Slavery in America grew to meet labor needs as indentured servants became unreliable. Enslaved Africans were captured through bartering and kidnapping in their homelands, experiencing brutal multi-month journeys to America where they were auctioned off and forced into plantation labor under growing legal restrictions. While some gained freedom by escaping or fighting for the British in the Revolutionary War, the slave population and anti-black racism expanded dramatically, establishing a system of racial segregation and control over nearly two centuries.