Slave Trivia

Twelve United States Presidents owned slaves and eight of them owned slaves while in office. The last President who owned slaves while he was in office was Zachary Taylor. General Ulysses S. Grant owned slaves at one time.

Comments

[Ingineer66]

Only 3% of the slaves that came from Africa went to the United States. Most went to Brazil.
And the US Navy had ships patrolling off the west coast of Africa to stop the trade from 1820 to 1861.

[Paul]

The institution of slavery was odious and morally indefensible...The sellers and buyers (of all races and creeds) are equally culpable in my opinion. And it being the law of the land for so many years did not make it right. I am sure that the 3% who were brought to America against their will would have preferred to stay in Africa.Slavery did them no favors.

[Ingineer66]

I am not defending the practice. But it seems that the United States is made out to be the sole cause of evil in the world when it comes to slavery and we were only tiny part of it. If anybody owes reparations it is the people in Africa that sold the slaves in the first place.

[Paul]

Slavery was (and still is) an international problem. It is talked about and written about so much here because when it existed here we were proclaiming the rights of human beings while keeping a portion of our people in bondage.