Amazon.com description: Product Description: This is a social history of almost four centuries of competition, co-operation and exclusion. In a New World built on a foundation of tobacco, rice, timber and peas, human labour was the key to wealth and colonists knew that most labour was "naturally" not free. Red, white and black men, women and children could all expect "hard usage" by masters, husbands and fathers. As the wilderness was cultivated and economies stabilized, however, life got better - for some. This book is the story of how blacks were excluded from significant social transformation in American history - from farm work to factory work, from a blue-collar to a white-collar economy. Meanwhile, whites have characterized blacks simultaneoulsy as lazy and ruthless competitors for their jobs.