Jeebus. Okay so basically white people tended to believe that people of color were lesser than them, or not to even be classified as human. They were thought of as property, something to be bought and sold. Due to works of literature like the book a history of Jamaica, (1700’s), that, while having no real substance or research, tended to justify these ideals. The introduction of slavery to America was through farming practices, then they became more of a status symbol, then they truly became thought of as commerce, especially as slavery practices quickly veered from awful to horrific. This way of thinking was so horrifically ingrained in American that large shadows of it can still be seen in the form of general racism today.