Slavery as the foundation of America...

[micfranklin]

I was reading a magazine earlier and I was thinking about the slavery of blacks, and then I wondered that this slavery, bad as it was, is the reason there is an America today.

So any challengers?

[Labrocca]

Same could be said of Rome, Egypt or Constantinople.

America actually did BETTER when slavery was abolished. So I don't see how we are America today because of slavery. The American Revolution had nothing to do with slavery.

Also the industrial revolution with inventions such as the automobile, telephone, electric lights, and airplanes are really what pushed America into greatness. The reason those even occured was because we are a society founded on capitalism and new ideas are welcomed.

[micfranklin]

My opinion on this is that if no slaves from Africa were brought over to the America's, or at least the Caribbean, then the settlers would have no other workforce to build and colonize those places.

[AlonzoMourning23]

Are you arguing that it's better that things were the way they were, and that the sum total of slavery is a positive result, or that simply slavery had some national good.

[micfranklin]

Are you arguing that it's better that things were the way they were, and that the sum total of slavery is a positive result, or that simply slavery had some national good.


I'm only saying that as bad and wrong as slavery was, I don't think that there'd be an America or such a high population of African-related peoples in the Western Hemisphere without slavery. I mean the slaves from Africa were essentially the workforce during those times and the workforce built and grew all those plantations with which attracted other settlers and gave them something to trade with.

[AlonzoMourning23]

The population hub of the u.s. was the northeast, which had the fewest amount of slaves. But, are you arguing that slavery affected the way the u.s. is, or that the net gain was positive?

[micfranklin]

The population hub of the u.s. was the northeast, which had the fewest amount of slaves. But, are you arguing that slavery affected the way the u.s. is, or that the net gain was positive?


Every cloud does have its silver lining, but this was probably the only one compared to all the negatives of it.

[Buck Laser]

I believe slaves came to Jamestown before the Plymouth Colony was founded. And Jamestown was actually more representative of British society at the time. I'm not sure exactly when the balance of power shifted to the industrial northeast, but it was probably some time early in the nineteenth century. Many of the prominent founders of the Union were Virginians--cf. Jefferson and Washington. Of course the Franklin and Adams also had a hand in its shaping. But I believe the Bill of Rights was largely the work of Jefferson. Slaves were held in the northern states as well as in the south--but I'm not sure when the practice ended.

[Mayberry]

then I wondered that this slavery, bad as it was, is the reason there is an America today.
Nah. Certainly they played a big role in building the country as we know it. But without them, America would still have prospered, just on a smaller scale until the industrial revolution, which would have made slavery obsolete were it not abolished before hand.

[micfranklin]

then I wondered that this slavery, bad as it was, is the reason there is an America today.
Nah. Certainly they played a big role in building the country as we know it. But without them, America would still have prospered, just on a smaller scale until the industrial revolution, which would have made slavery obsolete were it not abolished before hand.


But also if there were no slavery, then there wouldn't be a good-sized number of blacks in North America at all.

[Drocket]

America is, to a large degree, a nation built on cotton. The availability of cheap cloth-making materials drew a lot of settlers and created a lot of the wealth. Even when the industrial revolution happened, the primary product was cloth and clothing (which previously was made mostly in Europe out of American cotton.) Having that material to sell to other countries created a LOT of wealth, money that was then available to fund other areas of the industry.

America would be a much different country than it is today without cotton. We'd certainly have taken a LOT longer to mature, as a country, instead of zipping to the top of the list, in terms of wealth.

[Yushimi]

I think that if we didn't have slaves from africa, we wouldn't have people and families from the deep south who are proud of their families and we would have a little less racism towards the Blacks - for the most part.

Then again, if we didn't have slaves, we wouldn't have had the segregation, and without that, we wouldn't have had the movement that ended it ... so today with all the people of different ethnicities living here, we may be a little more immature than we already are about it.