A frican slavery in the Western Hemisphere began in the sixteenth century, when captives were first brought across the Atlantic from the western coasts of Africa to work on European sugar plantations in Cuba, Jamaica, Barbados, Antigua, and several other Caribbean islands. During the next three centuries, two-thirds of all slaves in the New World lived and died on Caribbean sugar plantations. The cutting and burning of sugarcane was one of the most exhausting and dangerous forms of slavery. Harsh work and rampant disease cut short the lives of most Caribbean slaves; meanwhile, their owners lived elsewhere and left the care and management of plantation laborers in the hands of overseers.

A very different form of slavery evolved on the North American mainland. Accustomed to considering land as private property, to be claimed, cleared, and planted for profit, European settlers faced a difficult challenge...