The pro-slavery faction in North America (and beyond) maintained that Black skin and enslavement were the result of the curse of Ham recounted in Genesis 9:20-27. No reasonable reading of Genesis could maintain (1) Canaan was the ancestors of all Africans; (2) the curse was black skin; (3) the point of Genesis was to substantiate European dominance over African peoples. Nonetheless, the social location of the enslavers looking for justification for sin distorted the plain meaning of the text.
