Damaras continued and explained that at the beginning of the Civil War in the United States in 1861, slavery had existed for well over two hundred years and was a multibillion-dollar industry. Summarizing the work of historian David Blight, she explained how slavery was central to the US economy: by 1860 the nearly four million enslaved people were by far the country’s most valuable economic asset; valued at approximately $3.5 billion, they were worth more than all of the country’s manufacturing and railroads combined.
