“To write the history of slavery in Virginia in the seventeenth century is like putting together a picture puzzle when most of the pieces are missing, like reconstructing a Greek vase from a few shards.” [1]

The year 1619 witnessed a number of historically significant events in colonial Virginia that have shaped American culture and politics ever since. Earlier, I highlighted the first session of the House of Burgesses in Williamsburg (The First Meeting of Virginia’s House of Burgesses, 1619: 400 Years of Democracy in America). Just one month later another significant event occurred, the arrival of the first Africans in Virginia. If the House of Burgesses signaled the beginning of something great: representative government, the arrival of “20 and odd” Africans in August of 1619 foretold one of America’s dark legacies: slavery.

These Africans were not the first to come to the New World. Africans were toiling in Spanish and Portuguese colonies since the early 1500s. The status of those first Africans in Virginia has been debated for decades. Were they slaves, indentured servants or some of both? The quote above summarizes the situation well. The historical records are sparse which means even the most thoroughly researched effort cannot assemble all the pieces of the proverbial vase. Uncertainty though does not change the fact that slavery began in America in the 1600s even if the process by which that happened is not settled.

As the first English bastion in North America, Virginia was a cornerstone of what would evolve into the United States. The original settlers in 1607 cannot take credit alone. When the first Africans arrived 12 years later, the colony’s survival was still very much in doubt. Disease, Powhatan hostility, and a harsh climate took a heavy toll necessitating waves of settlers over several decades to make Virginia viable.

Using the words “celebration” does not seem appropriate but the arrival of the first Africans is well worth commemorating. The first Africans were part of the multigenerational effort to found the United States and learning more about everyone who made a contribution is important. In that vein, I will try to re-assemble the parts of the Greek vase from the available shards based on recent scholarship and add a little detail based on my own legal experience.

A Broader Picture of Slavery

Slavery in the New World did not begin in Virginia in 1619 or even with the English. The Portuguese initiated European involvement in the African slave trade in 1441. Mid-15th century west central Africa was politically and economically diverse dominated by the Kingdom of Kongo on the Congo River surrounded by smaller principalities such as Loango, Benguela, Ngola (Angola), and Ndongo. Slavery was already an institution in these African kingdoms and a profitable trade soon arose with the Europeans. The Portuguese achieved their first success with the Kongo, but interacted with some of the lesser states as well. Over time, the slave trade expanded beyond this region, but for purposes of this post, I have restricted the narrative to relevant facts regarding the first Africans in Virginia.

The Portuguese purchased and transferred slaves to European locales such as the Canary Islands to work sugar plantations. After Columbus’ historic discovery of the New World in 1492, Spanish conquistadors followed subduing native peoples like the Inca, Aztec and Taino peoples in Central America, South America and the Caribbean. In the process they stumbled upon immense wealth in precious metals and growing sugar (over the long term, sugar proved the most lucrative of the new riches). The Spanish tried to force Mesoamericans to work mines and plantations but that failed. Africans who were far more accustomed to agricultural work proved a more pliable workforce and the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade was born. The demand for slaves grew rapidly throughout the 1500s.

Long before the English arrived, the Spanish explored North America. The first Africans may have travelled with Columbus to the New World in the 1490s or perhaps to failed Spanish settlements in Florida in the early 1500s. The first confirmed African presence in North America came with Spain’s abortive effort to colonize modern coastal South Carolina/Georgia in 1526. The Spanish founded the first permanent settlement in North America at St. Augustine in modern Florida in 1565. Surviving church documents record a newborn’s baptism to two slaves in 1606, a year before the English landed at Jamestown. All told, Spanish and Portuguese slavers imported over 300,000 Africans by 1619.

From a worldwide point of view, the Africans transported to Virginia in 1619 were far from the first slaves imported to the New World. Their appearance reflected the English entry into a growing historical trend towards race based involuntary servitude. Recent scholarship has shed light on these Africans’ origins and their passage to Virginia’s shores.

How Africans Came to American Shores

The details of how the first Africans arrived in Virginia has only recently been uncovered in large part because records in Virginia provided little. Only by combing through documents of European governments, their trading companies and Spanish colonies have the origins of the Africans and how they arrived to Virginia come to light. The tale is convoluted, fraught with European diplomatic rivalries.

Sponsoring Columbus’ voyages of discovery gave Spain an early advantage in colonizing the Western Hemisphere. Absorbing Portugal in the Iberian Union (1580-1640) allowed the Spanish to assert sole dominion over all New World territories, all economic activity including the slave trade. Naturally, other European nations disputed these claims. In the early 17th century, the English, French and Dutch entered the race to colonize the Western Hemisphere. The English in particular proved an emerging threat to Spain. They established a colony in Jamestown on the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia in 1607. In defiance of Spain’s naval power. Queen Elizabeth I issued letters of marque to some of England’s most prominent sea captains such as Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Sir John Hawkins to act as privateers on the high seas. A letter of marque was a contractual license authorizing a captain to attack Spanish vessels and sometimes raid colonies. The privateer was entitled to any valuables captured so long as they split the profits with their sponsor.

Other European nations also issued letters of marque and French and Dutch privateers soon followed their English counterparts cruising western seas in search of Spanish ships. Occasionally privateers might capture a ship laden with gold or silver. These treasure ships often sailed in convoy and/or were heavily armed making an engagement difficult and dangerous. More often, privateers captured slave ships which they could not bring back to Europe (slavery was generally illegal in Europe). The privateer’s best option was to sell the slaves back to the closest Spanish colony.

Calling a sea captain privateer or pirate was a matter of perspective. Spain did not recognize privateers as a legitimate military force, instead referring to them as pirates. In wartime, raiders could claim royal sanction in plundering Spanish shipping. However, when no state of war existed, privateers crossed the legal line into piracy unless they could secure letters of marque from one of Spain’s other competitors. Fortunately for these marauders, Spain had no shortage of enemies in this era and was often at war with someone. Fighting for independence from Catholic Spain in the 80 Years War (1568-1648), the Protestant Dutch were especially enthusiastic to issue letters of marque to anyone willing to engage the Spanish.

