While whites/caucasians/anglo-americans are accused of enslaving blacks/african americans, all of this started with whites selling other whites into slavery and blacks send their own kinsmen into slavery for a buck.

The first slaves were introduced into the English-American colonies by a Dutch trader, who, in 1619, sold twenty of them to the settlers at Jamestown, Va. One other little know fact; there were freed blacks that did own their own black slaves in the south before the civil war!!

Portuguese traders brought the first African slaves for agricultural labor to the Caribbean in 1502. From then until 1860, it is estimated that more than 10 million people were transported from Africa to the Americas. The great majority were brought to the Caribbean, Brazil, or the Spanish colonies of Central and South America. Only about 6 percent were traded in British North America. I found the above at this website. http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761595158/african_american_history.html

It was indeed so that the first slaves sold into the colonies were white and europeans. The colonies were an ideal method to get rid of all kind of people in Europe who seemed to be disturbing the governments. So political opponents as well as criminals who were in prisons in Europe were sold as slaves to settlers in the colonies. And indeed these slaves were highly welcome by the settlers and european governments even got money for them. So before any african was sold on a slave market in the colonies thousands of white people had been already sold as slaves. Already if you were only a beggar it was enough being sold as a slave and especially in England they wanted to get rid of all those people who were hanging around in the streets without a job or who were working as pickpockets. Black slavery came much later.

Technically there wasn't an America until 1776. But when Columbus got here, to this general area, the first thing he did was murder and enslave the indigenous people of the Bahamas. Manifest Destiny. I don't know if the "Native Americans" kept slaves.

