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	Learn more about our featured books: The Civil War Historical Reader		From the earliest period in America's history, slavery shaped the way the nation developed. The people who were captured and sold into perpetual labor tilled the land, raised the crops, shod the horses, nursed the young-their own and their masters'-and gave their lives in every one of America's wars. Many Americans today are the descendants of slaves or slave-owners, or both. American culture owes much to the traditions of its African immigrants.