Beneath the Law? The Plight of African- Americans Since Jamestown
Saturday, July 20 2019 | The Omni Homestead Resort | Hot Springs, VA
CONTINUING Written Materials LEGAL EDUCATION
A presentation of The Virginia Bar Association’s Committee on Special Issues of National & State Importance Beneath the Law? The Plight of
African-Americans Since Jamestown PRESENTERS
Michael R. Doucette
Mike Doucette joined the Lynchburg Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office in 1984 as an Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney and was the Commonwealth’s Attorney for Lynchburg from 2006 to 2017. He became the first Executive Director of the Virginia Association of Commonwealth’s Attorneys (VACA) on January 15, 2018. Mike graduated in 1981 from the University of Connecticut and in 1984 from the Marshall/Wythe School of Law at the College of William & Mary.
In 2003, Mike was honored by VACA with the Von Schuch Award as the outstanding assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney for the entire state. In 2005 and 2011, he received the Lynchburg Police Department’s Honorable Service Award. In 2011, Virginia’s Lawyer’s Weekly chose him as one of its 31 honorees for “Leader of the Law.” In 2014, he received the VACA’s Robert F. Horan Jr. Award as the outstanding Commonwealth’s Attorney for Virginia, and the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police President’s Award. In 2017, he received VACA’s Michael R. Doucette Award for Lecturers of Merit.
Mike is a past president of VACA. He previously chaired the Protective Order subcommittee of the Governor’s Domestic Violence Prevention Advisory Board as well the Virginia Criminal Justice Services Board. He has served on the Virginia State Crime Commission, the Virginia Supreme Court’s Special Committee on Criminal Discovery Rules, the Virginia Criminal Justice Conference and as president of the board of directors for the Virginia Legal Aid Society. He serves on the Board of Governors of the Criminal Law Section of the Virginia State Bar and on the Virginia Supreme Court’s Model Jury Instruction Committee.
For many years, Mike has been a frequent faculty member for the Commonwealth’s Attorneys’ Services Council and the National College of District Attorneys. He is a Cold War veteran of the United States Air Force. He lives in Lynchburg with his wife Beth. Beth and Mike have four grown children and five grandchildren.
The biographical information is provided by the speakers or collected from their websites. Dr. H. Timothy Lovelace, Jr.
H. Timothy Lovelace, Jr. is a visiting professor at the University of Virginia School of Law and a professor at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law. He has published articles in journals including the Law and History Review, American Journal of Legal History, and the Journal of American History, and he has forthcoming work in the Duke Law Journal. Lovelace’s current book project, The World is on Our Side: The U.S. and the U.N. Race Convention (Cambridge University Press), examines how U.S. civil rights politics shaped the development of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
In the spring of 2019, Lovelace served as the John Hope Franklin Visiting Professor of American Legal History at Duke University School of Law. During the 2015-2016 academic year, he served as a Law and Public Affairs Fellow at Princeton University. His scholarship has also received support from the William Nelson Cromwell Foundation, Indiana University New Frontiers in the Arts and Humanities program, and John F. Kennedy Presidential Library Foundation.
Lovelace teaches courses in American legal history, constitutional law, and race and the law. In 2015, he received the Indiana University Trustees’ Teaching Award, and in 2019, Lovelace won the Dean Frank Motley Outstanding Faculty and Staff Award.
Before joining the Indiana Law faculty, Lovelace served as the assistant director of the Center for the Study of Race and Law at the University of Virginia School of Law. The Center for the Study of Race and Law provides opportunities for students, scholars, practitioners and community members to examine and exchange ideas related to race and law through lectures, symposia and scholarship.
Dr. Cassandra Newby-Alexander
Cassandra Newby-Alexander is the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, professor of history, and director of the Joseph Jenkins Roberts Center for African Diaspora Studies at Norfolk State University.
Her book publications include Virginia Waterways and the Underground Railroad (2017), An African American History of the Civil War in Hampton Roads (2010), co-authored Black America Series: Portsmouth (2003), Hampton Roads: Remembering Our Schools (2009), and co-edited Voices from within the Veil: African Americans and the Experience of Democracy (2008).
