In 1620, the first Negroes were sailed to the State of Virginia on America’s east coast by some Dutch merchants. In the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries big cargoes containing African Negroes, men, women and children were sent across the Atlantic Ocean. Many of them died because of the inhuman conditions on aboard the ships. The survivors were sold as cattle to white planters at auctions, where men often were parted from their wives and children.
The strongest men and women worked in tobacco and cotton fields in the South and in the sugar mills in the West-Indies. Only a few – particularly beautiful, young Negro girls – worked as domestic slaves, took care of children, cooked and washed for the White families. The Negro families lived in small cabins and had a small piece of land, where they could raise their own vegetables and keep fowls and geese. They were the planter’s property, and he could punish them, sell them or marry them off.
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