Most of the people in the world are not white. The enslavement of non-whites by non-whites cannot be compared with European history. The first steps toward slavery in the wester hemisphere occurred in Europe, where whites who lost battles, owned nothing, were in debt or had no work that brought them a living wage, almost automatically were enslaved and many were sent to the Americas. These white slaves obviously were not the same as the colonists who sought freedom from religious persecution.