Firstly, unlike progressists used to believe, Blacks are not a magic race uncapable of thinking in racism. It's obvious, just take a look at steady genocides in Africa. One example between one thousand: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Genocide
Secondly, Europeans (Portugueses, Spanish, British...) took advantage of the wars between black tribes to get slaves. The winner Blacks sold their prisoners to Whites in exchange for other things. Let's stop thinking the progressims which says we Whites are the bad ones of the history and the Blacks the victims of a evil race like us. Things are more complex.
Whites initial purpose was venture out and bring back wealth to their homeland. How much could you possibly accumulate? Giving nothing back. Its a corrupt system, which its much broader than slavery, period. Its sinister to humankind. It exploit others, it repress human freedoms: it greed, dear. You do what you need to do to get it and you can't sugarcoat that shit over. Bad for blacks and Native Americans. They did it in the Roman Ancient Egyptian times, no different from in US, 3-4 centuries ago.