“Pray, what thing in the world can be done worse towards us, than if men should rob or steal us away, and sell us for slaves to strange countries; separating housbands (sic) from their wives and children.” –  Germantown meeting

It was on this date in 1619 that 20 Africans arrive at Hampton, Virginia, aboard a Dutch ship. They were the first Africans on record to be forcibly settled as involuntary laborers in the North American British Colonies.

Africans came ashore at Point Comfort, present day Fort Monroe in Hampton, VA. President Barack Obama declared Fort Monroe a National Monument in 2011 in part because he said that is where the first Africans came ashore in North America.

The slave trade began in the mid 1400’s and what we now know as South America. Brazil was the first country in the Americas to benefit from the slave trade initiated by Portugal. Slavery in the west moved up the South American coast through the Caribbean into what became Florida with few records kept before the Dutch cargo docked in Virginia.

Reference:
Black First:
2,000 years of extraordinary achievement
by Jessie Carney Smith
Copyright 1994 Visible Ink Press, Detroit, MI
ISBN 0-8103-9490-1

 – Project 1619

– National Museum of African American History and Culture

— from The Germantown Protest (against slavery).

image from AAREG.org

project1619