Early in 1619 two English privateering corsairs the White Lion (Captain John Jope) and the Treasurer (Captain Daniel Elfrith) rendezvoused while patrolling the Gulf of Mexico. One day they sighted a Spanish galleon named the San Juan Bautista (St. John the Baptist) bound for Veracruz, Mexico. The English found themselves in a favorable situation upwind of the San Juan Bautista and opened fire. With the advantage of the wind gauge the English privateers managed to overwhelm and capture the Spanish galleon after a protracted battle.

Upon boarding, Jope and Elfrith found a cargo of 350 Africans in the Spanish vessel’s hold. Historical documents reveal the San Juan Bautista’s captain purchased his cargo in Sao Paolo de Luanda, a Spanish controlled slave trading harbor on the western coast of central Africa. The African captives most likely came from Ndongo or Kongo (Angola) with their own cultural norms and probably spoke a dialect known as Kimbundu. Before setting sail from Africa, the Spanish baptized the slaves and gave them Christianized names. according to the custom of the day.

The First Africans Arrive in Virginia

The smaller English corsairs took 55-60 hapless Angolans split evenly between the two vessels and set sail for one of England’s few established North American outposts to exchange the slaves for profit and re-supply. The White Lion debarked first in Virginia. John Rolfe provided the only surviving account in a report to the Virginia Company in London:

About the latter end of August, a Dutch man of Warr of the burden of a 160 tunnes arrived at Point-Comfort, the Comandors name Capt Jope, his Pilott for the West Indies one Mr Marmaduke an Englishman. They mett with the Treasurer in the West Indyes, and determined to hold consort shipp hetherward, but in their passage lost one the other. He brought not any thing but 20. and odd Negroes, which the Governor [George Yeardley] and Cape Marchant [Abraham Piersy] bought for victualls (whereof he was in greate need as he pretended) at the best and easyest rates they could. He hadd a lardge and ample Commyssion from his Excellency to range and to take purchase in the West Indyes. [2]

A second report from Virginia Governor George Yeardley relayed the Treasurer’s landing only days later. A storm off the coast of Florida scattered the White Lion and Treasurer with the latter incurring more severe damage which accounts for the separate arrivals:

Three or 4 daies after[,] the Treasurer arrived. At his arrivall he sent word presently to the Governor to know his pleasure, who wrote to him, and did request myself and Leiftenante Peace and Mr Ewens to goe downe to him, to desyre him to come up to James Cytie. But before we gott downe he hadd sett saile and was gone out of the Bay. The occasion hereof happened by the unfrendly dealing of the Inhabitants of Keqnoughton, for he was in greate want of victualls, wherewith they would not releive him nor his Company upon any termes. [3]

These reports do not reveal important details to the modern reader. The White Lion of course was not Dutch, it was English and Rolfe knew this. He could not report the White Lion as English because Spain and England were at peace in 1619. The English stopped granting letters of marque with the death of Elizabeth in 1603. Her successor, James I ignored English privateering at first. He deferred to advice from Henry, Prince of Wales, and Secretary of State Robert Cecil. As staunch Calvinists, these two influential men supported the Dutch War of Independence and the Protestant cause at large.

After Prince Henry and Cecil died in 1612, James became increasingly pro-Spanish. By 1618, crown policy shifted definitively against privateering. James was negotiating an arranged marriage of his son Charles to Spanish King Philip III’s daughter. So delicate and dear was this proposed marriage, James ordered the prosecution of the great explorer and English hero Sir Walter Raleigh for conducting a deadly raid on a Spanish outpost in Venezuela. Raleigh’s execution sent a clear signal that English marauders were no longer privateers but pirates under English law. The White Lion’s Captain Jope received a letter of marque from a Dutch sponsor providing cover to unload his cargo of Africans in Virginia without incurring royal displeasure.

English nobleman Robert Rich, the Earl of Warwick, co-owned the Treasurer. Warwick was a principle member of the Virginia Company and heavily involved in privateering. Between raids, this vessel made several voyages on behalf of the Virginia Company ferrying supplies, messages and passengers between Virginia and England (including Pocahontas’ passage to England in 1616). When Edwin Sandys took the reins of the Virginia Company in 1618, he knew of Warwick’s connection to the Treasurer and privateering. He charged incoming Governor Yeardley with tracking the Treasurer’s activities. Sandys intended to change the nature of the Virginia colony from a short-term investment reaping maximum profits into a more full-fledged society focused on long term growth with a diverse economy. If Virginia became a haven for English privateers, Sandy’s plans would be thwarted. Thus, the Treasurer did not tarry in Virginia. The second report indicates Captain Elfrith sent a message to Yeardley but did not await his arrival. He lacked letters of marque meaning the slaves he carried were contraband. Elfrith had no desire to follow Raleigh to the gallows.

The Treasurer quickly set sail for Bermuda, a more friendly port for English pirates governed by a Warwick protégé, where Elfrith sold over half of the 25-30 slaves in his possession. In terrible condition from battle and the Florida storm, Warwick’s vessel remained in Bermuda under repair until 1620. Once seaworthy Treasurer returned to Virginia depositing twelve Africans. With a manifest identifying Bermuda as the point of origin, Elfrith avoided the appearance that the Africans he sold came from a Spanish ship.

Compiled a month after Elfrith’s return, a 1620 Census identified 32 Africans living in Virginia. Historian James Horn concluded that the “20 and odd” Africans left by the White Lion in 1619 and twelve Africans brought by the Treasurer a year later accounted for this number. A few more Africans came with other ships between 1621 and 1625. For example, an African named Antonio arrived in 1621 and a female named Mary landed in 1622 from the Margaret and John. In addition, two children of African descent were born in 1624.