To enhance her research interests and university service to students, Newby-Alexander has received grants totaling over $650,000. In addition, Newby-Alexander currently serves on the boards of the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, the Virginia Law Foundation, the 2019
The biographical information is provided by the speakers or collected from their websites. Commemoration Commission, Historical Commission of the Supreme Court of Virginia, the Norfolk Sister City Association, and WHRO: a PBS-Affiliate.
Dr. Newby-Alexander has also appeared on a number of national programs, including the Library of Congress Kluge Center’s Symposium on 1619's Cultural Exchange (broadcast on C-SPAN in April 2018), Talk of the Nation (in 1998), and Tavis Smiley Presents the “State of the Black Union 2007: Jamestown, The African American Imprint on America” (broadcast on The History Channel). Other programs include the History Channel documentary on Race, Slavery and the Civil War, and on C-SPAN when it filmed the 2010 Virginia Sesquicentennial Conference at NSU entitled, “Race, Slavery, and the Civil War: The Tough Stuff of American History.”
Dr. Newby-Alexander has consulted for numerous agencies and initiatives, including the American Civil War Museum, Casemate Museum at Fort Monroe, the Hampton History Museum, the Portsmouth Museums, the Underground Railroad Educational and Cultural Program, the Virginia Historical Society, Jamestown Settlement Museum, Dr. Martin Luther King Memorial Commission, Virginia Humanities, and Historic Jamestowne.
The Hon. John Charles Thomas
Thomas is a retired justice of the Supreme Court of Virginia. In that role he ruled on thousands of appellate matters addressing the full range of Virginia law including contracts, torts, property, public utilities, trust and estates, and taxation.
Thomas is admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of Virginia, the Supreme Court of the United States, and the United States Courts of Appeal for the 4th, 6th, 9th, 10th, and 11th and D.C. Circuits. He is an AAA certified Mediator and Arbitrator and serves on the AAA Panel of Commercial Arbitrators as well as on the AAA Panel of International Arbitrators. Since June 2005 he has been a Judge of the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland.
A frequent speaker and lecturer across the country and around the world, Thomas has lectured at the Interim University Center in Dubrovnik, Croatia on "Enforcing Interim Arbitral Awards Under the New York Convention"; he has delivered the Constitutional Law lecture to the Firsties at the United States Military Academy at West Point; and he has delivered the "First-Day, First Year" lectures at the University of Virginia School of Law and the College of William & Mary School of Law since 1990.
The biographical information is provided by the speakers or collected from their websites.
Slave Law in Colonial Virginia: A Timeline
1607: Jamestown, the first British North American settlement, was founded in Virginia.
1619: The first African Americans arrived in Jamestown, Virginia.
1640: Virginia courts sentenced a black run away servant, John Punch, to "serve his said master . . . for the time of his natural Life."
1660: Virginia law enacted on English running away with negroes.
BEE itt enacted That in case any English servant shall run away in company with any negroes who are incapable of makeing satisfaction by addition of time, Bee itt enacted that the English so running away in company with them shall serve for the time of the said negroes absence as they are to do for their owne by a former act.
1662: Virginia law enacted on: Run-aways.
WHEREAS there are diverse loytering runaways in this country who very often absent themselves from their masters service and sometimes in a long time cannot be found, that losse of the time and the charge in the seeking them often exceeding the value of their labor: Bee it therefore enacted that all runaways that shall absent themselves from their said masters shalbe lyable to make satisfaction by service after the times by custome or indenture is expired (vizt.) double their times of service soe neglected, and if the time of their running away was in the crop or the charge of recovering them extraordinary the court shall lymitt a longer time of service proportionable to the damage the master shall make appeare he hath susteyned, and because the adjudging the time they should serve is often referred untill the time by indenture is expired, when the proofe of what is due is very uncertaine, it is enacted that the master of any runaway that intends to take the benefitt of this act, shall as soone as he hath recovered him carry him to the next commissioner and there declare and prove the time of his absence, and the charge he hath bin at in his recovery, which commissioner thereupon shall grant his certificate, and the court on that certificate passe judgment for the time he shall serve for his absence; and in case any English servant shall run away in company of any negroes who are incapable of making satisfaction by addition of a time, it is enacted that the English soe running away in the company with them shall at the time of service to their owne masters expired, serve the masters of the said negroes for their absence soe long as they should have done by this act if they had not beene slaves, every christian in company serving his proportion; and if the negroes be lost or dye in such time of their being run away, the christian servants in company with them shall by proportion among them, either pay fower thousand five hundred pounds of tobacco and caske or fower yeares service for every negroe soe lost or dead.
