Talk:Slavery in the United States

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A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the On this day section on January 1, 2012.

Section sizes

Section size for Slavery in the United States (76 sections)
Section name	Byte count		Prose size (words)
Section name	Header	Total	Header	Total
(Top)	10,901	10,901	697	697
Background	6,559	6,559	461	461
Slavery in the American Revolution and early republic	2,883	24,529	225	2,011
Slaves and free blacks who supported the Continental Army	3,353	3,353	180	180
Black Loyalists	6,640	6,640	547	547
Early abolitionism in the United States	4,977	4,977	468	468
Constitution of the United States	3,319	6,676	274	591
Three-fifths Compromise	3,357	3,357	317	317
Slavery in the 19th century	5,738	167,364	355	13,386
Justifications in the South	1,382	21,607	24	1,397
American slavery as "a necessary evil"	3,118	3,118	197	197
American slavery as "a positive good"	10,902	10,902	804	804
American Slavery as a Cornerstone of World Economics	1,839	1,839	172	172
Southern Attempts to Expand Slavery	4,366	4,366	200	200
Abolitionism in the North	14,246	14,246	1,381	1,381
Prohibiting the international trade	5,763	5,763	551	551
War of 1812	3,026	3,026	269	269
Slave rebellions	4,851	4,851	249	249
Post-revolution Southern manumissions	2,478	2,478	259	259
Female slave owners	3,391	3,391	141	141
Black slave owners	762	762	64	64
Native American slave owners	7,091	7,091	248	248
High demand and smuggling	3,548	3,548	336	336
Colonization movement	4,340	4,340	325	325
Domestic slave trade and forced migration	22,328	22,328	2,081	2,081
Treatment	9,192	9,192	895	895
Commodification of human tissue	3,593	3,593	236	236
Sexual abuse, reproductive exploitation, and breeding farms	23,815	23,815	1,688	1,688
Slave markets and slave prisons	5,380	5,380	508	508
Slave codes	4,280	4,280	490	490
Religion	6,667	6,667	494	494
Mandatory illiteracy	5,338	5,338	319	319
Freedom suits and Dred Scott	3,223	3,223	363	363
1850 to the firing on Fort Sumter	6,707	6,707	737	737
Civil War and emancipation	955	17,360	100	1,555
American Civil War	3,247	3,247	359	359
Emancipation Proclamation	7,770	7,770	830	830
End of slavery	5,388	5,388	266	266
Reconstruction to the present	3,550	12,148	447	1,086
Convict leasing	3,649	3,649	226	226
Educational issues	1,593	1,593	143	143
Apologies	191	191	17	17
Political legacy	3,165	3,165	253	253
Economics	15,372	39,894	760	2,855
Efficiency of slaves	4,820	4,820	492	492
Prices of slaves	3,473	3,473	413	413
Effects on Southern economic development	11,541	11,541	760	760
Sexual economy of American slavery	4,688	4,688	430	430
Geography and demography	225	20,299	14	460
Slave importation	1,841	1,841	136	136
Origins of American slaves	1,843	1,843	0	0
Distribution of slaves	10,926	10,926	281	281
Distribution of slaveholders	5,464	5,464	29	29
Historiography	2,879	2,879	327	327
See also	842	1,095	0	0
Histories of slavery in the Western Hemisphere	253	253	0	0
Notes	24	24	0	0
References	28	28	0	0
Bibliography	72	56,481	0	0
National and comparative studies	20,489	23,584	0	0
Journal articles	2,788	2,788	0	0
Videos	307	307	0	0
Slavery and the Constitution	2,673	5,712	0	0
Journal articles	3,039	3,039	0	0
State and local studies	5,445	6,243	0	0
Videos	798	798	0	0
Historiography and memory	6,018	6,018	0	0
Primary sources	4,129	4,129	0	0
Scholarly books	4,190	4,190	0	0
Scholarly articles	2,267	2,267	0	0
Oral histories and autobiographies of ex-slaves	2,555	2,555	0	0
Bibliographies	716	716	0	0
Discussions by foreigners	457	457	0	0
Literary and cultural criticism	368	368	0	0
Documentary films	170	170	0	0
External links	3,691	3,691	0	0
Total	363,252	363,252	22,838	22,838

This article has been mentioned by a media organization:

Drew Magary (November 3, 2025). "I tried Elon Musk's Wikipedia clone and boy is it racist". SFGate. Furthermore, Wikipedia's entry on the same subject only uses the now-established slurs "mulatto" and "colored" in quotations or formal titles. But comedy is still legal on Grokipedia, so Elon's slurbot is free to denigrate Black and mixed race folks any way it pleases.

Semi-protected edit request on 1 November 2025

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

I request for where it says "Africans and African Americans" to be changed to "sub-Saharan Africans and African Americans" because only sub-Saharan Africans were enslaved in the US, not North Africans. 2A0A:EF40:1D88:3701:3C7D:1160:97B7:DAA (talk) 19:38, 1 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit semi-protected}} template. Slomo666 (talk) 21:54, 1 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Consensus: Sub-Saharan Africans are Black, while North Africans are not and only Black people were enslaved in the US.

Misleading statement in lead

The lead says, in its first paragraph: Slavery was established throughout European colonization in the Americas. I think the point it is trying to get across is that slavery was a component of much European colonization in the Americas. The word "established" suggests that slavery did not exist in the Americas prior to European colonization. This is not true, as many of the pre-Columbian societies in the Americas made extensive use of slavery, in some cases, this happened in regions that became part of the USA. The article Slavery in pre-Columbian America gives this some coverage.

I have changed the sentence in the lead to deal with this problem. ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 17:38, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]