A 1624 census listed only 21 Africans. The census a year later identified 23 African servants. Little more is known of the 23 still living in 1625. Census records identify the Africans by first name or simply by race and gender. During this time, the mortality rate for new arrivals was high. Further, Powhatan Chief Opechancanough led a devastating attack killing 25%-33% of the colonists in 1622. The fate of those Africans who died between 1619 and 1625 is unknown but their mortality rate matches that of white colonists. Most likely, conditions, the 1622 massacre or a combination of the two explains the reduction in numbers.

A few more concrete details have emerged in recent years. Over half of the Africans worked in Governor Yeardley’s household or at Abraham Piersy’s Flowerdew Plantation. From the beginning, the wealthiest colonists controlled most of the colony’s black labor force, a fact that would be significant in the coming years. The 1625 census placed seven Africans at Flowerdew (4 men, 2 women and a baby—probably the first person of African descent born in Virginia) and eight with Yeardley (5 women 3 men). The remaining eight Africans were dispersed among other prominent English settlers.

Life in Virginia

In the early years, few Africans came to Virginia. Most of the labor force was white. Black and white workers usually performed the same work and lived under similar conditions. The majestic brick mansions we associate with southern plantation life did not come into existence until the 18th century. Planters spent most of their profits on land acquisition and labor costs. Homes of even the wealthy were simple and small often one-story wooden structures consisting of only 2-4 rooms. It was not unusual for homes to be no more than one large room divided in two. These small homes featured few luxuries in the way of furniture and bedding. Rooms were adapted for multiple purposes maximizing space by constructing lofts in the eaves and occasionally adding one or two outbuildings.

Most blacks lived under one roof with white indentured servants sleeping on the floor in corners or by the hearth in the same or adjoining room with their master’s family. Only rarely did planters erect separate living quarters for laborers. When they did, it appears white and black workers lived together so long as the labor force was mixed.

Experience would have varied depending on the individual master. Some were merciful and “reasonable,” others were not. Virginia law established only rudimentary guidelines for maintenance and treatment of servants. A master had an obligation to provide “competent dyett, clothing and lodging.” [4] Masters should not “exceed the bounds of moderation in correcting them beyond the meritt of their offences.” [5] Whether treatment and punishment were excessive depended on informal societal standards and as a practical matter varied according to the means and conscience of an individual master.

Workers performed the usual agricultural labor and/or domestic tasks associated with faming. When able to acquire a larger labor force, the wealthiest planters might employ an overseer, but most laborers worked side by side with their masters in the fields or at the hearth. All cultures have gender roles and 17th century English society was no different. Males (and as explained below, some black females) worked in fields which varied by season. In the spring workers planted crops which included tilling, building hills (for tobacco and corn) and fertilizing. Over the summer, field hands tended crops, weeding, de-worming and pruning. Harvesting began in the fall which for tobacco included cutting, curing and packing tobacco into hogsheads. The winter was less taxing but still required fence building, clearing fields, maintaining and slaughtering livestock, cutting firewood, and planting seedlings to be transplanted in the spring.

Women remained near the household though their daily tasks were strenuous. Female laborers prepared meals, milked cows including skimming milk, churned butter and cheese, pounded corn into meal, looked after children, washed and dried laundry and cleaned the home. These tasks were physically demanding and sometimes took hours to complete.

Slaves, Servants or Both?

In the 17th century, many whites came to Virginia as indentured servants. To populate the new colony, the Virginia Company created the headright system granting fifty acres of land to any sponsor who paid for the passage of an immigrant across the Atlantic. In return, the immigrant entered into a contract of indenture requiring him or her to work for seven years for their sponsor. In return, the servant received food, shelter, clothing and their freedom after seven years. At first, indentured servants received 50 acres at the end of their term, but later, more and more contracts required only payment of extra provisions and clothes to allow servants establish themselves. Many freed servants by the 1640s had difficulty making a living independently and often re-entered another indenture contract.

The status of early Africans has been the subject of a long back and forth debate. In the early 20th century, historians claimed most if not all Africans became indentured servants and that slavery did not take hold until after Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676. Frontier colonists in western Virginia were coming under frequent attack by Native Americans. Nathaniel Bacon led small farmers, white and black workers demanding that royal Governor William Berkeley organize retaliatory attacks. In reality, the unrest threatened the power of large planters who had a close relationship with Berkeley and dominated Virginia’s government.

The rebels confronted Berkeley burning Jamestown down compelling the governor to flee for his life. Bacon died shortly thereafter and the rebellion collapsed. Wealthy planters knew they had barely survived the crisis and held grave concerns about the willingness of poor whites and blacks to unite in common cause. To prevent another uprising, large planters shifted from troublesome white indentured labor to slaves. In theory, African slaves would be more manageable with no expectation of political participation, property ownership or a stake in creating of their own wealth.

A second theory discounts the impact of Bacon’s Rebellion in favor of another factor. Advocates of this alternative proposition believed that a sharp reduction in the number of English immigrants in the 1670s and 1680s was the primary cause for the emergence of slavery. The middle decades of the 1600s were times of turmoil in England. Embroiled in a protracted civil war, poor and middling Englishmen risked a dangerous Atlantic voyage to escape unending warfare and strife at home. The English restored the king in 1660 and at peace once more, the number of Englishmen willing to migrate declined significantly. The loss of a ready supply of white indentured servants led planters to turn to African slavery.

Prominent historian Edmund Morgan offered a third possibility. Early on, high mortality made investing in slaves a bad risk. With workers living five years or less, utilizing cheaper indentured servants made more sense. Morgan reasoned that as colonists began living longer, slavery became more viable and economically advantageous. All three theories at least imply that early on Africans were largely indentured servants.

