(10-19-2021, 04:46 AM)The Real Marty Wrote: I have a great great great grandfather who owned slaves.  I have the original bills of sale documenting the buying and selling of them.  $800 for one of them.  That's about $25,000 in today's money, which, if you consider how many slaves there were, shows how much money was tied up in slaves back then.  Most of the wealth in the South was in the value of the slaves. 

And before anyone asks, no, I do not feel responsible in any way for the actions of my ancestors.  Nor am I ashamed of it.  It's just interesting history. 

But back to the original subject, it's true there are many black people descended from slave owners, and many white people descended from slaves.

Lookup who was the 1st or one of the 1st slave owners in North America. Then look at how many people actually owned slaves. Slaves were costly, you have to feed them, take care of them so they don't die and lose your value, etc. A very small number of people could do that. It was cheaper to just pay people to do the work and not have all the sunk costs. Look at what was happening to slavery before the civil war.

It was a terrible thing that was done by people on both sides and the leaders on both side benefited.

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