Our history books told us that slavery ended in the United States after the Civil War. But despite over half a million Americans losing their lives in a war we have been told was fought to end slavery, tens of millions of us live in slavery today.

How many people do you know who are currently in debt? How many of them could not pay that debt if they sold everything they own? How many of them spend at least 40 hours a week at a job, or two, that they do not enjoy because they have to pay the bills or they risk jail, lawsuit, homelessness, and even more debt?

This is what I call modern-day financial slavery.

In America, this form of slavery became the norm after owning another person directly became illegal. After the Civil War, freed slaves and poor white farmers made up the majority of our population, especially in the South.

These men and women were no longer considered property to another man, but they were no more free than the men and women Lincoln emancipated in his famous proclamation. They did not own land, had no money saved and did not know how to do anything but farm.

The wealthy one percent weren’t willing to share their land or profits, so they came up with a new form of slavery: sharecropping, keeping the farmers in perpetual debt. And little has changed.

Today, all Americans have the opportunity to get an education and even move across the country. But don’t be fooled into thinking this makes us free.

Of those who do get the chance at a higher education, 86.3 percent require loans to get that education. The average four-year graduate borrows more than $23,000 by graduation day.

The banks and government are happy to loan the money out, to the tune of more than $110 billion a year, because they will get far more in return.

So as soon as graduation day comes, we have bill collectors badgering us for the money we owe, which will be thousands more than we borrowed by the time we can pay them off.

After school, most graduates get the first job we can working for a wealthier man or major corporation to pay the bills. In today’s job climate, few actually find a career they enjoy.

If we want to own a home or business, which millions never get the chance to do, we have to take out more loans that will take 10, 20, 30, or even more, years to pay off. So we cannot afford to leave the job we do not enjoy, because we are in too much debt.

No matter where we move in our country, we cannot escape the debtors, so we are left to work for them as the precious hours, days, weeks, years and decades of our lives tick away.

As the housing collapse showed us, millions of Americans are never able to pay off those mortgages.

And instead of helping those middle-to-lower class citizens pay off their debt, our government came to the aid of the billionaire banks with trillions of dollars in taxpayers’ money.

To defeat this slavery, we must first end the ignorance to it by opening our eyes and educating ourselves.

Slavery has never slowed down in this country. It has continuously grown and is at an all-time high.

If you don’t believe it, you are exactly where the debtors want you: hopelessly enslaved.