Well, once the Americas were discovered and the colonist found that the soil was agreeable to grow different crops such as tobacco and cotton the colonists realized that they needed people to pick the crops. Originally indentured servants did the hard labor but then when they found that they could get labor by trading goods with African tribal leaders they resorted to importing Africans to the Americas as labor. The tribes in Africa were constantly fighting and whichever side won the losers became the slaves of the winning tribe. However, as Europeans brought valuable things to the continent of Africa such as weapons, salt, gold, and other things the leaders of the winning tribe would give their slaves to the Europeans. There were cases when Blacks captured other Blacks in Africa for the sole purpose of giving them to the European traders. Hopefully this helps. If you haven't see the movie La Amistad, it will explain in more detail what I have written. I learned a lot from that movie. I must warn you the first 5 to 10 minutes are a bit gory. I had a hard time watching that part.
An amicus brief is different from a normal brief in that it is written by someone that has interested in the topic but is not party to the lawsuit. Amicus briefs are known as "friend of the court" briefs and they serve to educate.
The colony of Maryland was founded under Catholic auspices to be an asylum for English Catholics. However, in 1634 two settlers' ships departed from England in which there were both Catholics and Protestants. It wasn´t a peaceful atmosphere.
Coexistence in the colony was marked by political, and religious oscillations in England. The Protestants took control in 1655 and excluded Catholics from any civil service when the Stuart monarchy fell with the head of Charles I and Oliver Cromwell ascended to the command of the nation.
