RE: That's what they were, most that 1st ship eventually

Posted on: February 10, 2019 at 23:15:59 CT

first Africans to be brought to British North America landed in Virginia in 1619. They arrived on a Dutch ship that had captured them from the Spanish. These approximately 20 individuals appear to have been treated as indentured servants, and a significant number of enslaved Africans earned freedom by fulfilling a work contract or for converting to Christianity.[5] Some successful free people of color, such as Anthony Johnson, in turn acquired slaves or indentured servants for workers. Historians such as Edmund Morgan say this evidence suggests that racial attitudes were much more flexible in 17th-century Virginia than they would later become.[6] A 1625 census recorded 23 Africans in Virginia. In 1649 there were 300, and in 1690 there were 950.[7]