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Do you think these slaves suddenly appeared out of no where onto Southern cotton plantations? The real villains who started it all were the New England slave traders, financed by New York bankers, who used specially constructed ships to transport slaves from Africa.

Countless slaves died before the ships reached America and their corpses were unceremoniously tossed into the ocean. Those who survived the harsh crossing were sold primarily to planters in the Caribbean; roughly 90%, and the South; roughly 10%.

New England’s exploitation of slaves was one of America’s best kept secrets until fairly recently. But now some historians refuse to comply with the conspiracy of silence and they are showing us New England’s dirty linen. One of these historians is Joanne Pope Melish and her recent book, Disowning Slavery: Gradual Emancipation and Race in New England, 1780-1860 exposes what has been called "a virtual amnesia about slavery in New England."

America slavery did indeed begin in New England with Massachusetts being the first colony to legalize the use of slaves in 1641. Other colonies quickly followed suit and soon New England’s economy was almost dependent upon slave labor. At first, captured American Indians were exchanged for black slaves from the West Indies. But eventually New Englanders realized that slave trading was more profitable than harpooning whales. "At New England slavery's peak, around 1760, roughly one in four families owned slaves" which is the same percentage of families in the South owning slaves just prior to the War.

People who live in glass houses should take care when casting that first stone.

About 8-10 months ago Professor Walter Williams published a column entitled "The Civil War Was Not Fought Over Slavery".
The piece can be found in his archives at Jewish World Review. Not that it matters, but he is black. Would someone please go there, find the thing, and post it? I haven't the time, and well, uh, don't know how to post things on our site. Would someone do that, please?