Slavery has existed in nearly every society in the world in some form or another. Until British Atlantic societies developed the chattel model, no form of enslavement gave such complete and utter dominion to enslavers on such a scale. Consequently, no society had organized its entire social, political, religious, and economic systems around the exploitation of a more or less permanently enslaved underclass.

Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves, right? Well, the truth is a bit more complicated than that; actually, the truth is very complicated, leading even usually sober commentators such as the venerable historian Lerone Bennett Jr. to cry “foul,” and to do so quite bitterly, suggesting that black people have been sold a bill of goods when it comes to “The Great Emancipator.”