It wasn't until 1973 that Congress and journalists began to investigate 'Operation Menu,' around the same moment that the Watergate scandal was unfolding.

Even before the expansion of slave labor in the South and into the West, slavery was already an important source of northern profit, as was the already exploding slave trade in the Caribbean and South America. Banks capitalized the slave trade, and insurance companies underwrote it.

The argument that capitalism was dependent on slavery is, of course, not new. In 1944, Eric Williams, in 'Capitalism and Slavery,' made the case.

Greg Grandin Quotes