Most of the millions of slaves brought to the New World went to the Caribbean and South America. An estimated 500,000 were taken directly from Africa to North America. But those numbers were buttressed by the domestic slave trade, which started in the 1760s – a half century before legal importation of slaves ended.Freed people widely expected to legally claim 40 acres of land (a quarter-quarter section) and a mule after the end of the war.
