolina, of Pennsylvania, of New York. Massachusetts, in its towns and in its Legislature, unceasingly combated the condition, as well as the sale, of slaves. There was no jealousy among one another in the strife against the crying evil; Virginia harmonized all opinions, and represented the moral sentiment and policy of them all. When her prayer reached England, Franklin, through the press, called to it the sympathy of the people. Again and again it was pressed upon the attention of the Ministers. But the Government of that day was less liberal than the tribunals; and, while a question respecting a negro from Virginia led the courts of law to an axiom that as soon as any slave sets his foot on English ground he becomes free, the King of England stood in the path of humanity, and made himself the pillar of the slave-trade. Wherever in the colonies a disposition was shown for its restraint, his servants were peremptorily ordered to maintain it without abatement." — Bancroft's History of the United States, vol. vi. pp. 413, 414, 415.
"The English Continental colonies," says Bancroft, "were, in the aggregate, always opposed to the African slave-trade. Maryland, Virginia, even Carolina, alarmed at the excessive production, and consequent low price, of their staples, at the heavy debts incurred by the purchase of slaves on credit, and at the dangerous increase of the colored population, each showed an anxious preference for the introduction of white men; and laws designed to restrict importations of slaves are scattered copiously along the records of colonial legislation. The first Continental Congress which took to itself powers of legislation gave a legal expression to the well-formed opinion of the country by resolving (April 6, 1776) that "no slaves be imported into any of the thirteen United Colonies."

This used to be more widely known, hence why the race card couldn't have been played against the country until the progressives succeeded in removing the entire Founding from the history books. George Bancroft was a prominent and well-known historian in his day with his books widely read.

Relegated to the dust bin by historians with a seething hatred, Bancroft is exactly the kind of historian we all need resurrected and taught once more. Not really for this one item, but for the larger body of his work that seeks to accurately capture the Founding Fathers for who they really were instead of denegrating them at every opportunity.

George Bancroft is the anti-Zinn.

https://progressingamerica.blogspot.com/2021/07/a-king-pillar-of-slave-trade.html

The English still crow about ending the slave trade but one of their African colonies still had chattel slavery into the 20th Century. And British Hong Kong still had Mui Tsai slavery when the English turned the territory over to Red China in 1997.

"Where did “the Empire” get slavery from?"

Its not my concern. The colony of Pennsylvania was established by, well. You know. NJ was established by, well. You know. Etc etc 13 times.

"I do not understand your insistence that somehow, someway, the British Empire was solely responsible for slavery in North America."

I'll correct this, then you can understand.

I do not understand your insistence that somehow, someway, the British Empire was solely responsible for slavery in ~~North America~~ the thirteen colonies.

I'll let you ponder this for a moment so that now you can accurately gauge my true thoughts. Is there something in particular that you know about the 13 colonies that might make it both rather unique and also pertinent to the experience of the United States, keeping slavery in mind?

The remaining whataboutisms sound like justifications for slavery trending toward normalization. It's unfortunately grotesque and cannot fall into the category of defending the U.S. from something it simply did not do.

This was inherited.

"America was not solely influenced by English traditions"

Bait and switch. These thirteen are undeniable.

Virginia was a colony of the Empire.
Massachusetts was a colony of the Empire.
New Hampshire was a colony of the Empire.
Maryland was a colony of the Empire.
Connecticut was a colony of the Empire.
Rhode Island was a colony of the Empire.
Delaware was a colony of the Empire.
North Carolina was a colony of the Empire.
South Carolina was a colony of the Empire.
New York was a colony of the Empire.
New Jersey was a colony of the Empire.
Pennsylvania was a colony of the Empire.
and Georgia was a colony of the Empire.

There's no way around this. It's unanimous. But why would anybody want to get around it in the first place?

"We were the first to truly arise from all of humanity with the idea of individual liberty. We didn’t do it perfectly, but we were the first by far and with the most refinements, very quickly."

Why is it considered a violation to also include that we were the first to truly arise to the challenge and promote abolitionism?

This a slavery discussion my friend, you don't have to be generic as you were in that last paragraph. You are allowed to be proud of America's abolitionist history. Be brave. We preceded everybody else. Be proud.

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