African slaves were first brought to Virginia in 1619 by a Dutch vessel.
George W. Williams, the negro historian of his race in America, says,
"It is due to the Virginia colony to say that the slaves were forced
upon them."[3]
Though slaves were thus introduced as early as 1619, it was not until
1661 that the institution of slavery was recognized in Virginia by
statute law.[4]
For a long period after their first introduction, very few slaves were
imported. At the end of the first half-century there were only some two
thousand, and as late as the year 1715 they numbered only about
twenty-five thousand. In the sixty years, however, immediately preceding
the Revolution, they came in ever-increasing numbers, so that at the
latter date they almost equalled the white population of the colony.[5]