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.
I believe about 11 people died.
The Contras fought against a group known as the Nicaragua.
The supreme court decision under John Marshall leadership have extended federal powers, but not too much in the sense of destroying the federalist idea that brought the United States together. Marshall was guided by a strong commitment to judicial power and by a belief in the supremacy of national over state legislatures. His judicial vision was very much in keeping with the Federalist political program in line with the constitution.
It can be argued that someone not elected should not have power to shape government and law through the Expansion of the Judiciary in 1801, but the Marshall Court, and this decision in particular, established the principle of "judicial review" whereby Congressional laws and executive actions may be judged by the Supreme Court to be within the bounds of the Constitution.
It is definitely not appropriate that a political party ideology is implemented through the judiciary, however, In keeping with John Marshall's Federalist views, they generally favored strong government action and especially supported the supremacy of the federal government over state authorities as long as it was constitutional.
