Black people or blacks is a racial, political, sociological or cultural classification of people. No people are literally black, but many people who have dark skin color are considered black. A variety of sociopolitical and biological factors are used to define categories of black people.
Some assert that only people of relatively recent African descent are black, while others argue that black may refer to individuals with dark skin color regardless of ethnic origin.
Due to the institution of slavery, over the course of centuries, blacks were taken from Africa and brought to the Americas, including North and South America and the Caribbean, where they were used as unskilled and disposable manpower for menial work.
In the United States, the institution of slavery proved to be a substantial wedge in the country, as the northern states gradually outlawed slavery, while many states in the south fought for its continued existence. The conflict eventually left the political arena and became a factor in the armed conflict that began in 1861.
As a consequence of the American Civil War, slavery was ended and blacks became American citizens. However, the process was painful, and the rights of citizenship were not equally extended and uniformly enforced.
Black people in Trail of Glory[]
The fate of blacks in North America was dramatically shifted in the early 19th Century with the formation of the Confederacy of the Arkansas.
Before the Confederacy[]
Blacks in the United States were generally at the bottom of the social ladder. In many states, blacks were enslaved. While there were free blacks, their liberty was precarious at best, and free blacks were not allowed the same rights white men were.
Incremental changes came with the War of 1812.
Black people in 1632[]
The modern conception of black people was quite different from that of the early 17th century. Few "blacks" were present in Europe at the time of the Thirty Years' War, and very few Europeans had ever seen one. When Grantville arrived in 1631 with James Nichols and his daughter Sharon, most assumed the talented and educated healers to be Moors.
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