Questions and Answers to American Realia. Culture and Politics

1. Choose a minority group in the US, and discuss its history, current situation, and possible future. Your own opinion may be included at the end.
African Americans.
It all began in 1517 when the Spaniards imported black slaves from Africa to do the work on their plantations. They used to have native Indians but they all had died from the abuse and the diseases that the Spaniards brought with them. The Africans were first sent to the West Indies and then to the mainland, where the sugar industry was promising. The first African slaves in North America arrived at the English colony of Virginia aboard a Dutch ship in 1619. In 1681 there were about 2,000 slaves in Virginia, but by the mid 19th century, the slave population in America had risen to more than 4,000,000. The slaves were part of the 'triangle trade'. The ships sailed in a triangle from America to Europe with goods such as sugar and tobacco. From Europe they sailed to Africa with silver and guns and from Africa to America with slaves.
The civil war begins in South Carolina, as the Confederates open fire on Fort Sumter in 1861. …