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First Africans Arrive in Virginia

Type Event Region North America Time 1619

In August 1619, about twenty-odd kidnapped Africans arrived at Point Comfort, Virginia, aboard an English privateer, and were recorded by colonial au…

Timeline

  1. 1619Point Comfort · VirginiaThe English privateer White Lion and others brought about twenty-odd Africans from West Africa (possibly via Portuguese Angola) to Virginia, trading them to colonial planters for provisions such as food.
  2. 1619–1620Plantations on the lower James River · VirginiaThe arrivals were initially mostly treated as indentured servants with fixed terms, in a situation similar to some European indentured laborers; by the mid-17th century, Virginia legislation gradually bound African identity to lifelong slavery, forming a racialized system of enslavement.

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