n 1638, "the price tag for an African male was around $27.00 while the salary of a European laborer was about 70 cents per day." (Inner-city) A slave had less value at the time than 40 days of labor by a European.
             Both slave transportation, and slavery itself in the U.S. were brutal institutions. It was not unknown to have a high mortality rate during the passage from Africa. Slaves who were too ill to survive the trip were sometimes thrown overboard to drown. Once on American soil, slaves were largely treated as property, to be freely bought and sold. Some slave owners allowed their slaves to marry; others imposed marriages on them. Slave marriages were not recognized by the states. The owner was free to split up a couple or family at any time simply by selling some of his/her slaves. Slave children were sent into the fields at an early age where they worked from sun up to sun down.
             There were many slave conspiracies and revolts during the era of slavery. Slave owners lived in continuous fear of an open revolt.
             Thomas Jefferson, principal drafter of the Declaration of Independence, was a promoter of civil liberties. However, he did not conceive of the universal nature of human rights. He owned slaves himself and even fathered mixed-race children by one of his slaves. Some of his thoughts on slavery were recorded in his "Notes on the State of Virginia." He was opposed to general emancipation, arguing that "Deep-rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections by the blacks of the injuries they have sustained..." would hopelessly destabilize society. Jefferson was one of the promoters of the American Colonization Society, which was organized in 1816. It sought to free young Afro-Americans by educating them and transporting them to a colony outside the United States. Jefferson never freed his own slaves.
             The mass movement to abolish slavery started in England in the mid-18th century. British ships controll...