There is evidence to support the contention that most Africans were originally indentured servants, not slaves. Property and tax records into the 1660s, reveal that in some counties as much as 20% of black colonists owned land. Some of these black freeholders held the contracts of black and white laborers.

Anthony Johnson presents an interesting set of circumstances. He was probably Angolan and likely was the “Antonio” who arrived in 1621 as an indentured servant. Johnson gained his freedom in 1635 and prospered on a small farm he purchased with his wife Mary who may have disembarked from the Margaret and John in 1622. In 1651 he received a patent for 250 acres under the headright system claiming five indentured servants (one of whom was his son, Richard). Johnson’s two sons later received grants for additional adjoining 500 acres and between the three of them employed about 20 black and white workers. The Johnsons prove at least some of the first Africans arrived as indentured servants, not slaves.

Significantly, though illegal in England, slavery was well known to Englishmen in the 1600s. Slave laws appeared in English Caribbean colonies by the 1630s. The word “slave” does not appear in any Virginia statute until 1655. In that instance, the term referred to the treatment of Native American children in the care of colonists, not to Africans. The House of Burgesses did not begin passing slave laws directed at blacks until the 1660s. [7]

Further, laws regulating servants before 1660 did not differentiate between white and black labor. For example, early statutes added years to the term of service as punishment for servants of both races for running away. [8] Such a penalty implies most blacks were indentured as adding years be meaningless for a slave whose term would be for his or her lifetime. The House did not create separate punishments by race until 1661.

More recent research, however, challenges the longstanding assertion that most black laborers were indentured in the early years. James Horn provides good evidence that at least some of the first Africans were slaves from the beginning. Governor George Yeardley’s 1628 will bequeathed his African born servants and white indentured servants to his wife. 25 years later, Yeardley’s son Argoll still owned two of those Africans.

Many inventories like Yeardley’s include the number of years left on a white servant’s term of indenture but not for black servants. The lack of indenture terms for black laborers implies they were slaves. Several estate filings list the monetary value of white and black servants. Generally black servants carried a higher value which also implies their terms were longer, most likely indefinite. In 1645, a will from a white freeholder named Vaughn appeared in county records in which the testator emancipated his slaves. Other wills including manumission clauses for black servants began cropping up in the 1640s-1650s. These estate records also provide strong evidence that slavery existed decades before the House of Burgesses addressed the subject.

From this evidence, we can conclude slavery existed from 1619, but how pervasive was it? That answer is murkier. Not all county records from the 1600s survived meaning pieces of the Greek vase are lost forever. Anthony and Mary Johnson are exceptional as some of their personal history survived. Most of the first Africans were identified only by their first names, others listed simply by race and gender. However, some estates did list a term of years for black servants. County tax and property records demonstrate others were freemen and some were landholders. How these individuals attained their freedom is also unclear. In Accomack County, for example, most free blacks’ independence can be traced to manumissions in the 1640s and 1650s, not because indentured contracts ended. For other free black populations there is no information on how they attained freedom.

Though there is no relevant statutory history, the courts spoke to the slavery/indenture issue ruling on controversies involving contracts of indenture. In a 1640 case heard about the capture of three runaway servants, the court returned two white runaways to their masters adding a year to their indenture terms. The third, John Punch who was black, received a life term. This case is notable as the first where the court converted an indentured servant into a slave. That said, Punch is another Africans who was not a slave from the outset. The ruling, however seems to expose a more strident standard for blacks as Punch received a much lengthier sentence. [9]

Notwithstanding the Punch and Casor (see caption for Anthony Johnson) cases, Virginia’s General Court consistently upheld the validity of indenture contracts for black servants where evidence of their contract could be produced. A Middle Eastern servant named John Baptist arrived aboard a Dutch ship in 1652. Baptist refused to debark until the Dutch merchant agreed his term of service was five years. He sued later when his Virginia owner refused to release him. The court granted Baptist his freedom relying on witness testimony verifying the merchant’s promise of a five-year term. This case is unique for accepting oral evidence. Proof of indenture usually required a written contract. [10]

As late as 1678, the General Court was still upholding indenture contracts for black workers. In circa 1667, a New England merchant sold a mixed-race servant named Antonio for a term of 10 years. When the purchaser refused to honor the limitation, Antonio filed suit and won his freedom. The court even awarded Antonio wages for time he worked beyond his required service. [11] Other reported cases had similar results (See Footnote 11 for other cases where black servants received their freedom.)

In addition to some Africans arriving as indentured servants, the law concerning slaves was far from settled in the 17th century. With few guidelines, some black colonists found loopholes to escape permanent bondage. European authorities commonly banned the enslavement of Christians in the Middle Ages. The need for labor in the New World forced a modification of the rule to accommodate Christianized African slaves. Some planters claimed that slavery was perpetual but this informal belief did not become law until the 1660s.

In 1641 a black plaintiff named John Graweere fathered a child by a female servant on a different farm in the service of Robert Sheppard. Graweere filed suit for his child’s freedom averring that he wanted to raise the child as Christian. The court granted the child’s emancipation once Graweere compensated Sheppard. [12]

In a 1644 case the court disallowed the purchase of a black child as a slave ruling the child was to be treated as if white and to serve the same 24-year term served by children of white indentured females and then granted freedom. The General Court seemed to be relying on the principle that a child should not considered to be born a slave if baptized in Virginia. [13]

Mixed race children received more explicit legal protection under the law. In 1656, a woman born of a white father and black mother was granted freedom on appeal to the House of Burgesses (at the time the highest court of appeals in the colony). The Burgesses opined that “by the common law the child of a woman slave begott by a free man ought to be free.” [14] These child-related cases indicate that to the extent slavery existed, it was not yet legally generational.

