America's History of Slavery Began Long Before Jamestown

History Channel ^ | August 26, 2019 | Crystal Ponti

[re_tail20]

The arrival of the first captives to the Jamestown Colony, in 1619, is often seen as the beginning of slavery in America—but enslaved Africans arrived in North America as early as the 1500s.

In late August 1619, the White Lion, an English privateer commanded by John Jope, sailed into Point Comfort and dropped anchor in the James River. Virginia colonist John Rolfe documented the arrival of the ship and “20 and odd” Africans on board. His journal entry is immortalized in textbooks, with 1619 often used as a reference point for teaching the origins of slavery in America. But the history, it seems, is far more complicated than a single date.

It is believed the first Africans brought to the colony of Virginia, 400 years ago this month, were Kimbundu-speaking peoples from the kingdom of Ndongo, located in part of present-day Angola. Slave traders forced the captives to march several hundred miles to the coast to board the San Juan Bautista, one of at least 36 transatlantic Portuguese and Spanish slave ships.

The ship embarked with about 350 Africans on board, but hunger and disease took a swift toll. En route, about 150 captives died. Then, when the San Juan Bautista approached what is now Veracruz, Mexico in the summer of 1619, it encountered two ships, the White Lion and another English privateer, the Treasurer. The crews stormed the vulnerable slave ship and seized 50 to 60 of the remaining Africans. After, the pair sailed for Virginia.

As noted by Rolfe, when the White Lion arrived in what is now present-day Hampton, Virginia, the Africans were offloaded and “bought for victuals.” Governor Sir George Yeardley and head merchant Abraham Piersey acquired the majority of the captives, most of whom were kept in Jamestown, America’s first permanent English settlement.

The arrival...

[karnage]

Yes

[fruser1]

Native American Indians had slaves too.

That was the whole point of the “war party” - young guys would ride out to capture goodies, rape, kill, and take slaves from other tribes.

It continues in lesser form today where guys drive around yelling at chicks walking along the street.

[karnage]

Indeed.

Amerindians considered their own tribe to be the only “people.” Non-tribal humans were not people. They were something else. Something lesser.

[karnage]

Say what???

History began the day I was born!!!

[MacNaughton]

America’s slavery began with Native Americans who practiced it at least as well as anyone else.

And the smaller indigenous tribes in Mexico hated the Aztecs who conquered/ suppressed/ enslaved them.

A tzompantli or skull rack is a type of wooden rack or palisade documented in several Mesoamerican civilizations, which was used for the public display of human skulls, typically those of war captives or other sacrificial victims. It is a scaffold-like construction of poles on which heads and skulls were placed after holes had been made in them. Many have been documented throughout Mesoamerica, and range from the Epiclassic (ca. 600–900 CE) through early Post-Classic (ca. 900–1250 CE). In 2017 archeologists announced the discovery of the Huey Tzompantli, with more than 650 skulls, in the archeological zone of the Templo Mayor in Mexico City.

During the stay of Cortes' expedition in the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan (initially as guest-captives of the Emperor Moctezuma II, before the battle which would lead to the conquest), they reported a wooden tzompantli altar adorned with the skulls from recent sacrifices. Within the complex of the Templo Mayor itself, a relief in stucco depicted these sacrifices; the remains of this relief have survived and may now be seen in the ruins in the Zócalo of present-day Mexico City.

[AnalogReigns]

Outright slavery of black Africans still exists today in northern Africa:

Africa Has the Highest Rate of Modern-day Slavery in the World

[Robert DeLong]

The point is, it wasn’t a problem caused by just the British. So why point to the date of the first British owned slaves? It’s usage is due to a narrative, not the whole story at all.

[LeonardFMason]

IRRELVANT to me. Couldn’t care less.

My family, past and present, had NOTHING to do with any slavery.

Slavery was abolished over 150 years ago. Time to MOVE ON.

[bk1000]

Goodness! White men are even worse than we thought!

[2banana]

Native Americans were enslaving each other for thousands of years before Europeans came.

[Dick Bachert]

REPARATIONS FOR SLAVERY? GIVE ME A BREAK!!
https://www.brighteon.com/5842523575001
HOUGH RIOTS OF ‘66 & ‘68
https://www.brighteon.com/f6364c54-b6bd-446f-aae2-e7c2f157f0ec
IS TRUMP INCITING VIOLENCE?
https://www.brighteon.com/8babaa66-b8aa-49b2-85dc-1c1717d8823a

[Mrs. Don-o]

Slavery had a notable presence in the Western Hemisphere before the arrival of ANY Europeans or Africans.

All of the pre-Colombian "great civilizations" of the Americas, with their irrigated and often terraced agriculture (using human muscle, and no draft animals) and their monumental Temple complexes and city-center structures, were built by slave labor.

Even the more primitive, non-city-building indigenous peoples, especially those which practiced female infanticide, engaged in raiding their neighbors to capture women and children (and later, after the Spanish made landfall, horses.)

[Ohioan]

"Native Americans were enslaving each other for thousands of years before Europeans came."

As were Europeans, Chinese, Hindoos, and the peoples of the Old & New Testaments. etc. The tendency was hardly centered in Colonial Virginia. It was typical of most of the world, before modern commercial developments.

What is curious is the parochial obsession of contemporary Americans, who seem to imagine it was somehow unique to these United States. It sure was not.

[SES1066]

1619 was the first slave in british north america. I don’t see what is to be gained by arguing that undeniable fact.

For much of what I am reading here and elsewhere, very few are denying that singular fact. What I, and others, are doing is to place that factoid into a historical matrix that the LEFT ardently desires to be ignored. This is especially important with the NY Times' "1619 Project" becoming a lead item in their progressive battle to revise the post 1619 history to have the future USofA being great SOLELY/PRINCIPALLY on the back of AfroAmerican participation, slave and post-slavery. This thrust is a definite rewrite of history and must be countered.

[riverdawg]

“Weren’t they indentured servants in 1619?”

No

[Freeborn]

Slavery within the Native American tribes was wide spread thousands of years before Columbus.

[fella]

The History Channel is way off of the agenda here.

But the question of who were the slave traders and who were they selling to before the discovery of “The New World” remains unasked much less answered.

[fella]

" war captives or other sacrificial victims

After the slaves went to the alter they became "Taco Meat".

[FrdmLvr]

Before JAMESTOWN!!!??? It’s absurd to claim America was involved in slavery before it was even a colony! The whole world has been involved in slavery since practically the beginning of time! And not only Africans were slaves. History Channel? 🙄

[Bull Snipe]

So because they had slaves, it was ok for us to have slaves. Is that your argument.