1662: Virginia law enacted: Negro womens children to serve according to the condition of the mother.
WHEREAS some doubts have arrisen whether children got by any Englishman upon a negro woman should be slave or ffree, Be it therefore enacted and declared by this present grand assembly, that all children borne in this country shalbe held bond or free only according to the condition of the mother, And that if any christian shall committ ffornication with a negro man or woman, hee or shee so offending shall pay double the ffines imposed by the former act.
1667: Virginia law enacted, declaring that baptisme of slaves doth not exempt them from bondage.
WHEREAS some doubts have risen whether children that are slaves by birth, and by the charity and piety of their owners made pertakers of the blessed sacrament of baptisme, should by vertue of their baptisme be made ffree; It is enacted and declared by this grand assembly, and the authority thereof, that the conferring of baptisme doth not alter the condition of the person as to his bondage or freedome; that diverse masters, ffreed from this doubt, may more carefully endeavour the propagation of christianity by permitting children, though slaves, or those of growth if capable to be admitted to that sacrament
1669: Virginia law enacted: An act about the casuall killing of slaves.
WHEREAS the only law in force for the punishment of refreactory servants (a) resisting their master, mistris or overseer cannot be inflicted upon negroes, nor the obstinacy of many of them by other then violent meanes supprest, Be it enacted and declared by this grand assembly, if any slave resist his master (or othe by his masters order correcting him) and by the extremity of the correction should chance to die, that his death shall not be accompted ffelony, but the master (or that other person appointed by the master to punish him) be acquit from molestation, since it cannot be presumed that prepensed malice (which alone makes murther ffelony) should induce any man to destroy his owne estate.
1672: The King of England encourages the Royal African company to expand the British slave trade. Within 16 years the company transports nearly 90,000 Africans to the Americas.
1680: Virginia law enacted: An act for preventing Negroes Insurrections.
WHEREAS the frequent meeting of considerable numbers of negroe slaves under pretence of feasts and burialls is judged of dangerous consequence; for prevention whereof for the future, Bee it enacted by the kings most excellent majestie by and with the consent of the generall assembly, and it is hereby enacted by the authority aforesaid, that from and after the publication of this law, it shall not be lawfull for any negroe or other slave to carry or arme himselfe with any club, staffe, gunn, sword or any other weapon of defence or offence, nor to goe or depart from of his masters ground without a certificate from his master, mistris or overseer, and such permission not to be granted but upon perticuler and necessary occasions; and every negroe or slave soe offending not haveing a certificate as aforesaid shalbe sent to the next constable, who is hereby enjoyned and required to give the said negroe twenty lashes on his bare back well layd on, and soe sent home to his said master, mistris or overseer. And it is further enacted by the authority aforesaid that if any negroe or other slave shall presume or lift up his hand in opposition against any christian, shall for every such offence, upon due proofe made thereof by the oath of the party before a magistrate, have and receive thirty lashed on his bare back well laid on. And it is hereby further enacted by the authority aforesaid that if any negroe or other slave shall absent himself from his masters service and lye hid and lurking in obscure places, comitting injuries to the inhabitants, and shall resist any person or persons that shalby any lawfull authority be imployed to apprehend and take the said negroe, that then in case of such resistance, it shalbe lawfull for such person or persons to kill the said negroe or slave soe lying out and resisting, and that this law be once every six months published at the respective county courts and parish churches within this colony.
1682: Virginia laws enacted
Act I. It is enacted that all servants. . . which [sic] shall be imported into this country either by sea or by land, whether Negroes, Moors [Muslim North Africans], mulattoes or Indians who and whose parentage and native countries are not Christian at the time of their first purchase by some Christian. . . and all Indians, which shall be sold by our neighborign Indians, or any other trafficing with us for slaves, are hereby adjudged, deemed and taken to be slaves to all intents and purposes any law, usage, or custom to the contrary notwithstanding.
