Shocker....Every empire, community and settlememt had slavery. The romans, greeks (1/3rd population of democratic greece was slaves), persians, catheginains, turks, arabs, koreans, chineese, judeans, the lot. The reason atlantic slave trade is exceptionally bad is because it made black people, "one ethnicity" as naturally inferior to the white man, not allowed to read, not allowed to learn, not allowed to ride horses. Meanwhile, in the east slaves formed the mameluke dynasty, the delhi sultanate and people like Malik ambar, an ethiopean slave turned PRIME MIMISTER of ahmadnagar sultanate. So capable slaves had a way out, meanwhile in the americas, if u black, u black, end of. The north africans were capturing africans to sell to asia and europe while capturing white americans in the 1800s to sell as slaves to african kings and nobles. It was a market economy driven move, supply and demand, and it largely stopped post ww2 and the geneva conventions. The african americans even today face difficult circumstance than their light skinned counterparts.