2.4Slavery takes root

Enslaved Africans were brought to the Americas beginning in the 1500s, and to England's mainland colonies from 1619 onward. Over time, colonial laws hardened slavery into a hereditary, racial institution: enslaved status passed from mother to child and was justified by emerging ideas of racial hierarchy.

By the mid-1700s, slavery existed in every colony but was concentrated in the South, where it underpinned the plantation economy. The transatlantic slave trade forced millions of Africans across the ocean in brutal conditions. This system of bondage created enormous wealth for some and became, from the start, a profound contradiction at the heart of a society that would soon proclaim liberty.