[taypan]

In August 1619, a privateer vessel, White Lion, landed in Virginia at Point Comfort, present day Hampton, with a cargo of more than 20 Africans. While raiding in the Caribbean the White Lion, along with privateers from another ship, Treasurer, had seized part of a cargo of Africans from a Portuguese slave ship named Sao Jao Bautista bound from the African city of Luanda to Veracruz, Mexico. A short time after the White Lion stopped at Point Comfort, the Treasurer arrived carrying more Africans. here

[vanolinda86]

The Portuguese had been in Angola for some time — building a large trade industry between Africa, Europe and the New World. There is evidence that some Africans had been baptized in the Christian faith before being enslaved. Others were baptized shortly before being loaded onto ships. here

[BlueSky]

The status of the Africans in Virginia is uncertain, but some were “bought” by Governor Yeardley and Abraham Peirsey — meaning they were either slaves or indentured servants. Without papers of indenture (as carried by most white servants), these new arrivals had no protected legal standing and could be easily exploited. [links]

[nanotube]

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[joechip]

[Bitpoulsy]

The Virginia settlement of Point Comfort was steeped in heat and humidity one August afternoon in 1619. The stillness in the air clung to the twenty-two passengers aboard the English privateer ship docked just offshore. They were tired and sick after their long voyage. The captain, a man named Jope, had cared little for their comfort during the months they were at sea. His pilot, Mr. Marmaduke, had been no better.

[jaxter]

By the 1630s, many more Africans had been imported on ships like Captain Jope’s and forced to work at Virginia plantations, including Chippokes Plantation. While the term “slavery” wasn’t in common usage yet, the practice was becoming more and more widespread. Africans in Virginia rapidly lost rights over the next few decades. In 1639, the House of Burgesses outlawed the ownership of firearms among Africans in the colony. In 1662, the lifetime enslavement of African-descended people became sanctioned by law. In 1670, it became illegal for free Africans to employ white servants. By 1700, black Virginians were no longer allowed to meet in large groups, own livestock, or marry white colonists. The New World, touted as a land of freedom and promise, was becoming anything but.

[logicerr]

Born in 1865 to formerly enslaved parents, Henry Blount was the innovative farm manager behind Chippokes' success for around 60 years

[zmauricepittmanj]

It would be another century until the formation of the United States. By 1725, some 42,200 enslaved Africans had been transported to the Chesapeake; by 1775, the total was 127,200. Thomas Jefferson, the author of the declaration of independence, which contains the words “all men are created equal”, was a Virginia slave owner and, by 1860, the US was home to about 3.9 million enslaved African Americans. more

[BookLover]

“There were always people who were against it so, if during the entire period of enslavement of Africans there were people who saw clearly that it was evil and wrong, that tells me that anyone could have seen that it was evil and wrong and they chose not to,” she said in a phone interview.

[Calvin870894]

For a people robbed of an origins story, it is also an invitation to go in search of roots – the African in African American.

[R3gin3]

By the early 17th century the transatlantic slave trade – the biggest forced migration of people in world history – was already well under way in the Caribbean and Latin America. In 1619 it came to the English colony of Virginia. The San Juan Bautista, a Spanish ship transporting enslaved Africans, was bound for Mexico when it was attacked by the White Lion and another privateer, the Treasurer, and forced to surrender its African prisoners.

[alanahbing142]

Scholars note that the arrivals were technically sold as indentured servants. Indentured servants agreed, or in many cases were forced, to work with no pay for a set amount of time, often to pay off a debt and could legally expect to become free at the end of the contract. Many Europeans who arrived in the Americas came as indentured servants. Despite this classification—and records which indicate that some of them did eventually obtain their freedom—it is clear that the Africans arriving at Point Comfort in 1619 were forced into servitude and that they fit the Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ definition of enslaved peoples.

[Bloof]

In the end, 246 brutal years of slavery had an incalculable effect on American society. It would take another century after the Civil War for racial segregation to be declared unconstitutional, but the end of state-sanctioned racism was by no means the end of racism and discrimination in America. Because it became a crucial part of the culture and economy of early America after its introduction in Jamestown, slavery is often referred to as the nation’s “original sin.”

[bidcoin]

Founded at Jamestown in 1607, the Virginia Colony was home to about 700 people by 1619. The first enslaved Africans to arrive in Virginia disembarked at Point Comfort, in what is today known as Fort Monroe. Most of their names, as well as the exact number who remained at Point Comfort, have been lost to history, but much is known about their journey.  here

[yebyen]

They were originally kidnapped by Portuguese colonial forces, who sent captured members of the native Kongo and Ndongo kingdoms on a forced march to the port of Luanda, the capital of modern-day Angola. From there, they were ordered on the ship San Juan Bautista, which set sail for Veracruz in the colony of New Spain. As was quite common, about 150 of the 350 captives aboard the ship died during the crossing. Then, as it approached its destination, the ship was attacked by two privateer ships, the White Lion and the Treasurer. Crews from the two ships kidnapped up to 60 of the Bautista’s enslaved people. It was the White Lion which docked at Virginia Colony's Point Comfort and traded some of the prisoners for food on August 20, 1619. more