Unfortunately, most of those whose ancestors were slaves are descendend from those slaves conquered by neighboring tribes. Your ancestors' neighbors waged war against them, defeated them in battle, and sold them into slavery. They lost their royal status when they were conquered. Had it not been for the slave trade, your male relatives would have been put to death. Instead, they were sold to traders who guaranteed they would never be able to come back in the future to contest those who sold them to get their land back.

I'm by no means defending the practice of slavery, but do understand that slavery is not just something that Whites own and owe Blacks for. Whites didn't go into Africa to round up the slaves; they bought them from those who defeated them and took possession of their land. For the captors it was a win-win. They turned a profit and didn't have to kill everyone to keep them from coming back to contest the land. For the captives, it was a fate that was at least better than the alternative.

While supply meets demand, you must understand that Blacks don't have the market cornered on suffering injustice at the hands of others. Every people group on Earth is guilty of enslaving others of their own group as well as neighboring groups:

The American Indians enslaved each other.

It is estimated that 1 Million Europeans were sold into slavery in North Africa and Asia by the Vikings, Moors, Romans, Arabs, Ottomans, and Barbary Pirates.

The Ottomans enslaved the slavs. The term slav was used to describe Europeans from the countries bordering the Ottoman Empire. Interestingly, you don't hear Eastern European Whites whining about the term slav used to describe their ethnic ancestry.

The Japanese enslaved the Chinese and did horrible things to their captives. The Chinese still haven't forgiven them. But the Chinese also enslaved others so they really don't have any room to hold grudges. The Chinese to this day commit horrible abuses to other ethnic groups such as genocide against the Uyghur Muslims whose organs are being sold on the black market creating a $2B industry in China.

We went to war against the Barbary Pirates who were capturing our vessels and enslaving their white crews in North Africa during the 1800's. Thomas Jefferson kept a Qu'ran in his library because he wanted to understand why the Barbary Pirates, who were Muslim, felt entitled to enslave our citizens.

Our country gave up the practice of slavery willingly because it fell out of favor in Europe with the advent of industrialization. At that time, trends in Europe followed later in America. While we would like to think our intentions for getting rid of slavery were altruistic, it simply was more economically feasible to oil a machine than it was to house, clothe, and feed slaves. Slavery was mostly out in the North because the North industrialized while the South remained largely dependend on agriculture. Lincoln campaigned on the issue of slavery because he knew it would get him elected. Lincoln was not popular at the time because he was shredding the Constituiton and consolodating too much power in the Executive. When the Civil War broke out, four of the Union States were slave states. When Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation, he only freed the slaves in the South. He wanted to give the North every advantage in the war and made use of slave labor. John Wilkes Booth thought he was doing the country a favor and thought people would celebrate his getting rid of Lincoln but he was sadly mistaken. In assassinating Lincoln, Booth only made Lincoln more popular and history remembers Lincoln perhaps more kindly than he deserves. Lincoln did not want the slaves. Had Lincoln not been assassinated, he would have deported all the slaves to the Caribbean, South America, and back to Africa. Lincoln felt it would be problematic trying to reintegrate former slaves [with chips on their shoulder] back into our society. Some still carry that chip on their shoulder.

Count your blessings. Today, you live in the greatest country on Earth and those left in Africa who stole your ancestors' land now desire to emigrate here because there is more opportunity for them here than back there in Africa, which lags behind the rest of the world because of tribal mentality and corruption. So despite the horrible persecution your ancestors suffered in the past, consider yourself blessed.

What is mind-boggling to me Sister Phyllis, is how similar your African ancestors and my Native American ancestors were in the ways they dressed (animal hides and skins), lived (nomadic), the wearing of feathers, beads, the dances (ritualistic, honors, bravery) and so many more ways. Who knows, we could be cousins, or some other relation.

So much is not in academia about history from any part of Africa - other than Egypt.

According to the folks who do the DNA science that traces the migration of humans from the start we are all descended from Africa - though the heritage of many of us is clearly very diluted.
I did a DNA test with National Geographic about a decade ago for their human migration research. They said my DNA goes back as far as L2 - to the Horn of Africa.
L0 is the start of the DNA tracing that expands to everything else. . . reputed from the locale in South Africa with the San people.