----- (MODIFIED: more general answer) ----------------- 1) I first answered the question with pointing at the fact that slavery was not brought to America by the European colonists, it already existed there before. However, one user remarked that this did not answer the question about when the first slaves were brought to America, so I decided to write a more complete answer. I let my original answer under point 2. The question is complicated for various reasons: - the question does not ask when the first slaves were brought to America, it asks when *slavery* was brought to America. In this sense, my first answer is still valid, slavery was *not* brought to America by the European colonists, it already existed there before. - before going further, we should also agree about what is called "America" in the question. Many US Americans would here understand the United States or the former colonies which became America. Many others would understand the both American continents, including also the attached islands such as the Caribbean. - another way to see the question would be: "When did the European colonists first introduced slavery in America. The answer would be: as the first started to enslave indigenous populations. - it seems that most have understood the question to be about the introduction of the first slaves from Africa in what became the United STates. 2) Slavery was not introduced to America by the European colonists, it already existed there before: "In Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica the most common forms of slavery were those of prisoners-of-war and debtors. People unable to pay back a debt could be sentenced to work as a slave to the person owed until the debt was worked off. Warfare was important to the Maya society, because raids on surrounding areas provided the victims required for human sacrifice, as well as slaves for the construction of temples. Most victims of human sacrifice were prisoners of war or slaves. According to Aztec writings, as many as 84,000 people were sacrificed at a temple inauguration in 1487. Slavery was not usually hereditary; children of slaves were born free. In the Inca Empire, workers were subject to a mita in lieu of taxes which they paid by working for the government. Each ayllu, or extended family, would decide which family member to send to do the work. It is unclear if this labor draft or corvée counts as slavery. The Spanish adopted this system, particularly for their silver mines in Bolivia. Other slave-owning societies and tribes of the New World were, for example, the Tehuelche of Patagonia, the Comanche of Texas, the Caribs of Dominica, the Tupinambá of Brazil, the fishing societies, such as the Yurok, that lived along the coast from what is now Alaska to California, the Pawnee and Klamath. Many of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, such as the Haida and Tlingit, were traditionally known as fierce warriors and slave-traders, raiding as far as California. Slavery was hereditary, the slaves being prisoners of war. Among some Pacific Northwest tribes about a quarter of the population were slaves. One slave narrative was composed by an Englishman, John R. Jewitt, who had been taken alive when his ship was captured in 1802; his memoir provides a detailed look at life as a slave, and asserts that a large number were held." Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery#The_Americas 3) "Slavery in the Spanish colonies began with the capture and subjugation of local Native Americans. Initially, enslavement represented one means by which the Spaniards mobilized native labor. Other forms of coerced labor used were the encomienda, repartimiento and the mita. However, as these populations shrank due to imported European diseases, warfare, and famine, African slaves began to be used instead. Beginning in 1502, the enslavement of Africans in Spanish America did not officially end until 1886. Native slavery was prohibited during the first half of the sixteenth century, although some enslavement continued under the guise of just war." "Africans during the Spanish Conquest: Most of the earliest black immigrants to the Americas were born in Spain, men such as Pedro Alonso Niño, a navigator who accompanied Christopher Columbus on his first voyage, and the black colonists who helped Nicolás de Ovando form the first Spanish settlement on Hispaniola in 1502. The name of Nuflo de Olano appears in the records as that of a black slave present when Vasco Núñez de Balboa sighted the Pacific Ocean in 1513. Other blacks served with Hernán Cortés when he conquered Mexico and with Francisco Pizarro when he marched into Peru. Estevanico, one of the survivors of the unfortunate Narváez expedition from 1527 to 1536, was a black slave. With three other survivors, he spent six years traveling overland from Texas to Sinaloa and finally Mexico City, learning several Native American languages in the process. Later, while exploring what is now New Mexico for The Seven Cities of Gold, he lost his life in a dispute with the Zuñi. Juan Valiente, another black person, led Spaniards in a series of battles against the Araucanian people of Chile between 1540 and 1546. Although Valiente was a slave, he was rewarded with an estate near Santiago and control of several Native American villages. - Spanish enslavement of Africans: Bartolomé de las Casas (1484 - 1566) recorded the effects of slavery on the Native populations. Following what many of his contemporaries were suggesting, he initially preferred to replace Natives with African slaves to alleviate their suffering. However, he later spoke against African slavery as well once he saw it in action. In 1501 the Spanish monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, granted permission to the colonists of the Caribbean to import African slaves. Between 1502 and 1518, Spain shipped out hundreds of Spanish-born Africans, called Ladinos, to work as labourers, especially in the mines." Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_Spanish_New_World_colonies "Brazil obtained 35.4% of all African slaves traded in the Atlantic slave trade, more than 3 million slaves were sent to Brazil to work mainly on sugar cane plantations from the 16th to the 19th century. Starting around 1550, the Portuguese began to trade African slaves" Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_Brazil 4) "The first slaves used by Europeans in what later became United States territory were among Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón's colonization attempt of North Carolina in 1526. The attempt was a failure, lasting only one year; the slaves revolted and fled into the wilderness to live among the Cofitachiqui people. The first historically significant slave in what would become the United States was Estevanico, a Moroccan slave and member of the Narváez expedition in 1528 and acted as a guide on Fray Marcos de Niza's expedition to find the Seven Cities of Gold in 1539. In 1619 twenty Africans were brought by a Dutch soldier and sold to the English colony of Jamestown, Virginia as indentured servants. It is possible that Africans were brought to Virginia prior to this, both because neither John Rolfe our source on the 1619 shipment nor any contemporary of his ever says that this was the first contingent of Africans to come to Virginia and because the 1625 Virginia census lists one black as coming on a ship that appears to only have landed people in Virginia prior to 1619. The transformation from indentured servitude to racial slavery happened gradually. It was not until 1661 that a reference to slavery entered into Virginia law, directed at Caucasian servants who ran away with a black servant. It was not until the Slave Codes of 1705 that the status of African Americans as slaves would be sealed. This status would last for another 160 years, until after the end of the American Civil War with the ratification of the 13th Amendment in December 1865. Only a fraction of the enslaved Africans brought to the New World ended up in British North America-- perhaps 5%. The vast majority of slaves shipped across the Atlantic were sent to the Caribbean sugar colonies, Brazil, or Spanish America. By the 1680s, enslaved Africans were imported to English colonies in great numbers, and the practice continued to be protected by the English Crown. By that time, English farmers in the northern colonies were purchasing slaves in great numbers." Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_Americas#The_Americas