1619 arrival of the first slaves in the North American colonies
The
first Africans in Virginia
were a group of "twenty and odd" captive persons originally from modern-day
Angola
who landed at
Old Point Comfort
in
Hampton, Virginia
in late August 1619. Their arrival is seen as a beginning of the
history of slavery in Virginia
and
British colonies in North America
, although they were not in
chattel slavery
as it would develop in the United States, but were sold as
indentured servants
and had mostly worked off their indentures and were free by 1630.
[1]
These colonies would go on to secede and become the United States in 1776. The landing of these captive Africans is also seen as a starting point for
African-American history
, given that they were the first such group in mainland
British America
.
[2]
[3]
They were sold to the governor of Virginia by "Capt Jope", the commander of the
White Lion
, who attacked and plundered them from the
slave ship
Sao Joao Baptista
, which was carrying over three hundred people who had been kidnapped from the
Kingdom of Ndongo
and were being forcibly sailed to
New Spain
(modern-day
Mexico
).
[4]
Upon arrival, they were sold as
indentured servants
.
[1]
Recognition of this event has been promoted since 1994 by Calvin Pearson and "Project 1619 Inc", an organization he founded in 2007, whose work led the
Virginia Department of Historic Resources
to install a historic marker commemorating this event at
Old Point Comfort
in 2007 and the designation of this area as the
Fort Monroe National Monument
in 2011.
[5]
Several commemorations of this event took place on its 400th anniversary in August 2019, including the starting of
The 1619 Project
(not associated with Project 1619, Inc.) with a publication by
Nikole Hannah-Jones
commemorating this event and the
Year of Return, Ghana 2019
to encourage the
African diaspora
to settle in and invest in
Africa
.
From Angola to Mexico
[
edit
]
During the
Atlantic slave trade
, starting in the 16th century, Portuguese slave traders brought large numbers of African people across the Atlantic to work in their
colonies in the Americas
, such as
Brazil
. An estimated 4.9 million people from Africa were brought to Brazil during the period from 1501 to 1866.
[6]
Thousands of people were captured by
Portuguese slave traders and their African allies
such as the
Imbangala
, in invasions of the
Kingdom of Ndongo
(part of modern Angola) under Governor
Luis Mendes de Vasconcellos
.
[7]
These captives were taken to port and often sent to other parts of the
Spanish
and
Portuguese Empires
, which were brought together in that time by the
Iberian Union
.
[2]
Those taken captive from Angola may have belonged to the
Ambundu
ethnic group,
[8]
[3]
an interpretation used at the
Jamestown Settlement
Galleries.
[9]
In 1619, the Portuguese
fluyt
San Juan Bautista
took a large group through the
Middle Passage
from
Luanda
in Angola to the bay of
Veracruz
in Mexico. Of the 350 total on the
slave ship
, about 143 died in the voyage, and 24 children were sold during a stop at the
Colony of Santiago
in Jamaica, with 123 enslaved people eventually being taken to
Veracruz
, in addition to the smaller group of 20-30 taken by the privateers,
[2]
or perhaps double that amount.
[10]
From Mexico to Virginia
[
edit
]
Near Veracruz in the
Bay of Campeche
, the English privateers
White Lion
and
Treasurer
, operating under Dutch and Savoyard
letters of marque
and sponsored by the
Earl of Warwick
and
Samuel Argall
, attacked the
San Juan Bautista
, and each took 20-30 of the African captives to
Old Point Comfort
on Hampton Roads at the tip of the Virginia Peninsula, the first time such a group was brought to mainland
English America
.
[2]
[11]
Of those aboard the
Treasurer
, only a few were sold in Virginia, the majority being taken shortly thereafter to
Nathaniel Butler
in Bermuda.
[10]
[3]
English privateers had been sailing under Dutch and other flags since the 1604
Treaty of London
concluded the Anglo-Spanish War.
The primary source document for the
White Lion'
s arrival is as follows:
[12]
About the latter end of August, a Dutch man of Warr of the burden of a 160 tunes arriued at Point-Comfort, the Comandor name Capt Jope, his Pilott for the West Indies one Mr Marmaduke an Englishman. They mett wth the Trer in the West Indyes, and determyned to hold consort shipp hetherward, but in their passage lost one the other. He brought not any thing but 20. and odd Negroes, wth the
Governor
and Cape Marchant bought for vietualle (whereof he was in greate need as he p'tended) at the best and easyest rate they could. He hadd a largge and ample Comyssion from his Excellency to range and to take purchase in the West Indyes.
One of the enslaved women from the
Treasurer
was called
Angela
, who was purchased by Captain William Peirce. She is the earliest historically attested enslaved African in the colony.
