HOW SLAVERY HAPPENED Portuguese colonists started huge sugar plantations in Brazil. These Europeans enslaved thousands of Indians. But most of the Indians died from European diseases and harsh treatment. The Spaniards and the Portuguese then began to import blacks from West Africa as slaves. Other African blacks helped capture most of the enslaved Africans. During the 1600's, France, England, and the Netherlands established colonies in the West Indies and greatly increased the African slave trade. …
showed first 75 words of 1298 total

showed last 75 words of 1298 total
…of southern families owned any slaves at all. Most Americans know the most famous slave trader of the 1800s, although not by name. That's because Reverend John Newton is popular for what he did after his conversion to abolitionism. He penned the hymn "Amazing Grace." Appropriately, it is included on the soundtrack of Amistad. the English translation of "amistad" is "friendship." No doubt the word came to mean something quite different in the Mende language.