1619: Setting the Course of U.S. History
Big Idea
Starting in the early seventeenth century, kidnapping and enslavement brought thousands of African men and women to the shores of America. The enslavement of Africans drove the economic success of the British colonies and what would eventually become the United States of America. Enslaved African men, women, and children asserted their humanity and dignity as they built new lives as enslaved people in North America.
What’s important to know?
Indentured Servitude: The majority of early laborers in the colonies were English indentured servants. Black laborers could also be indentured servants and could earn their freedom.
Kidnapped & Enslaved Angolans: The first enslaved Africans (from Angola) arrive on the Virginia shore in 1619.
Wealth and Enslavement: As English colonists benefited economically from the forced labor of enslaved Africans, they began to move toward a racially-based enslavement model to ensure the ongoing success of their plantations.
1: Indentured Servitude
Example of indentured servant contract. This is from the indenture of Henry Mayer to Abraham Hestant of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, on 29 September 1738.
Source: Wikipedia
“This is to lett yow vnderstand that I am in a most miserable and pittiful Case both for want of meat and want of cloathes” (Dahlberg, 2012, p. 31).
So wrote indentured servant Richard Frethorne from the Virginia colony to those who held his labor contract in England. Frethorne’s letter reveals the difficulties indentured laborers faced in 1623 Virginia. Considering this was his third letter, it also reveals the challenges one faced in convincing family and friends to redeem – or buy out – an indentured contract (Dahlberg, 2012).
The use of indentured servitude, while not a new practice in English society, became a popular source of labor in the colonies. Indentured servitude existed as a source of unfree labor that contractually bound an individual to work for another for a specific amount of time—usually to pay off debts or as punishment for breaking the law. It provided predictable service and manual labor in the colony’s harsh climate and also expanded the English population, which helped the English exert greater control over their territories (Musselwhite, Mancall, & Horn, 2019, p. 14).
Indentured Servitude: Indentured servitude existed as a source of unfree labor that contractually bound an individual to work for another for a specific amount of time—usually to pay off debts or as punishment for breaking the law.
Indentured servitude was not bound by race and thus at the beginning, many indentured servants were White Englishmen. Frethorne represented one of 132,100 persons (67 percent of the English population) who came to the colonies as indentured servants in the seventeenth century (Dahlberg, 2012, p. 1).
Students
Why is this important? Why study history and why start American history with 1619? Watch this video from The 1619 Project to learn about why 1619 is so critical to understanding U.S. history.
2: Kidnapped & Enslaved Angolans
First Africans
Image Source: Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division
In 1619, John Smith recorded the arrival of a ship bringing kidnapped and enslaved men and women from Angola to the Virginia colony. “About the last of August,” John Smith wrote, “came in a dutch man of ware that sold us twenty Negars” (Sluiter, 1997, p. 395). Kidnapped from their homes in Western Africa, they arrived ironically enough in Point Comfort, Virginia (p. 395). Together with White and Black indentured servants, enslaved Africans labored to support the growing plantations in existence along the Eastern seaboard (Roberts, 2016).
Of the 20 plus enslaved men and women who arrived, we do not know their African names. We do know eleven of the names given them by Portuguese missionaries (Hampton History Museum):
Antony
Isabela
William
Angela
Anthony
Frances
Margaret
Anthony
John
Edward
Anthony
“If for no other reason, it is important we have a conversation about what took place at Point Comfort in 1619 because it forever changed the course of the country. The legacy of this event affects us all and understanding this complex history and legacy helps us to come together as Americans.”
Explore
Want to see historical artifacts from the time period? Virtually visit the Hampton History Museum’s 1619 exhibit here and engage with some of their artifacts.
3: Wealth & Enslavement
From the earliest days of the English colonization efforts, a race-based labor hierarchy existed. Poor White Englishmen and women (even those convicted of a crime) were held in labor contracts that eventually allowed them to regain their freedom. As Englishmen and women, they also operated under the legal protections afforded all citizens under the British Crown.
Enslaved African men and women faced a radically different future. On American soil, African men and women had no rights. With the success of the plantation model, the forced labor of Black men and women became tied to the economic achievement of the planter class. The rapid growth of wealth by the colonists incentivized White men to ensure that Black persons would remain enslaved and without rights. As historian Ira Berlin (1998) noted, “The triumph of the planter class began the transformation of black life” (p. 109). So significant was this transformation that by the end of the seventeenth century, the English colonies transformed from “[a] society with slaves … to a slave society” (Berlin, 1998, p. 109).
