So if slavery never existed in the United States, do you think we'd be all that much different than modern day Canada or maybe Australia?

[Anonymous]

Seriously, with out slavery would we (as Americans) basically be Canada or Australia?

Updates

+1 y

So there is no confusion, I do NOT mean that United States as being less black or more white. I mean in terms of the issues we have in regards to social injustice today in America.

[BeMuse]

Most people didn't own slaves. Slave owners were only about 3.2% of the population. The extremely wealthy owned slaves. Today the extremely wealthy own giant corporations with many workers that barely keep their head above water and work pay check to paycheck to keep food on the table. Not much has really changed. The majority of business owners are still small business doing honest work just as they did in the time when slavery was legal (just not affordable to the average person).

[WindAtMyBack]

First of all Canada had slavery. I don't know about Australia, but it wouldn't surprise me if they had it also. Virtually all the European colonies had slavery.

Yes it would be different. All countries are different.

[Asker]

Slavery in the British Empire was abolished in 1807.

[WindAtMyBack]

That was the slave trade. Slavery itself wasn't banned until 1833. But either way it agrees with what I said. It was legal before that. Same thing happened in the US. The slave trade was banned before slavery itself was banned. The slave trade in the US was banned before it was banned in Canada.

Also keep in mind that even though England and some other European counties banned it in their own back yard, they continued to fuel slavery where it was still legal. Slavery in the New World was fueled almost entirely by demand in Europe. They didn't want to see slavery, but they sure wanted what the slaves produced. As long as they couldn't see it they could ignore it.

But back to the question, it's just about impossible to know how things might have turned out if slavery wouldn't have existed. It would probably be very different but it would be impossible to predict how.

You can also compare to countries in S America where they had significantly more slavery than the US. Slaves were used for certain types of labor. They were used a lot in agriculture and mining. So places with a lot of those things will have a different economy than other places. That's going to have a big affect on the country as a whole.

Geography and natural resources play a huge role in the wealth of nations. It also plays a role in whether or not slavery was (is) viable. So there is going to be a natural correlation between the two.

[Asker]

Being an American I never realized the impact in countries like Canada and Australia, you never hear of it here. Now of course I know that Australians did all types of things to aboriginals on the same scale or equivalent to that of Americans to native peoples in North America. I just assumed that Native peoples in Canada got a better deal. So I was thinking more like on terms of legal slavery and slave trading.

Good point that I failed to realize they banned the trade of slaves before banning the institution of slavery all together.

[WindAtMyBack]

As far as native populations, the large majority of natives in the Americas were in Central and the northern part of S America. Canada had very few natives to exploit. The US had more than Canada but not nearly as many as Central/South America.

Nobody knows how many natives lived in various parts of the Americas. But Canada might have been around 2-4 million spread across the country. The US might have been double that. Mexico was probably in the tens of millions. Other parts of Central/South America also had large populations.

That was the original population. Due to disease, by the time the Europeans really started to colonize, the population was much smaller. The disease spread faster than the Europeans did because the native populations traded with each other.

[Anonymous]

I don't know about Canada but there is a lot of racism in Australia. The settlers killed the natives and they have no representation in society. So that isn't much different from what happened in the United States of America with slavery.
If you do a quick research you'll see what I'm talking about.

[Asker]

Now that's more like what happened to Native Americans, slavery is completely different.

[Opinion Owner]

Yes, it might be a little bit different but I'm just saying that Australia has a dark past too.

[Opinion Owner]

Thanks for the MHO.

[Anonymous]

There's more slavery today, then there's ever been in history. But we don't talk about it, because much of it is happening in Africa.

[Andres77]

It's happening everywhere.
Estimated 30 million slaves and political prisoners right now.
Sports events in the USA are some of the biggest pay days for the pimps.

[Anonymous]

I think it would be the same as it is now. The difference between the US and Those places. Neither had to fight against Britain for their independence. Because of the Beating the US gave Britain, they learned from the error of their ways, and did things differently.. Basically neither country had to fight for its freedom, so their rights, their freedom doesn't mean the same to them as it does to the US.

[Opinion Owner]

Additionally, Australia treats the the Aboriginal population about as bad as black people were treat here in the states..

[Asker]

You are right about revolutionary war... good piont.

So aboriginal peoples and Native Americans are more similar... slavery is different.

[Opinion Owner]

Not much different. They still get treated very badly.

[Juan4574]

If it refers to skin color, there would be fewer blacks but they would not be as white as Australians or Canadians because they would continue to have Mejican immigration.

If you are referring to development, Australia and Canada are more developed than the United States thanks to their large amounts of oil and their low population, but mainly thanks to being colonies of the United Kingdom.

[Staximus]

In case you missed the history boat, they had slaves too. Plus Canada used to belong to the Native Americans and Australia the Aborigines and look what happened to those 2 groups of people. They were damn near exterminated.

[Asker]

Slavery was abolished in Great Britain and all the colonies in 1807.

As far as the aborigines thats more like Native Americans... nothing to do with slavery.

[Staximus]

Once again you missed the boat. They had kidnapped Pacific islander slaves in Australia until 1904 on the plantations. Look up "blackbirding"

[Asker]

Well slavery in the British Empire was outlawed in 1807 so they skirt that by black birding... got it.

[Staximus]

Blackbirding is slavery. Capture people, put them on boats, ship them across the sea, and make them work for free under the penalty of death.

[Asker]

But its not like you all had a civil war over black birding were over half a million Australians killed each other... so in principle its simular, but not a true comparison to the effects that the institution of slavery had in American.

[NamerOfStars]

No, not by a long shot- but we'd definitely have better race relations. Well, with black people, anyway; the natives wouldn't be very happy. Although come to think of it, Australia's natives aren't exactly thrilled with THEM, either.

[USLegionary]

You mean less diverse and more white?

[Asker]

No I mean in terms the social injustice issues we have in the United States today.

[USLegionary]

Canadians and Australians have those same issues, new Zealanders too. Australians for instance were hunting aborigines for sport up until the 1970s...

[Asker]

Yeah I knew about Australians and S. A. Africans doing all type of things to the aborigines, but that was more on the same scale of what Americans did to native peoples in North American... I was talking more in regards to legal slave trade and slavery in general.

[USLegionary]

The slave trade doesn't compare to genocide. Which was worse us slave owners buying and owning a a few hundred thousand slaves before the civil war or the US government wiping out 6 million native Americans?