my girlfriend is convinced that America is alone in history as the only civilization to treat a specific race as slaves
I tried to explain that there is a massive amount of modern day slavery and she refuses to consider any of that slavery
and she thinks that nobody else has taken slaves of a specific race that was different than theirs, i think this is insanely unlikely, even if we can't tell the two groups (slaves, owners) apart
i wasn't able to think of any other historical examples of one color people indenturing another color
so can you provide me with some? and feel free to break down modern slavery to help me explain
Well, it's probably worth noting that it was possible to be black but not a slave, though the vast majority of Black-Americans were indeed slaves.
I assume by "America", you mean the United States. You'll find a similar (and often worse) situation throughout the Western hemisphere. Here is some data on where slaves were sent. European colonizers all used slave labor and the United States inherited that system from the British. About 40% of the slave trade was to Brazil and they did not abolish it until 1888. In the Caribbean, conditions were actually far worse than in the Southern United States.
It's also worth noting that although their skin color may not have been different, it's been very common historically for societies to enslave different ethnic groups or tribes.