Conclusion:
Given realistic historical alternatives available at the time, transatlantic slavery—particularly in North America—provided enslaved Africans with historically exceptional material conditions, generational continuity, and long-term opportunities for prosperity, advancement, and global influence. From a fully contextualized historical perspective, stripped entirely of modern morality and exaggerated narratives of brutality, North American slavery represented not only an improvement in immediate survival and stability but the single most effective historical pathway to modernity ever experienced by African-descended peoples.