  The introduction to Cooper’s thesis outlines the origins of the institution of “Negro slave trade,” which was “founded on the abuse of power…and maintained by violence” (SFHR, 31). Cooper discusses the impact of the slave trade on mortality rates of the enslaved (e.g. through the middle passage) along with the ways in which slavery and colonialism underdeveloped the continent of Africa while enriching the Spanish, Portuguese, Iberian peoples, the United States, England and France—among others. She highlights the harms of slavery for both the slavers and the enslaved while also underscoring the prominent role of slavery in the colonial system. In France in particular she asserts, “the colonists, the rich merchants, had too much to gain from the shameful traffic in slaves to be willing even to consider the possibility of suppressing slavery. Since the time of Colbert, too many French ports had been developed and enriched by the trade” (SFHR, 37). The struggle against slavery and the opposing interests of the colonists against the Blacks would have been one-sided in the interest of the colonist, Cooper asserts, if not for the establishment of the Friends of the Blacks by Brissot, Sièyes, and Condorcet in 1787, (SFHR, 37).