By focusing on the beginnings of slavery in America, this social studies unit raises the issue of whether prejudice against the American Negro is a result of economic and nonracial factors or whether it originated in basic instincts and cultural conditioning which preceded and aggravated his enslavement. To define both sides of the question, the first section of the unit uses the writings of two contemporary historians--J. H. Russell and Wesley Craven. The second section examines excerpts from writings and legal documents of 17th-century America to clarify the attitudes toward the Negro at that time, to show the commerciality of both Puritan and Southerner, and to indicate how the law of slavery applied to Negro and white. The third section compares the slave system in British Colonial America with slavery in Latin America. The final section provides two interpretations of the unit's main focus, "Which is the central fact of Negro history in America--slavery or color?" [Not available in hard copy due to marginal legibility of original document.] (Author/JB)