Today, we tell about slavery, and how it affected the history of the United States.

Slavery is one person controlling or owning another. Some history experts say it began following the development of farming about ten thousand years ago. People forced prisoners of war to work for them. Other slaves were criminals or people who could not re-pay money they owed.

Experts say the first known slaves existed in the Sumerian society of what is now Iraq more than five thousand years ago. Slavery also existed among people in China, India, Africa, the Middle East and the Americas. It expanded as trade and industry increased.

This increase created a demand for a labor force to produce goods for export. Slaves did most of the work. Most ancient …show more content…
They worked in the fields on crops that would be sold or eaten by the people who lived on the plantation. They also raised animals for meat and milk.

Field slaves worked very long and hard. They worked each day from the time the sun rose until it set. Many of these slaves lived in extremely poor conditions in small houses with no heat or furniture. Sometimes, five or ten people lived together in one room.

House slaves usually lived in the owner's house. They did the cooking and cleaning in the house. House slaves worked fewer hours than field slaves, but were more closely supervised by the owner and his family.

Laws approved in the southern colonies made it illegal for slaves to marry, own property or earn their freedom. These laws also did not permit slaves to be educated, or even to learn to read. But some owners permitted their slaves to earn their freedom, or gave them money for good work.

Other owners punished slaves to get them to work. These punishments included beatings, withholding food and threatening to sell members of a slave's family. Some plantation owners executed slaves suspected of serious crimes by hanging them or burning them …show more content…
They were members of the local governments. They attended meetings of the legislatures in the capitals of their colonies usually two times a year. Slave owners had the time and the education to greatly influence political life in the southern colonies, because the hard work on their farms was done by slaves.

Today, most people in the world condemn slavery. That was not true in the early years of the American nation. Many Americans thought slavery was evil, but necessary. Yet owning slaves was common among the richer people in the early 1700s. Many of the leaders in the colonies who fought for American independence owned slaves. This was true in the northern colonies as well as the southern ones.

One example is the famous American diplomat, inventor and businessman Benjamin Franklin. He owned slaves for thirty years and sold them at his general store. But his ideas about slavery changed during his long life. Benjamin Franklin started the first schools to teach blacks and later argued for their freedom.

Slavery did not become a force in the northern colonies mainly because of economic reasons. Cold weather and poor soil could not support such a farm economy as was found in the South. As a result, the North came to depend on manufacturing and