The available records are insufficient to establish the proportion of black indentured servants to slaves, but other evidence is available. The black population until 1670 was under 2,000 and the number of children born and baptized in Virginia would be small. Hampden Sydney College Professor John Coombs pored over colonial records including property, estate and tax documents uncovering the means by which Africans came to Virginia in the 17th century. They arrived mostly in one of two ways, either through direct transport from Africa or through inter-colonial trade with Caribbean colonies. Most of these Africans would have arrived as slaves. Further, records are incomplete but there are only 23 known cases where black or mixed-race individuals sued for their freedom, a small proportion of the overall population.

There is one more piece of indirect evidence that may speak more loudly than any other. The indentured servant case law indicates the courts presumed a black servant was a slave unless they could produce evidence to the contrary. There was no such assumption for white servants and there is not a single situation in which a white servant had a life term. This omission weighs heavily in concluding that most blacks who came to Virginia arrived as and remained slaves.

The Growth of Virginia’s African Population

There is a popular image of American slavery as comprised of large plantations with hundreds of slaves laboring in fields. These images are not false per se, but would not be accurate in 17th century Virginia. Throughout American History, slavery was never monolithic, static or easily definable and the same is true in the 1600s. Until the 1680s, the largest plantations across the colony had 40 or fewer workers, a majority of whom were usually white. Not until the 1700s would the workforces of large plantations rise above 100. As late as 1674 in Surry County for example, Africans made up only 20% of the labor force. In the same decade, 72% of freeholders in Virginia had no hired hands and 9% had one servant. These statistics mirror many other counties around the colony. Until the end of the 17th century, most white freeholders did not own any Africans, or white indentured servants for that matter.

Colony wide statistics, however, do not tell the entire tale. In spite of the small numbers, a cadre of large planters began turning to African labor in the 1640s. That fact is clear in the statistics from Surry County. Fewer than 20% of the white population controlled all of the black labor, likely concentrated with the largest landholders.

Agricultural conditions provide an important clue. Early Virginia can be divided into three regions. The central region featuring peninsulas formed by the James, York and Rappahannock Rivers offered the best land for tobacco. The rich alluvial soil allowed growth of a milder sweet-scented tobacco that drew more demand commanding a higher price. To the north, the Potomac region was less fertile forcing planters to grow the less lucrative Orinoco strain of tobacco. The region south of the James River offered inferior soils and planters there slowly abandoned tobacco in favor of corn, animal husbandry and logging to supply Caribbean islands with necessities as they put all their efforts into sugar.

The richest soil brought about the largest and wealthiest planters and they began increasing their African labor force in the 1630s before the rest of the colony. Because few Africans came to Virginia in the early years, amassing black laborers was a slow process. The 23 Africans in the 1625 census made up less than 2% of the total population. The proportion remained under 4% through 1660. Though small in number, the African population concentrated more heavily in the central region on large plantations. A 1669 census listed central region planter John Carter with the largest labor force: 77 servants, 43 of whom were black. Carter’s inventory exemplified the holdings of other large, sweet-scented tobacco growers. Their reliance on black labor was growing and in some cases like Carter was over 50% before 1660 even though for smaller planters across the colony the black labor proportion was minimal. In the other two regions, black workers tended to live on large plantations as well.

Table of Populations of Virginia by Race 1630-1710; 1780

Year 1630 1640 1650 1660 1670 1680 1690 1700 1710 1780 Total pop. 2,500 10,442 18,731 27,020 35,309 43,596 53,046 58,560 78,281 538,004 Whites 2,450 10,442 18,731 27,020 35,309 43,596 53,046 58,560 78,281 317,522 Blacks 50 150 405 950 2,000 3,000 9,345 16,390 23,118 220,582 Black % of pop. 2% 1.4% 2.2% 3.5% 5.7% 6.9% 17.7% 28% 29.5% 41%

Wealth not only brought more slave labor; it was the source of power in Virginia. Large planters dominated state-wide and local public offices. Coombs noticed a pattern in slave ownership. Officeholders were far more likely to own slaves and in greater proportions. Of 305 headrights claimed for blacks in the 1630s and 1640s, 234 belonged to high level officeholders. In the 1630s, just ten individuals, all officeholders, claimed over 33% of headrights. Over the following decade, just nine planters, once again officeholders, claimed over half of all black headrights, most in the central region.

Breaking down the numbers, statewide officials (who tended to be the wealthiest) such as Governor’s Council members averaged fifteen headrights and Burgesses members ten. Less affluent local county officials (county court justices, sheriffs, etc.) averaged seven headrights claimed. Non-office holders averaged four or fewer black workers. From 1640 to 1669, estate inventories listed at least one black worker for 53% of state and local officeholders. Black servants appear in only 6% of non-office holders’ inventories. I have mixed some of these statistics and they may not add up perfectly, but they convey the salient point: even though the black population remained small before 1680, it was growing disproportionately on large plantations, especially in the central region.

Even with a preference for black labor and the financial means, large planters could only add slaves gradually and in small numbers. Several factors slowed the growth of black populations. The Spanish had a monopoly on the slave trade through the 1630s refusing to engage the English. Most slaves in the early 1600s came to English colonies from privateering activity which meant the number of Africans remained small.

In the 1620s, the British settled Caribbean colonies in St. Christopher, Nevis, Barbados, Monserrat and Antigua. These colonies featured more favorable climactic conditions for sugar production, the most lucrative cash crop. A small number of landholders soon dominated the limited acreage. By the time the Dutch broke the Spanish stranglehold on the Trans-Atlantic trade in the 1640s, demand for slaves in the Caribbean was enormous and expanding. Most of the slaves imported to English colonies ended up in the Caribbean. 6,000 Africans lived in Barbados in the 1640s when sugar production took off. By 1668, the number rose to over 40,000. African populations grew accordingly on other islands.

