Ham

Ham is the youngest son of Noah. Together with his parents and his brothers Shem and Japheth, he survives the great flood in the ark. After the flood, Ham becomes the forefather of various nations, including the Canaanites.

The name Ham means “heat” or “hot”. The Bible does not give any explanation of this name.
According to Genesis 9:22, Ham is the father of Canaan, who was the forefather of the Canaanites, the enemies of the Israelites. The nation of Israel had a bad relationship with other nations too, according to Genesis 10.

Noah, the father of Ham and his brothers Shem and Japheth, builds an ark. He does this because God has said to him that he will flood the earth (Genesis 6:14-16).
When the ark is ready, Noah and his wife with their three sons and their wives go into the ark. A male and female of all the animals also go with them (Genesis 7:15).
The water covers the whole earth. After 150 days, the water begins to go down and all the people and animals can go out of the ark. God blesses Ham and his brothers. They are given the task of having children, so that there will be people on earth again.

When the earth is dry and habitable again, Noah plants a vineyard. According to Genesis 9:20-21, he gets drunk on his own wine and goes to lie down naked in his tent. His son Ham notices this and tells his brothers. Shem and Japheth go into the tent and place a coat over their father.
When Noah wakes up from his drunken sleep, he is angry at what Ham has done. He curses Ham’s son, Canaan, but he blesses Shem and Japheth. As a result, the Canaanites will serve the descendants of Shem and Japheth.

At a later time this story is used to justify the slave trade. All people with a black skin colour were supposed to be the descendants of Ham. Through Noah’s curse they were doomed to serve other people as slaves.
But Noah’s curse had nothing to do with skin colour. This curse only applied to the descendants of Canaan. The Canaanites were the enemies of the nation of Israel and therefore their forefather is cursed here.