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Slavery in America from Colonial Times to the Civil War. By Dorothy Schneider and Carl J. Schneider. An Eyewitness History. New York: Facts On File, 2000. 458p. acid--free $65 (ISBN 0-8160-3863-5). www.factsonfile.com.
As the compilers of this volume point out, "Africans knew slavery long before Europeans sailed to their shores." Even so, no one could have imagined the horrors that were to come as the slave trade expanded to North America. In 1441, Portuguese traders began to carry people forcibly from Africa to European slave markets, and in 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed, guaranteeing rights of citizenship regardless of race, color, or previous servitude. It is within these years that the authors consider the development and eventual decay of slavery.
Slavery in America is arranged topically. It begins with...