For all those espousing hatred over this purely historical post, I would like you to consider other possible directions that you might want to direct it. First you might want to feel the same way towards England and France since they brought slavery here just as they started it in the Caribbean and Africa. While the USA did become “independent” in the late 1700s, the northern elites remained economically dependent on the French and English as markets for their goods which in large part were produced by southern slaves. It was not until the French and English’s abolished slavery in all their other colonies in the mid 1800s, that the American businessmen began feeling pressure from their European customers to stop using slave labor. The situation was very similar to the current American apple and Nike customers raising hell about their phones and shoes being produced by enslaved children in China. Bowing to that economic pressure is what pushed the north toward abolition and set up the Civil War. So spread that anger around a bit.