DreaminGirl posted at 2:24AM Sat, 17 October 2015 - #4233995

Slavery has existed as long as humanity has existed. It has always been part of human culture.

Despite the long human history of slave trading various periods of trade can indeed be marked as having beginnings and ends. I was always under the impression that what made slavery in the US (which I understood the above comment to be referring to, right or wrong) unique was the uncommon racial aspect. People of one color having slaves exclusively of another color. Even though slavery was a practice within Africa at the time, 19th century Euro-Americans were enslaving Africans exclusively, never their own people nor people of any other race. Asians were certainly exploited but I don't recall the notion of ownership ever being applied to them nor to the Scots-Irish miners in Appalachia.