[13]
Artworks
[
edit
]
Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller
included a
diorama
of the 1619 arrival as part of her commission for the 1907
Jamestown Exposition
, the first such granted to an African-American woman artist from the U.S. government. This work is no longer extant.
The 1940
American Negro Exposition
included a historical diorama with a similar theme, and was restored in the 21st century.
[14]
[15]
It is part of the collection of the
Legacy Museum of Tuskegee University
.
Sidney E. King
painted a historical scene of the 1619 arrival for the National Park Service in the 1950s.
[16]
Commemoration
[
edit
]
Abraham Lincoln in his
second inaugural address
of 1865 refers to "the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil", which would be approximately 1615, according to scholar
Diana Schaub
an allusion to the events of 1619.
The arrival was recognized by
George Washington Williams
as the starting point for African American history in the first comprehensive book ever written on the topic, the
History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880: Negroes As Slaves, As Soldiers, And As Citizens
, published in 1882.
The 350th anniversary of the arrival was marked in 1969 by a Virginia effort organized by civil rights attorney
Oliver Hill
, and with featured speaker
Samuel DeWitt Proctor
; it was however opposed by others including then-freshman state senator and future-Governor
Douglas Wilder
as an occasion inappropriate for celebration. There was also a commemoration of the 375th anniversary in 1994.
[17]
The 400th anniversary in 2019 was marked by the congressionally-chartered "400 Years of African-American History Commission" under the National Park Service, which administers
Fort Monroe National Monument
.
[18]
That year also saw
The 1619 Project
of
The New York Times
and the
Year of Return
in Ghana.
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
Ford, Clyde W (August 29, 2019).
"Servants or slaves? How Africans first came to America matters"
.
Seattle Times
. Retrieved
1 March
2024
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
Austin, Beth (August 2019).
"1619: Virginia's First Africans"
.
Hampton History Museum
.
- ^
a
b
c
"Africans, Virginia's First ? Encyclopedia Virginia"
. Retrieved
2021-05-31
.
- ^
Holland, Jesse J. (2019-02-07).
"Researchers seek fuller picture of first Africans in America"
.
Associated Press
.
Washington, D.C.
Retrieved
2021-11-26
.
- ^
Russ, Valerie (2019-08-22).
"What you thought you knew about the beginnings of U.S. slavery may need an update"
.
The Philadelphia Inquirer
. Retrieved
2021-11-26
.
- ^
"VERGONHA AINDA MAIOR: Novas informacoes disponiveis em um enorme banco de dados mostram que a escravidao no Brasil foi muito pior do que se sabia antes ("
.
Veja
(in Portuguese). Archived from
the original
on 13 March 2015
. Retrieved
16 March
2015
.
- ^
Murphy, Ric (2020-08-31).
Arrival of the first Africans in Virginia
. Charleston, South Carolina: The History Press.
ISBN
978-1-4671-4598-5
OCLC
1139767112
, p.59, 88-89.
- ^
Murphy, Ric (2020-08-31).
Arrival of the first Africans in Virginia
. Charleston, South Carolina: The History Press.
ISBN
978-1-4671-4598-5
OCLC
1139767112
, p. 23, 41.
- ^
"Jamestown Settlement Galleries"
.
History Is Fun
. Retrieved
2021-05-31
.
- ^
a
b
"New Light On Virginia's First Documented Africans"
.
History Is Fun
. 2019-03-01
. Retrieved
2021-05-31
.
- ^
"Angela (fl. 1619?1625) ? Encyclopedia Virginia"
. 2021-05-28. Archived from
the original
on 2021-05-28
. Retrieved
2021-05-28
.
- ^
"The First Africans to Virginia?1619 | The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition"
.
glc.yale.edu
. 9 April 2015
. Retrieved
2019-10-16
.
- ^
"Angela (fl. 1619?1625) ? Encyclopedia Virginia"
. 2021-05-28. Archived from
the original
on 2021-05-28
. Retrieved
2021-05-28
.
- ^
Manser, Ann (June 29, 2017).
"Conserving Cultural Heritage: Visiting students work to preserve historical diorama"
.
www.udel.edu
. University of Delaware
. Retrieved
October 16,
2022
.
- ^
"The Landing of Slaves in Virginia, 1619"
.
Atavist
. 2017-08-05
. Retrieved
2020-09-09
.
- ^
"Sidney E. King Paintings · John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation"
.
rocklib.omeka.net
. Retrieved
2020-09-09
.
- ^
Press, RICHARD STRADLING and BENTLEY BOYD Daily.
"375 YEARS AGO: WHEN BLACKS CAME TO AMERICA"
.
dailypress.com
. Retrieved
2020-07-28
.
- ^
"400 Years of African American History - African American Heritage (U.S. National Park Service)"
.
nps.gov
. Retrieved
2020-07-28
.