[J Aguilar]

Still doesn't change the FACT that "the African slave trade was PIONEERED by Arab, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and other merchants long before the settlement of English North America"

Indeed, for the simple reason that Portuguese and Spaniards settled in America a century before the British. In the institution of slavery all took part: Spaniards, Portuguese, French (often forgotten), British, Arabs, Jews and Christians. The plantation system and popular revolts in the Southern colonies of North America made it especially hard there.

Nevertheless, the push to end the slavery came indeed from Britain and the Northern Colonies.

[jamaksin]

And lest we forget, going even further back ... Aesop was a slave.