Piers Morgan and MSNBC's Toure go at it on Trayvon Martin

Slavery was the reality of the world at the time America was born and had been for eons. That is, until the late 1700's, when the British Empire, and America in turn, began to address the issue head-on, culmunating in the end of slavery in the British Empire in 1833, followed just 30 years later in America, beginning with the Emancipation Proclaimation of 1863. At the cost of some 620,000 American lives (some of which were indentured "servants" consigned right off the ship in harbor).

History tends to gloss over the number of African slaves who were voluntarily, and, with much good will and friendship, freed from slavery prior to the Civil War. I've never seen a good gestimate of the number of slaves handed their freedom between 1760 and 1860, but maybe a half million or even a million or more would be a fair start.

In America by 1790, the depleted fields in the North and in Maryland and Virginia had led to crop changes from labor-intensive tobacco to fruits and grains, creating less need for slaves; many were given their freedom outright during the following decades. Tens of thousands became free men as a result of their owner's idealism regarding American Independence, or by their own service in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812 or "indian territory". Urban slaves were freed at the same time by factory owners who could now tap into the endless market of indentured "servitude" contracts - especially of children. By the early 1820's, there were only about 3000 "african or caribbean" slaves left in all of the North, that's it - most of them in New Jersey.

Meanwhile, professional traders who had purchased the surplus of unfreed slaves being offloaded by the North between 1800 and 1820 found suddenly there weren't too many places left to trade. As a solution, the US Government worked treaties to create in 1820 the African state of Liberia (along with three other colonies). The organization, ACS, worked to repatriate african slaves. Liberia especially was a failure because the repatriated freed slaves enslaved the indigenous people and a civil war of their own broke out.

The northern slaves shipped south weren't really needed, or wanted either. The south resented being made caretakers of the unwanted slaves of the north. But even with the influx from the North, only 3,000 plantations across the entire South owned more than 100 slaves at any one time, and the average southern man didn't own a slave at all, nor could he afford to buy a slave.

From before 1790 thru the 1850's, both England and America worked diligently to find a solution to end slavery. Slaves were set free, and many attempts at much cost was made to repatriate slaves back to their native Africa. Americans worked for over 60 years to solve the problem and in the end was willing to lose 620,000 lives, tear families apart for generations as a result of fratricide, inflict unimaginable damage to half of the country's infrastructure - to risk it all - all of it - to truely become a nation of the free.

Indentured servants were entirely different from slaves. Many came over from Europe to America, with someone in America paying their travel expenses. The debt would be worked off by being a servant for a fixed period of time (somewhat like doing the dish-washing at a cafe when unable to pay the bill), with a maximum length of 7 years, after which he was free of debt and the bond.

true and not true. Indentured servatude was slavery also - make no doubts about that. "Servants" is just a PC word to denote between a black slave and a 'other' slave - both were considered chattel property and could be freely bought and sold.

A private contract between two individuals was 5 to 7 years. But most early contracts were between Companies and individuals. If you were a minor of 4, and your parents died on ship and they were on a company contract, your goose was probably cooked until you were 18 or 21 or 22 and then some, as the child worked off its dead parents' passage and burial costs. Magistrates were not limited to any number of years when consigning the convicted to servatude to a Company.

Unpaid passengers were held up to 30 days aboard ship, unable to debark to find family to pay - this was especially true of the German Palentinates. Captains would then advertise and hold auctions in which the "indebted" were displayed for prospective buyers and the servant really had little choice as to who he or she was sold to.

Only about 40% of indentured slaves actually survived their contract term; that's a much higher mortality rate than the number of African slaves who survived more than 5 years.

Indentured servitude was not a 9-5 dishwashing job, it was 24/7, church attendance time excepted. No apprenticeship was a guaranteed thing - one apprenticed, on paper, for saddlemaking could just as easily end up clearing stumps from fields for a planned townsite in Indian Territory while dodging arrows and mosquitoes. There was no guarantee of a land reward, (just ask William Penn) or of receiving the prescribed gun and horse, or even of a family remaining together, as sons and daughters were indentured out for parents debts or transgressions. And there were always annual "rents" (taxes) to pay on any land received, usually not the choicest lots.

Runaways would have time added to their term and wanted/reward posters went up on fences and poles right next to those for a runaway slave and they were treated similarly upon capture by bounty hunters. Indentured had to carry papers with them, identifying their owners, and signed permission slips when going to and fro on owner business.

There was no guarantee that the person would be fed or clothed or protected appropriately. Punishments were at the discretion of the 'debt-holder' and there was little recourse for a servant slave who was sexually abused or beaten or starved. It was so easy to say a servant committed 'suicide' or fell from a cliff. After all, who was to know?

Marriage was strongly discouraged, as was pregnancy. If an indentured woman had an illegitimate child by her master, not only would time be added to the woman's indenture as punishment, serving the same rapist master (and his now-irrate wife), her child was taken from her to be "sold south" and never to be seen again. That infant in turn was obligated to indenture for 2 years after attaining age, or in some cases, from birth up to age 30 years.

Couples were separated by selling the contract of one of them to someone else. Female "servants" could be sold to whorehouses, where room and board was always added to their contract amount so there was little hope of ever paying off the contract.

African slavery in America ended in 1863. In contrast, although banned at the same time, indentured servatude, flourished for some 50 years longer, continuing into the early 1900's by some accounts.

The angst of slavery exists in the souls of all people, because at some time or another all races have been enslaved and all families have been touched. England and then America voluntarily moved to erase slavery from their shores and from the world. There is no logical reason black 'angst' in America should be so much more profound and dramaladen than 'angst' found everywhere else on earth. America's history of invalidating slavery should be celebrated by all races in America, not condemned or twisted as a dark political tool.

as always, imo jmo, and thanks for the opportunity to discuss, expat.

some sources:

http://www.ushistory.org/us/5b.asp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servitude_in_Pennsylvania http://www.civilwarhome.com/slavery.htm http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/awhhtml/awlaw3/slavery.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberia#Counties_and_districts

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