Slavery among Native Americans in the United States

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Slavery among Native Americans in the United States includes slavery by and enslavement of Native Americans roughly within what is currently the United States of America. Tribal territories and the slave trade ranged over present-day borders. Some Native American tribes held war captives as slaves prior to and during European colonization. Some Native Americans were captured and sold by others into slavery to Europeans, while others were captured and sold by Europeans themselves. In the late 18th and 19th centuries, a small number of tribes, such as the five so-called "civilized tribes" (Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee and Seminole) began increasing their holdings of African-American slaves. European contact greatly influenced slavery as it existed among pre-contact Native Americans, particularly in scale. As they raided other tribes to capture slaves for sales to Europeans, they fell into destructive wars among themselves, and against Europeans.

Read on Wikipedia · Image Bogert, G. A. (engraver, active 1876-1881), Public domain