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A Look Back at the Virginia Colony in 1619

A number of events are scheduled to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the first General Assembly session on July 30th, 1619.

In 1619, Virginia needed more people. Immigrants from England. And the leaders of the fledgling Virginia colony were worried that nobody would want to come to a place that was mired in a war with the Powhatan confederacy of Indian tribes. So it was time for a rebranding.

“It was definitely a rebranding effort,” explains Steven Harris-Scott, a history professor at George Mason University. He says the newly appointed Governor George Yeardley arrived at Jamestown and decided martial law was a bad look. 

“Military law was coming to a close because the last war had sort of ended a few years before 1619, and so there was a desire by the new governor to have more of a democratic representation.”

Burgesses representing 11 different plantations arrived in Jamestown and gaveled into session on July 30. And it was during that first General Assembly session that the first ship of enslaved Africans arrived. So within the span of a month, Virginia launched the General Assembly and began the peculiar institution of slavery.

“You know it’s one of those historical accidents in a lot of ways that really kind of sets the tone for literally the next 400 years of colonial and then American history.”

The slaves were from West Africa, taken by the Portuguese and later acquired by English sailors carrying Dutch diplomatic papers. During a speech at the Library of Congress, William and Mary professor Robert Trent Vinson argued it’s best to think of those first slaves who arrived at Point Comfort was war captives. “Warfare was deliberately used to generate war captives and enslave people, and our 1619 Africans were part of this dynamic.”

Among that first arrival of slaves during the General Assembly session was a woman historians call Angela. “To these erstwhile pirates and aspirant colonists," Vinson noted, "Angela and other enslaved people would be critical to generating untold wealth for new societies that were raced-based, that developed racial caste systems, echoes of which we will live with today.”

Some of those echoes clash, like the move toward representative government and the enslavement of Africans. During a speech at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture, Jamestown Rediscovery Foundation president James Horn explained that clash meant the General Assembly wasn’t really all that democratic, at least not in the way we think of democracy today. “Probably the major difference was, of course, that many people were excluded from the franchise — notably women, Africans, Indian peoples and that didn’t change for long time.”

Even today, he says, some of these unresolved tensions remain. “We’re still struggling, as a people, I think with some of these issues. And I’m hoping that 1619 but more importantly 2019 gives us a chance to enter into a dialogue with one another and talk about these issues some more.”

That dialogue will continue this week, with a host of commemorations and speeches marking the 400th anniversary of both the first General Assembly session and first arrival of slaves, both of which happened  400 years ago this summer.

This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.

Michael Pope is an author and journalist who lives in Old Town Alexandria.