The bondage and forced labor of African men and women became the foundation for the economic flourishing of the young colonies who eventually united against Britain and formed the United States of America.
“It is often said that slavery was our country’s original sin, but it is much more than that. Slavery is our country’s origin. It was responsible for the growth of the American colonies, transforming them from far-flung, forgotten outposts of the British Empire to glimmering jewels in the crown of England. And slavery was a driving power behind the new nation’s territorial expansion and industrial maturation, making the United States a powerful force in the Americas and beyond. ”
Community Members
Did you know? European’s did not arrive in Missouri until later in the seventeenth century. However, the land has a rich history as Native Americans inhabited the areas for thousands of years before the European colonizers arrived. Watch the video below to learn about their oft forgotten and ignored histories.
The Forgotten Slavery of Our Ancestors from Learning for Justice.
Think about It!
The United States’ Origin Story
What happens if the story of the United States begins with the landing of the White Lion on the shores of Virginia carrying kidnapped and enslaved Africans sold into forced bondage in the new colony? How does this change the view of the contributions of Black people to the development of the United States?
Did you know?
One in eight Black people currently in the United States would not be here if it were not for slavery (Interview with Nikole Hannah-Jones, 2021).
The forced labor of enslaved Africans enabled the White farmers up and down the Eastern seaboard to make large profits and sustain a degree of wealth unimaginable had they paid all the Black men and women on their plantations.
The enslavement of Africans and Native Americans contributed to the physical building of the city of Saint Louis (and many other U.S. cities).
Historian Ira Berlin wrote of the impact enslaved Africans have had on American history, “The simple truth is that most Americans know little about the three-hundred-year history of slavery in mainland North America with respect to peoples of African descent and almost nothing of its effect on the majority of white Americans” (Hannah-Jones, 2021, xxi).
Your Turn
What is the significance of 1619 in U.S. history? Why has that date so often been overlooked or ignored? How does starting the story of U.S. history with 1619 change our perspective on U.S. history?
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Read about and listen to The 1619 Project published by The New York Times here.
Watch the 1619 Project docu-series based on the book on Hulu here.
Enslavement in the Americas first impacted the Native Americans. Watch this video to better understand how deeply rooted enslavement and bondage of Native Americans is in America.
Read: DuVal, K. (2024). Native Nations: A Millennium in North America. Random House Publishers.
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Find educational materials related to teaching The 1619 Project created in partnership with the Pulitzer Center and The New York Times here.
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General Resources:
Read about the land now known as Missouri before the arrival of European colonizers.
Read about the Indigenous tribes of Missouri.
Books & Articles:
Cleary, P. (2024). Mound City: The Place of the Indigenous Past and Present in St. Louis. University of Missouri Press.
Archives:
The State Historical Society of Missouri: Native American Research Guide.
Museums and Parks:
Missouri State Parks: Missouri’s American Indian Cultural Center.
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Grier, M. P. (2015). ‘Inkface: The Slave Stigma in England’s Early Imperial Imagination’, in Vincent L. Wimbush (ed), Scripturalizing the Human: The Written as the Political, pp. 193-220.
Hartman, S. (2006). Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route. Macmillan.
Smallwood, S. (2007). Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora. Harvard University Press.
Smith, C. (2021). How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America. Little Brown and Company.
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Berlin, I. (1998). Many thousands gone: the first two centuries of slavery in North America. Harvard University Press.
Dahlberg, S. (2012). Do not forget me: Richard Frethorne, indentured servitude, and the English poor law of 1601. Early American Literature, 47(1).
Hannah-Jones, N., Roper, C., Silverman, I., & Silverstein, J. (2021). The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story. Random House Publishing.
Musselwhite, P., Mancall, P., and Horn, J. (2019) Virginia 1619: Slavery and freedom in the making of English America. University of North Carolina Press.
Roberts, Justin. (2016) Race and the Origins of Plantation Slavery. Oxford Research Encyclopedia, American History. Oxford University Press. https://oxfordre.com/americanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-268
Jeffries, H. K. Preface. (2018). “Teaching Hard History.” Southern Poverty Law Center, p. 5. https://www.splcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/files/tt_hard_history_american_slavery.pdf