Additionally, Sandys’s vision of a diverse English society never took hold but still favored more broad immigration of humble Englishmen who tended to build small farms well into the 1680s where land was relatively easy to acquire. Sugar also eclipsed tobacco in demand and value. The climate in North America would not support sugar cane which was never part of the colonial economy. Raising and harvesting sugar was a more labor-intensive process requiring a much larger operation. Consequently, the island colonies needed a far larger labor force. Even with more modest resources, colonial tobacco growers outpaced demand resulting in fluctuations in price including several significant drops. Tobacco simply did not provide the income stream sugar did. As a result, tobacco growers lacked the resources to compete with wealthier sugar planters for a limited supply of slaves.

Africans came to Virginia in one of two ways from the 1620s into the 1690s. Before the Restoration in 1660, the Dutch were the primary suppliers directly from Africa. Cromwell’s Commonwealth government hindered Dutch commerce passing the Navigation Acts in 1651 which forbade English colonists from trading with foreign merchants. After Charles II reasserted royal sovereignty in England, he granted the Company of Royal Adventurers an exclusive monopoly for all African trade (succeeded by the Royal Africa Company in 1672). Charles’ Parliament passed even more stringent mercantilist laws banning trade with anyone other than England’s royal monopolies for the rest of the century. Neither the Company of Royal Adventurers nor the Royal Africa Company ever found a way to meet the demand for labor. Caribbean colonists enjoyed better connections with the English merchants and received the lion’s share of slave shipments.

Coombs’ research suggests slave auctions were rarely public in Virginia. Large planters contracted with traders and often bought their slaves before they reached Virginia’s shores. Such a transaction was expensive and available only to the wealthiest who had the resources and/or connections to establish and maintain direct contact with slave traders. Direct contracting had a distinct advantage. Under the headrights system, a landowner received 50 acres for every servant for whom they paid for passage. Large planters, usually officeholders, used the law to expand their property holdings and wealth.

The only other avenue for importing slaves came through intra-colonial trade which proved a better source in the long run. The British Caribbean planters focused so heavily on sugar production, they could not produce sufficient food, wood for transport materials and construction and other necessities. Virginians concentrated south of the James River began herding livestock and providing other raw materials for the Caribbean islands. Occasionally, small groups of Caribbean slaves came to Virginia in exchange for essentials. Even though only a few slaves came with each ship, over time frequent intercolonial voyages resulted in larger numbers than could be obtained directly from Africa through inefficient English monopolies. Around 1700, then Governor Edmund Jennings reported: “before the year 1680, what negros were brought to Virginia were imported generally from Barbados for it was very rare to have a Negro ship come to this country directly from Africa.” [15]

According to Coombs, the population of African descended colonists grew slowly due to a lack of supply, not a lack of interest in slave labor. As officeholders’ dependence on slave labor increased, they asserted their power and influence to protect those interests. In the 1660s, as more Africans arrived, laws codifying slavery appeared and multiplied.

Slavery Becomes Pervasive in Virginia

As previously mentioned, slavery was not part of the legal code until the 1660s. However, a discriminatory slant against black colonists appeared much sooner. The Burgesses passed the first clearly discriminatory statute in 1640. The law stated: “ALL persons except negroes to be provided with arms and amunition or be fined at pleasure of the Governor and Council.” [16] Some commentators have claimed black colonists were denied the right to bear arms, but that interpretation is not reflected in the actual words. The statute banned the issuance of firearms but did not prohibit blacks from trading for or purchasing weapons. Discrimination also appeared in the legal system. For example, the Punch and Casor decisions in the 1640s-1650s sanctioned black defendants more harshly than whites.

The first statute indirectly linking blacks to slavery appeared in a 1643 tax law. Colonial property holders paid a tax, known as a tithe, on every person over the age of 16 who performed work that generated income. Women were not taxed as the domestic tasks they performed were not considered economic in nature. In 1643, the Burgesses placed a tax on black women over the age of 16. [17] The statute provided no rationale but it was apparent that black women were working in the fields generating income. Some white female indentured servants probably performed field labor, but social norms discouraged this practice. This law implies that no such norm applied to black women and thus a more prejudicial standard of what constituted “reasonable” work for blacks.

The first statute that directly connects slavery to Africans came in 1660. That law established a price for slaves imported on Dutch ships. [18] Lawmakers drafted the law in the wake of the English Commonwealth’s collapse to encourage the Dutch with favorable terms. Royalists nullified laws passed by Cromwell’s Parliament. Wealthy Virginian planters hoped newly restored King Charles II would embrace more unlimited trade. Though hopes were dashed by the creation of a royal monopoly on African trade, the House of Burgesses had embarked on a new course. Burgesses began enacting legislation formally establishing slavery as an institution and discouraging fraternization between poor whites and blacks.

In 1661, the Burgesses created enhanced criminal sanctions according to race. They amended the longstanding act regulating runaways setting forth separate punishments for indentured servants and slaves stating: “any English servant shall run away in company of any negroes who are incapable of making satisfaction by addition of a time . . . the English soe running away . . . shall . . . serve the masters of the said negroes for their absence soe long as they should have done by this act if they had not beene slaves.” [19] By adding these terms, wealthy officeholders were taking the first steps to prevent interference with their interests, namely the productive value of black slaves.

