TThe long history of slavery in the United States has been at the center of public debate during the last two presidential election cycles. During the 2016 US presidential election, public debate over slavery reparations re-emerged, with the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leading calls for reparations. Since then, new debates over Confederate monuments have erupted in violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the brutal killing of George Floyd has made clear that the legacy of slavery continues in deadly and dangerous ways.

Public conversations about the legacy of slavery and calls for reparations continue to gain traction. some states like california And cities like Boston We formed working groups to examine the legacies of slavery and Jim Crow and formulate reparations recommendations to offset the harms caused by these atrocities. And yet in southern states like Florida, New bill proposes banning teaching of slavery and race-related issues.

But still chattel slavery was not unique to the United States. The largest numbers of enslaved Africans were transported to the Caribbean and Latin America. In fact, Kamala Harris’ candidacy is a great reminder of the need to see the roots and consequences of human captivity that exists in the Americas. They have a direct connection to this painful history, as their paternal ancestors were enslaved not in the United States but in the British Caribbean colony of Jamaica. Harris’ family has roots in Saint Ann Parishon the north coast of the island, Marcus Mosiah GarveyThe founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and the Union of African Communities (UNIA) was born.

The history of slavery in the United States is inseparable from the history of human captivity in the Caribbean, and to understand this painful history we must also look at the history of Latin America, especially Brazil, where the largest number of enslaved Africans were transported. During the Atlantic slave trade period.

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Approximately 12.5 million Africans were brought to America Between 1501 and 1875. During this period of the Atlantic slave trade, approximately 300,000 enslaved persons were transported by slave ships from African ports to the North American mainland, with more than 3.4 million landing in the British and French West Indies.

Although estimates of the Atlantic slave trade constantly change and increase, more than 5 million enslaved men, women, and children landed on Brazilian shores. This number represents the largest number in the Americas and more than ten times the number of African captives transported from the African continent to the United States.

Many people believe that slavery in Latin America was a benevolent institution. Many scholars and students think that slave owners freed their slaves out of pure generosity, embracing the idea that enslaved people were part of the slave owners’ family and that the color line did not exist in countries such as Brazil.

But nothing could be further from the truth. As in the British colonies in North America and the Caribbean, the working and living conditions of enslaved people in Latin America were just as severe and even more deadly. Life expectancy on the lucrative sugar plantations of northeastern Brazil and the Caribbean was much lower than in the United States. Harsh working conditions and gender imbalance undermined the “natural” increase of the enslaved population. So slave owners continued to import newly enslaved Africans to work on these plantations. In urban areas, enslaved women often outnumbered enslaved men. However, on the streets of Brazilian cities and towns, they were kept under constant surveillance and subjected to all kinds of violence. In the slave owners’ homes, slave women were regularly subjected to sexual violence.

Enslaved people fought every day against this system of oppression. In Latin American and Caribbean cities such as Lima, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, Kingston, and Havana, slave women often worked all day selling food on the streets to buy the freedom of their loved ones. In Brazil, blacks generally made up the majority of the population of cities such as Rio de Janeiro and Salvador. This concentration supported their efforts to preserve their languages, gods, food habits, artistic practices, music, dances and festivals. Particularly in port areas where slaves worked on the docks and sometimes as sailors crossing the Atlantic Ocean, enslaved people maintained connections with newly arrived enslaved Africans from whom they received news and even goods from their African homelands.

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In Brazil, as in West Africa and West Central Africa, slave women were key players in this process. They dominated the market. They also became central figures of the Afro-Brazilian religion Candomblé, whose temples are widespread in Bahia, Maranhão and other states of the country.

Africans (especially African women) and their descendants played a central role in building the economic, social, and cultural fabric of the Western Hemisphere, fighting against their masters not only in the United States but throughout the Americas. She plants and harvests sugar and cotton in the cities, cares for the children of slave owners, and takes care of her own children.

So why is all this important for the 2024 elections?

While anti-Black racism remains one of the most enduring legacies of slavery in America, understanding the scope of slavery in other parts of the Americas outside the United States helps us more honestly confront this painful history of human violence, not as a U.S. country. rather as an anomaly than as part of the long shared human history of Europe, Africa and the Americas.

Seeing slavery from this broader perspective allows us to better understand the history of the United States. It encourages us to adopt a more compassionate and generous view of the future of the United States and its increasingly diverse population, and thus to counter hate speech against immigrants, many of whom, like Kamala Harris, are also people of African descent with historical ties to slavery. Elsewhere in America.

The continental history of slavery is American history and must be part of our textbooks and taught in our schools if we want to build a better world.

Ana Lucia Araujo is a historian and professor at the historically Black Howard University in Washington, DC. People in Shackles: An Atlantic History of Slavery (University of Chicago Press, 2024).

Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Read more about Made by History at TIME here. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of TIME editors.