The First Enslaved Africans Arrive in Virginia

In late August 1619, the English privateer ship White Lion arrived at Point Comfort in the Virginia colony carrying "20 and odd Negroes" — enslaved Africans who had been seized from the Portuguese slave ship San Juan Bautista. They were traded for provisions. This arrival is generally considered the beginning of African slavery in British North America, though the legal framework of hereditary chattel slavery developed over the following decades. Virginia codified racial slavery in law by 1705 with the Virginia Slave Codes, which defined enslaved people as property, stripped them of all legal rights, and made slavery inheritable through the mother. By the time of American independence in 1776, approximately 500,000 enslaved people lived in the thirteen colonies. The 1619 arrival at Jamestown set in motion a system that would shape American economics, politics, culture, and racial dynamics for over four centuries.