Natural (but not too fast) speed please. It's for 15-year-old French students.
British or American accent.
Thank you!
Slavery
In 1776, America's founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence, stating that, "all men are created equal". But at this time, there were about half a million enslaved African Americans in the colonies. Almost one in six people in the colonies lived in bondage.
Even after the colonies won their freedom from the British, slavery continued in America. Almost a century would pass until slavery was abolished in the United States.
The first slaves were brought to the New World in the 1500s. For the next four hundred years, over ten million more were captured in Africa and brought by force across the Atlantic Ocean. They were chained together and given little food and water. They were crammed and transported below deck. This dreadful journey took about four months. Many slaves died of disease and starvation.
This African "slave trade" was banned in 1808. But slavery continued in the United States.
In the American colonies, slaves were sold at slave markets. Slave traders were looking for the healthiest, strongest slaves. Many families were broken apart. Husbands and wives were separated. Children were taken from their mothers.
About half of the slaves in the South worked on plantations where they did hard word in fields, planting and harvesting crops. Often, they were given very little to eat and forced to work from sunrise to sunset, even when they were sick.
Slaves could be treated cruelly by their owners. They were chained so they wouldn’t run away or whipped for breaking a rule or not working hard enough.
Sometimes, the worst punishment of all was to be sold to another plantation - far away from your family or loved ones. Being sold was a constant fear among slaves, since it could happen when their owners died or needed more money.
