Biden calls Slavery ‘our nation’s original sin

(BlackmansStreet.com) — President Joe Biden described slavery as “our nation’s original sin – original sin – one that haunted America and casts a long shadow ever since,” during a speech before officials of the National Slavery Museum in Belas, Angola.

Estimates of the number of slaves shipped from Angola range from two million to six million. Most were shipped to America.

“From the bloody Civil War that nearly tore my nation apart to the long battle with Jim Crow into the 1960s for the civil rights and voting rights movement – which got me involved in public life – during which American cities were burned, to the still unfinished reckoning with racial injustice in my country today,” President Biden said.

President Biden spoke because Angola played a significant role as one of the primary sources of enslaved Africans during the transatlantic slave trade, with estimates suggesting that nearly half of all enslaved Africans sent to the Americas originated from Angolan ports, primarily due to the Portuguese colonial control of the region and their heavy involvement in the slave trade; making Luanda, Angola, the capital, a major slave-trading hub.

Some estimates say that 45% of enslaved Africans sent to the Americas came from Angola. Historians believe that Angola was the largest source of slaves for the Americas by the 19th century from 1760 to 1860.

The period was crucial in the history of the slave trade because it marked a significant expansion of slavery in the American South, primarily due to the rise of cotton production, which relied heavily on enslaved labor, leading to a large increase in the domestic slave trade within the United States even after the international slave trade was outlawed in 1808; this period also saw growing abolitionist movements fighting against the institution of slavery.

The first enslaved Africans to arrive in the U.S. came from Angola, landing at Point Comfort, Virginia in 1619.

This article originally published in the December 16, 2024 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.

Tags:  Biden, Original Sin, Slavery