It is impossible to separate out the settlement of the New World from the history of modern slavery.  Ten million Africans were “imported” to America since the sixteenth century.   How was this giant migration carried out?  Did it have precedent in world history?  What kind of American societies developed as a result?  Why did racism fill such a central role in what would appear to be an entirely economic project?  Why was Africa the source of New World slave labor?  What eventually motivated the emergence of political and moral opposition to slavery, which can be first dated to the eighteenth century?   How can we explain the differences in the process of slavery’s abolition between the United States (by means of total war) and the West Indies and South America (by means of graduated emancipation)?  The seminar will focus on the history of slavery in British America and the United States, with relevant comparisons to the experience “south of the border.”