I
It was one hot summer's day in the month of August 1619, as the story
goes, that a Dutch man-of-war entered the mouth of the James River, in
what is now the State of Virginia, and, coming in with the tide, dropped
anchor opposite the little settlement of Jamestown. Ships were rare
enough to be remembered in that day, even when there was nothing
especially remarkable about them, as there was about this one. But this
particular ship was so interesting at the time, and so important because
of what followed in the wake of its coming, that it has not been
forgotten to this day. The reason for this is that it brought the first
slaves to the first English settlement in the New World. It is with the
coming of these first African slaves to Jamestown that the story of
slavery, so far as our own country is concerned, begins.
Although the coming of the first slave ship to what is now the United
States is still remembered, the name of the ship and almost everything
else concerning the vessel and its strange merchandise has been
forgotten. Almost all that is known about it is told in the diary of
John Rolfe, who will be remembered as the man who married the Indian
girl, Pocahontas. He says, "A Dutch man-of-war that sold us twenty
Negars came to Jamestown late in August, 1619." An old record has
preserved some of the names of those first twenty slaves, and from other
sources it is known that the ship sailed from Flushing, Holland. But
that is almost all that is definitely known about the first slave ship
and the first slaves that were brought from Africa to the United States.
The first slaves landed in Virginia were not, by any means, the first
slaves that were brought to the New World. Fifty years before Columbus
landed on the island of San Salvador, the first African slaves were
brought from the West Coast of Africa to Spain, and we know from
historical references and records that Negro slavery had become firmly
established in Spain before Columbus made his first voyage. It was,
therefore, natural enough that the Spanish explorers and adventurers,
following close upon the heels of Columbus in search of gold, should
bring their Negro servants with them.
It seems likely, from all that we can learn, that a few Negroes were
sent out to the West Indies as early as 1501, only eleven years after
the discovery of America and one hundred and twenty years before the
first cargo of slaves was landed in Jamestown. Four years later, in a
letter dated September 15, 1505, written by King Ferdinand to one of his
officials in Hispaniola, which we now call Hayti, he says among other
things: "I will send you more Negro slaves as you request. I think there
be an hundred."
Thus early was Negro slavery introduced into the New World and what do
you suppose was the reason, or rather the excuse, for bringing black men
to America at this time?
It was to save from slavery the native Indians. A good priest by the
name of Las Casas, who accompanied the first Spanish explorers and
conquerors, found that the native people, the Indians, were fast dying
out under the cruel tasks put upon them by their Spanish conquerors.
Unaccustomed to labor, they could not endure the hardships of working in
the mines. The Negroes, on the contrary, had, in many cases, been slaves
in their own country, and had been accustomed to labor. At the same time
it was said that one Negro could do the work of four Indians. So it was
that this good man, out of pity for the enslaved Americans, proposed
that the black people of Africa should be brought over to take their
places.
Thus the traffic in African slaves began, and in the course of the next
three hundred years many millions of black people were carried across
the ocean and settled in slave colonies in the New World. They were
brought to America, first of all, to work in the mines, and afterwards
more of them were brought to do the almost equally difficult pioneer
work on the plantations. Thus, in all hard labor of clearing and
draining the land, building roads and opening up the New World to
cultivation and to civilization, the black man did his part.
It has been estimated that no less than 12,000,000 slaves were
transplanted from Africa to America to supply the demand for labor in
the West Indies, in South America and in the United States, during the
centuries that the white people of Europe were seeking to establish
their civilization in the Western World.
Perhaps as many as 12,000,000 more, who were taken in the wars and raids
in Africa, died on the way to the coast, or in the terrible "middle
passage," as the journey from the coast of Africa to that of America was
called. Many of those captured and sold in Africa, who did not die on
the high seas in the crowded and stifling hold of the ships into which
they were thrust, did not survive what was known as the "seasoning
process," after they were landed in America.
Roughly speaking, it is safe to say that not less than 24,000,000 human
beings were snatched from their homes in Africa and sold into slavery,
to help in building up the world in which we live today in America.
Although African slavery was introduced into America at first in order
to save from extinction the native people of the West Indies, who were
not strong enough to endure the hardships of slavery, it is sad to
recall that the slavery of the Negro did not serve to preserve the
Indian, for it was but a comparatively few years after the Spaniards
landed in the West Indies before nearly all the native tribes had been
swept away. There are today in the West Indies only a few remnants of
the Indians whom Columbus met when he first landed in America.
The black man, on the other hand, in spite of the hardships he has
endured, has not only survived but has greatly increased in numbers. So
greatly has the black man increased that in the West Indies today the
black population far outnumbers all other races represented among the
inhabitants. Altogether, it is estimated there are now about 24,591,000
Negroes in North and South America and the West Indies. Of this number
10,000,000 are in the United States.