During the seventeenth century, thousands of unwilling emigrants—men, women, and children native to Africa—crossed the Atlantic. They were taken from their homelands by force; held captive and sold as property to strangers who, to them, looked and acted strangely; and herded onto ships for a nightmarish voyage across an environment completely alien to them. And once their journey ended, they were forced into a lifetime of slavery in the New World.

The Need for Cheap Labor

Before the rise of African slavery in the New World, much of the labor in the colonies was performed by indentured servants. An indentured servant was a man or a woman who was willing to work for an individual for a period of time, usually five to seven years, in exchange for a bonus such as land at the end of that time. In the case...