CORONADO

As noted by a pretty good book called Columbus and the age of discovery,

Africans, already enslaved on sugar plantations in Spain and on the Canary Islands, were possibly brought to America as early as 1506, but no later than 1513 when the King set up a licensing system. From 1530 on, blacks were shipped from Africa direct to the Caribbean. Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal initiated African slavery in Europe, but it’s a habit he picked up from Arabs who had been doing so for centuries before the Portugese first sailed south.

When brought to the Americas, slavery became more brutal as slaves came to be viewed as beasts of burden and, as with animals, such slavery was maintained from generation to generation. The dark skin color became synonymous with slavery and signified inferiority to the masters.

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