Category: American History
Africans (people from Africa) were taken and sold as slaves. Beginning in the early 1600s, millions of Africans were forcibly brought to the Americas through the transatlantic slave trade.
Enslaved people were treated as property, denied basic rights, and forced to work without pay — primarily on plantations in the Southern colonies and states. Slavery became central to the Southern economy.
Slavery was not abolished until the 13th Amendment was ratified in 1865, after the Civil War. The legacy of slavery continues to shape American society and politics.
Say: 'Africans' or 'people from Africa.'
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