Comments by "M0ebius" (@M0ebius) on "Chinese Americans React To Anti-Asian Hate Crimes | Street Interview" video.
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@cakeyummy2401 At the founding the US population was 2.5 million in 1776, and in 1790 the US had about 700,000 slaves. So I would guesstimate that about 1 in 4 person in the US was a slave at the time of founding. So yes, the US economy was propped up on the backs of slaves at that time. The slavery driven economy persisted until industrialization, when machines became more economical than hereditary slavery.
Did other cultures have slaves? Absolutely. But I would say that slaves existing doesn’t necessarily make for a slavery driven society. The worse slavers in recorded history were probably the ancient Greeks, where over 50% of the population were slaves. For Spartans in particular it was something like 3 to 1 slaves to citizens. The next worse were the Romans. Other old civilizations such as the Egyptian, the Chinese, or the Persians had slaves, but their economy were driven almost entirely by the peasant class. India is kinda of a grey area since they had a hereditary caste system. Ancient China did have a slavery culture from what we know today, but it was about 1500-2000 years and a dozen dynasties ago.
Anyway whether other cultures have slaves doesn’t really change my original statement. In terms of small pox, it was well documented that the US government and the European settlers before them systematically gave the natives small pox tainted goods. And following the decimation of the native population the US systematically exterminated or forcibly removed the native population during westward expansion. So yes you’re right it wasn’t one big genocide, but I would argue it was a series of small ones over the course of a century. Like I said, you can argue the nuances, but it isn’t a stretch to say that this is the darkside of how the US was founded.
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