meetin' dat night. De masters ... didn't like dem 'ligious meetin's so us natcherly slips off at night". United States The first African slaves arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619, when a Dutch slave trader bartered his African 'cargo' for food. These Africans became indentured servants, possessing a legal position similar to many poor Englishmen. It was not until around the 1680s that the popular idea of a racial-based slave system became reality. Additionally, "New World slavery was a unique conjunction of features. Its use of slaves was strikingly specialized as unfree labor-producing commodities, such as cotton and sugar, for a world market." "By 1850 nearly two-thirds of the plantation slaves were engaged in the production of cotton.... The South was totally transformed by the presences of slavery. For the most part, the Pilgrims who arrived at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620 had servants and not slaves, meaning that after turning 25 most black servants were given their freedom, which was a contractual arrangement similar to that of English apprenticeships. Opposition to slavery in the United States predates the nation's independence. As early as 1688, congregations of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) actively protested slavery. The Quaker Testimony of Equality would have an influence on slavery in Pennsylvania. However, at independence the nation adopted a Constitution which forbade states from liberating slaves who had fled from other states, and instructed them to return such fugitive slaves. The rise of abolitionism in 19th-century politics was mirrored in religious debate; slavery among Christians was generally dependent on the attitudes of the community they lived in. This was true in both Protestant and Catholic churches. Religious integrity affected the white slave-holding Christian population. Slaveholders, priests, and those tied to the Church undermined the beliefs of the millions of African-American converts. As abolitionism gained popularity in the Northern states, it strained relations between Northern and Southern churches. Northern clergy increasingly preached against slavery in the 1830s. In the 1840s, slavery began to divide denominations. This, in turn, weakened social ties between the North and South, allowing the nation to become even more polarized in the 1850s. The issue of slavery in the United States came to an end with the American Civil War. Although the war began as a political struggle over the preservation of the nation, it took on religious overtones as southern preachers called for a defense of their homeland and northern