[foundedonpurpose]

Better yet, not imported the slaves. Just imagine...

[bankwalker]

but they built the USA ... </sarc>

[FlingWingFlyer]

America would be a lot “better place” right now if we did.

[hanamizu]

Better yet, not imported the slaves. Just imagine...

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Most of the ancestors of black Americans were brought here some time before cotton became the cash crop it would become in the early 19th century. The importation of slaves was outlawed in 1808—the earliest possible under the Constitution.

Before the invention of the cotton gin, it was hoped that slavery would die a natural death as much for economic reasons as moral ones. But the cotton gin meant that great wealth could be acquired with the use of slave labor.