American slavery was uniquely bad in the annals of the history of slavery (not simply in its experience and practice, but in its foundations). It was race-based, chattel slavery. The pillars of American slavery were: white supremacy and economic self-interest. Not only were hundreds of thousands Africans kidnapped and brought to the New World via the infamous “Middle Passage,” not only did millions of Africans have their family, country, history and heritage stolen, and experience a multi-generational, living genocide, but an ideology of their inferiority was developed. So strong was this sense of white superiority that even advocates for abolition embraced this racist view of black Africans.