As part of the effort to institutionalize slavery, the Burgesses eliminated the exceptions for black and mixed-race children set forth in the courts. A 1662 law ended the indentured servitude for mixed-race children born to black women. Forthwith they took the legal status of their mothers. The practical effect was to make slaves of children born of white males and enslaved mothers. Legislators closed the loophole presuming freedom for all children baptized in Virginia in 1667 stating: “WHEREAS some doubts have risen whether children that are slaves by birth, and by the charity and piety of their owners made pertakers of the blessed sacrament of baptisme, should by vertue of their baptisme be made ffree . . . conferring of baptisme doth not alter the condition of the person as to his bondage or ffreedome.” [20]

In 1669, the House of Burgesses enacted an odious precedent establishing slaves as a form of property under the law. A criminal statute precluded charging a master with a felony for killing his slave while applying discipline. The Burgesses offered a chilling rationale. The death of a slave must be considered accidental since: “it cannot be presumed that prepensed malice (which alone makes murder felony) should induce any man to destroy his owne estate.” [21]

For time immemorial, a charge of murder in English law required proof of malice (the intent to kill) as an element of the crime. The Burgesses eliminated this requirement reasoning that there could be no intent to murder property. In theory, a trace of humanity remained as a defendant who killed a slave could be charged with manslaughter. However, this law essentially gave slaveowners a free hand in punishment making them virtually immune for whatever imposed cruelty.

Legally establishing slaves as a form of property was a major step towards institutionalizing slavery. In 1682, the House went further enacting a law mandating that all non-Christian servants who came to Virginia with a master were deemed slaves for life. [22] This law narrowed the the validity of an indenture contracts, part of a growing effort to make all Africans slaves.

By this point, slaves’ only recourse for attaining freedom was voluntary manumission by an owner. The House of Burgesses passed a law in 1691 restricting this last avenue. The statute required owners who manumitted slaves to pay for and secure their transport from Virginia within 6 months or the manumission would be void. [23] The Burgesses could not completely ban manumissions because Englishmen deemed free alienation of property as a fundamental right. However, the legislature restricted the right as much as possible.

In 1692, the Burgesses created special county-based courts to hear certain matters pertaining to slaves which abrogated important and longstanding English rights. The new courts tried cases without providing the accused an indictment, denying the defendant a jury and ending the right of appeal to a higher court. [24] Slaves had previously enjoyed fairly equitable rights in a judicial proceeding but this act abrogated virtually every legal protection. With no indictment, the defendant lacked knowledge of the charges necessary to prepare a defense including calling witnesses and/or gathering evidence. Denying a jury ensured an officeholder, likely a slaveowner, would be the sole arbiter decreasing the chances a black petitioner or defendant could prevail. With no right of appeal, black litigants no longer an opportunity to correct unjust rulings. Overall, eliminating protections in criminal proceedings and their right of appeal was a natural progression in reducing slaves to chattel.

In 1705, the House of Burgesses completed a process begun 55 years earlier enacting a comprehensive slave code. [25] By this point, Africans were arriving in larger numbers to work on more than just large plantations. In 1690, blacks made up 18% of Virginia’s population and the proportion rose to 30% by 1710 with slavery fully institutionalized with a broad cross-section of economically situated owners. As the slave population increased, influential officeholders amended the legal system to protect their property rights.

Reassessing the Theories

The traditional view is that in the wake of Bacon’s Rebellion large planters and royal Governor William Berkeley became greatly concerned about the willingness of poor white freedmen and indentured servants to join up with black Virginians. As a result, large landholders turned to a slave labor force that could be isolated from the white population and would have no expectation of becoming freemen or landholders. There is truth in this theory. Historian Philip Morgan observed that relations between black slaves and white indentured servants before 1670 were relaxed: “not only did many black slaves and white servants work alongside one another, but they ate, caroused, smoked, ran away, stole, and made love together.” [26]

However, Coombs extensive research makes a convincing case that large planters in Virginia developed a preference for slave labor decades before Bacon’s Rebellion. Additionally, the House of Burgesses manifested concerns about fraternization between poor whites and blacks prior to Nathaniel Bacon’s arrival on the scene. The 1661 runaway act sought to discourage whites and blacks working together to undermine plantation order. Closing loopholes for mixed-race children and those baptized in Virginia further separated the races. The House took another measure towards segregation in 1670, not mentioned above, banning black freeholders from hiring white servants. [27] The obvious intent was to place all whites ahead of any black colonist thereby increasing racial segregation.

It seems to me that Bacon’s Rebellion probably still had an effect. At the very least, the near disaster for the large planters hardened preexisting attitudes and motivated a speedier conversion to slave labor. Traumatic events have a way of inspiring resolute action. By analogy, whites long feared slave insurrection throughout colonial times into early years of the republic. Nat Turner’s Rebellion in 1831 spurred legislators to enact harsh laws cracking down on slaves and free blacks alike. Thus, it is likely that Bacon’s Rebellion had a similar effect as a catalyst for turning to slave labor.

After 1676, the House of Burgesses went beyond institutionalizing slavery through tighter regulation of oversight. To thwart slave rebellions the Burgesses enacted a law in 1680 making it a crime for blacks to carry a gun, club or other weapon. It also banned slaves from leaving their plantation without written authorization. In suppressing a revolt, the act empowered the raising of a militia with authorization to kill slaves who resisted. [28] Recent research of Coombs and others does not contradict the theory that the supply of white labor dried up or Edmund Morgan’s claim that greater longevity shifted demand from indentured labor to slaves. There is not enough evidence to either exclude or confirm one of these three theories. In fact, all three theories probably influenced the increasing preference for slave labor.

Bacon’s uprising also likely influenced the creation of stringent laws to further repress slaves manifested in the special courts of 1692 and the 1705 slave code. Officeholders were even willing to impinge their own right to dispose of property through the manumission of slaves. In doing so, they acted in the perceived greater interest of strengthening the institution of slavery. Forcing freed slaves to leave the state also created greater separation between blacks and whites.

Summary

Uncovering how slavery developed in the United States is an important undertaking. From reviewing the selected statutes and case law, several conclusions become apparent. Slavery existed well before it appeared in the statutes in 1660 and probably began in 1619. A large majority of Africans brought to Virginia were probably enslaved though some were not. As a small proportion of the population in Virginia in the early decades, Africans could attain freedom by various means in a system that had not fully embraced slavery. However, as the population grew, slavery became more prevalent. With large numbers of slaves arriving at the turn of the century, the House of Burgesses moved to protect the interests of slaveholders culminating in the 1705 slave code which formalized what was already informally enforced.

