Painter Question

I think that while race does play a major role in the slave trade; economics seems to be a larger factor. Slaves were purely for their owners to increase their profits. Painter states, "Slaves supplied the foundation of the American economy in three ways: as a basic commodity in the New England-West India trade, as the workers producing agricultural commodities for the market, and as property."Slaves are what made the economy back then. Racism is what made the slave trade exist. At the time white men felt superior to the black man. They [white men] see the color of Africans skin as a weakness and that is what gave them the power to capture and sell them. And since this the demand for cotton and many other products grew slavery grew as well, making the economy grow. So while racism and economy seems to somewhat be equal; economics played the largest role at this time.