Quote:
Originally Posted by Enoch Root
Yup, the land of the free and home of the brave and it began with the murder and displacement of Indians and the enslavement of Africans. An august beginning if ever I heard one for a free country. How people reconcile the idea of the founding of America as a watershed in freedom with the slave economy--even though the textbooks do not lie about the chattel slavery; mine didn't anyway--is beyond me. George Carlin has a routine about that but I've no idea what the rules are for posting links. Neither can I find them.
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Actually it didn't begin with the enslavement of Africans. It started with people leaving England due to religious reasons. Also don't forget about the complicity of the Africans themselves in the slave trade. If it wasn't for Africans capturing and selling other Africans then there would not have been the slave trade to the Americas.
The slave trade also did not start with Europeans buying slaves from Africans. The slave trade dates back thousands of years.
As for the murder part of your statement, do not forget that for millenia humans have been on the move throughout the world taking over lands which others were already occupying with the inevitable battles and killing that followed.