Early Africans’ changed the colony’s course helping solidify what was still an uncertain venture. In succeeding decades, their descendants played a significant role in building the powerful nation in which we live today. The available evidence is scanty enough to allow for multiple interpretations. Though the development of slavery can be debated, there is no denying it was an institution by the 18th century. The process is complicated and we may never know the full story but several recently “unearthed” pieces provide a little better idea of what the Greek vase looked like.

For other articles on African American History, please see:

Maggie Walker, the first woman of any race to found a bank in the US and an early civil rights pioneer:

Slaves in St. Domingue (Haiti) overthrew their French masters establishing the first former slave led nation. The Haitians’ success led Napoleon to sell the Louisiana territory to the US in 1803:

The unusual story of captured runaway slave Shadrach Minkins his liberation from a Boston courthouse and the impact of the Fugitive Slave Act and other developments in the 1850s that led to the Civil War:

Martin Luther King’s use of natural law theory in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail to advance the cause of civil rights:

Footnotes:

[1] Judicial Cases Concerning American Slavery and the Negro. Ed. Helen Tunnicliff Catterall, Washington DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1926; p. 53. http://www.virtualjamestown.org/CatterallCombine.pdf)

[2] Horn, James, 1619: and the Forging of American Democracy. New York: Basic Books, 2018, p.105.

[3] Ibid., p. 106.

[4] Coombs, John C., Building “the Machine,” The Development of Slavery and Slave Society in Early Colonial Virginia. Williamsburg, VA: William & Mary, a dissertation presented by John C. Coombs for a PhD in Philosophy, 2003, p. 10.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Catterall, p.

[7] Hening 1655, 396. For statutory citations, I am simply listing the year and page number instead of a formal legal citation in case a reader wants to review the statute. All statues are available by year at: http://vagenweb.org/hening/index.htm

[8] Hening 1642, 254-255.

[9] McIlwaine 466, July 1640.

[10] Coombs Dissertation, p. 154.

[11] Ibid., p. 156. For other cases granting African indentured servants their freedom, see In re: Mozingo , McIlwaine 316, October 1672; Moore v.Light , McIlwaine 354, October 1673; West v. Negro Mary , (remanding case for determination of whether Mary had evidence of indenture and if so freed) McIlwaine 372, April 1674; Negro Philip Gowan v. Lucas , McIlwaine 411, June 1675; Negro Browze v. Bennett , McIlwaine 437, October 1676; Re: Negro , McIlwaine 520, October 1678; but see Negro Angell v. Mathews , (Angell’s petition claiming freedom based on her deceased owner’s promise denied due to a lack of written evidence) McIlwaine 413, June 1675.

[12] McIlwaine 477, March 1641.

[13] Catterall citing Northampton County Records p. 58.

[14] Coombs Dissertation citing Northampton County Records p. 144.

[15] Ibid., p. 34.

[16] Hening 1640, 226.

[17] Hening 1643, 242.

[18] Hening 1660, 450.

[19] Hening 1661, 117.

[20] Hening 1662, 170.

[21] Hening 1669, 270 (this statute is Act 1 and is at the very top of the page).

[22] Hening 1682, 490-492 (this statute is Act 1 and is at the very top of the page).

[23] Hening 1691, 87-88.

[24] Hening 1692, 102-103.

[26] Hening 1705, see generally, statutes for the entire year.

[26] Morgan, Philip D., Slave Counterpoint, Black Culture in the Eighteenth Century Chesapeake and Lowcountry. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1998, p. 9.

[27] Hening 1680, 481-482.

[28] Hening 1680, 280-281.

Sources:

Billings, Warren M. “The Cases of Fernando and Elizabeth Key: A Note on the Status of Blacks in Seventeenth-Century Virginia.” The William and Mary Quarterly 30, no. 3 (1973): 467-74. doi:10.2307/1918485.

Coclanis, Peter A., Tobacco Road: New Views of the Early Chesapeake. Williamsburg, VA: The William and Mary Quarterly , Vol. 68, No. 3 (July 2011), pp. 398-404. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5309/willmaryquar.68.3.0398

Coombs, John C., Building “the Machine,” The Development of Slavery and Slave Society in Early Colonial Virginia. Williamsburg, VA: William & Mary, a dissertation presented by John C. Coombs for a PhD in Philosophy, 2003.

Coombs, John C., The Phases of Conversion: A New Chronology for the Rise of Slavery in Early Virginia. Williamsburg, VA: The William and Mary Quarterly , Vol. 68, No. 3 (July 2011), pp. 332-360 https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5309/willmaryquar.68.3.0332

Hening’s Statutes at Large, compiled by William Waller Hening: http://vagenweb.org/hening/index.htm

Horn, James, 1619: and the Forging of American Democracy. New York: Basic Books, 2018.

Judicial Cases Concerning American Slavery and the Negro. Ed. Helen Tunnicliff Catterall, Washington DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1926.

Morgan, Edmund S., American Slavery, American Freedom. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1975.

Morgan, Philip D., Slave Counterpoint, Black Culture in the Eighteenth Century Chesapeake and Lowcountry. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1998.

Sluiter, Engel. “New Light on the “20. and Odd Negroes” Arriving in Virginia, August 1619.” The William and Mary Quarterly 54, no. 2 (1997): 395-98. doi:10.2307/2953279.

Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database Project: https://www.slavevoyages.org/voyage/database#timeline

Vaughan, Alden T. “The Origins Debate: Slavery and Racism in Seventeenth-Century Virginia.” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 97, no. 3 (1989): 311-54. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4249092.

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