Posted on 04/04/2026 11:14:30 AM PDT by ProgressingAmerica
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.
Historical Context
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.
At Independence
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.
Divergent Paths After Independence
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.
For large numbers of them, it was for the rest of their lives.
Conceptually, I agree with all of this.
The wild card is:
Progressives are blaming the United States and have been for a long time now openly saying the United States has had 400 years of slavery.
Its mathematically impossible, I know. But math is just as racist as the United States to these people. And these are who control the schools.
The US didn’t do anything in 1619 it didn’t exist.
It behooves us as those who love America to point out the one and single entity who could possibly be guilty. It can only be one. There’s just no other options. It isn’t Rome or Mesopotamia or Egypt any other ancient.
Virginia in the year 1619 has exactly one option and that will be true forever and infinity. The Empire. For guilt, it is just simply the only option in the year 1619.
Just saying American Indians were slave holders and worse and there was nothing “noble” going on there.
It's called documented history from trusted sources
https://www.gilderlehrman.org/essays/historical-context/facts-about-slave-trade-slavery
Further south
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/argentina-jewish-white-slavery
and a map to help you sort the history of 'modern' slave trade out.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/maps-reveal-slavery-expanded-across-united-states-180951452/
“And have the slaves actually vote? That was not going to happen.”
Why not?
History makes it clear that the South sought to count the enslaved population as full persons for the census. At the same time, southern mythology portrayed slaveholders as benevolent stewards of those they held in bondage.
That tension raises an unavoidable question: if enslaved people were to be regarded as full persons in one civic context, why were they not granted the most basic political rights, including the right to vote?
I think we are largely in agreement here!
The 3/5th clause was taken over from the practice for calculating taxes under the Articles of Confederation. “Representatives and direct taxes...” because the calculation was that 3 free persons would accomplish as much work as 5 slaves.
We were talking about strange obstructions in arteries connected to the Covid "vaccine." I don't recall the topic of "slavery" coming up at the time. Maybe my memory isn't so good, but I don't know what it would have to do with the Covid virus.
There are people on this forum who are as wrapped up in the whole “it wasn’t OUR fault we had slaves” bullshit. I
Yeah, I know who you are talking about. He goes out of his way to promote the idea that it was the "Empire's fault" we had slaves.
I'm in the "What do you mean "we" Kemosabe?" category on that. No family here at the time of all that unpleasantness.
Do you have any harsh words to say about the North who also wouldn't let them vote?
Blacks didn't get to vote in the North until after the 14th amendment.
When did black people get the right to vote in the Northern states?
“Name which of the 13 colonies were a colony of any expansionist African nation.”
In my post 36 I referred to the continent of Africa - not a colony.
That is a distinction with a difference.
The South wanted to count slaves as a whole person - a baby step, perhaps inadvertent, in treating them as full human beings.
The north wanted no part of that and insisted slaves were to be counted as zero; later north and south compromised at 3/5ths.
The history of the human race is complex.
I'll give you an example. The 15th amendment, adopted shortly after Lincoln's War, gave black men the right to vote, but not black women. And not Indian women. And not white women.
Women would get the right to vote in the United States several decades later.
In the meantime, let's get back to bashing the red-state South.
Not one of "The Thirteen Colonies ©™®" was founded by an African nation and its huge fleet of African ships.
Thank you.
Let's do exactly what the progressives want us to do, great idea! Tear each other part, gnash teeth, rip flesh, wonderful.
Yes! Tear each other apart. Brilliant plan. Strategic mastery!
(Note. I am quite certain that Sun Tzu does not approve of this plan.)
When did black people get the right to vote in the Northern states?
How about Illinois, which was Lincoln’s state?
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