XIX. And for a further prevention of that abominable mixture and spurious issue, which hereafter may increase in this her majesty's colony and dominion, as well by English, and other white men and women intermarrying with negros or mulattos, as by their unlawful coition with them, Be it enacted, by the authority aforesaid, and it is hereby enacted, That whatsoever English, or other white man or woman, being free, shall intemarry with a negro or mulatto man or woman, bond or free, shall, by judgment of the county court, be committed to prison, and there remain, during the space of six months, without bail or mainprize; and shall forfeit and pay ten pounds current money of Virginia, to the use of the parish, as aforesaid.
XXXIV. And if any slave resist his master, or owner, or other person, by his or her order, correcting such slave, and shall happen to be killed in such correction, it shall not be accounted felony; but the master, owner, and every such other person so giving correction, shall be free and acquit of all punishment and accusation for the same, as if such accident had never happened: And also, if any negro, mulatto, or Indian, bond or free, shall at any time, lift his or her hand, in oppostion against any christian, not being negro, mulatto, or Indian, he or she so offending, shall, for every such offence, proved by the oath of the party, receive on his or her bare back, thirty lashes, well laid on; cognizable by a justice of the peace for that county wherein such offence shall be committed.
1698: The English Parliament ends the monopoly of the African slave trade by the Royal African Company. As a result, the number of Africans transported to the British colonies increases from 5,000 to 45,000 a year. England becomes the largest trafficker in slaves in the Western world.
1705: The Virginia General Assembly declared:
"All servants imported and brought into the Country...who were not Christians in their native Country...shall be accounted and be slaves. All Negro, mulatto and Indian slaves within this dominion...shall be held to be real estate. If any slave resist his master...correcting such slave, and shall happen to be killed in such correction...the master shall be free of all punishment...as if such accident never happened."
1705: The Virginia General Assembly declared: And be it further enacted, That no minister of the church of England, or other minister,or person whatsoever, within this colony and dominion, shall hereafter wittingly presume to marry a white man with a negro or mulatto woman; or to marry a white woman with a negro or mulatto man, upon pain of forfeiting and paying, for every such marriage the sum of ten thousand pounds of tobacco; one half to our sovereign lady the Queen, her heirs and successors, for and towards the support of the government, and the contingent charges thereof; and the othe half to the informer; To be recovered, with costs, by action of debt, bill, plaint, or information, in any court of record within this her majesty’s colony and dominion, wherein no essoin, protection, or wager of law, shall be allowed.
The 1705 code, which would also serve as a model for other colonies, went even further. The law imposed harsh physical punishments, since enslaved persons who did not own property could not be required to pay fines. It stated that slaves needed written permission to leave their plantation, that slaves found guilty of murder or rape would be hanged, that for robbing or any other major offence, the slave would receive sixty lashes and be placed in stocks, where his or her ears would be cut off, and that for minor offences, such as associating with whites, slaves would be whipped, branded, or maimed.
1723 - Virginia’s Anti-Assembly Law impeded negroes from meeting or having a sense of community. 5
1723 - Virginia’s Weapons Law forbade negroes from keeping weapons. 5
1723 - The Virginia colony enacted laws to limit the increase of free negroes to those who were born into that class or manumitted by special acts of the legislature. Free negroes were denied the right to vote and forbidden to carry weapons of any sort.
1750 Virginia passes laws defining the distinction between a slave and a servant, relegating all slaves to the status of property.
Slavery and the Law in Virginia The Growth of the Black Population:
1625 23
1648 300
1671 2,000
1680 3,000
1700 16,390
1720 26,559
1730 30,000
1740 60,000
1775 210,000
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Supreme Court of the United States PLESSY v. FERGUSON. No. 210.
May 18, 1896.
Mr. Justice BROWN, after stating the facts in the foregoing language, delivered the opinion of the court.
This case turns upon the constitutionality of an act of the general assembly of the state of Louisiana, passed in 1890, providing for separate railway carriages for the white and colored races...
…The constitutionality of this act is attacked upon the ground that it conflicts both with the thirteenth amendment of the constitution, abolishing slavery, and the fourteenth amendment, which prohibits certain restrictive legislation on the part of the states.
1. That it does not conflict with the thirteenth amendment, which abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, is too clear for argument. Slavery implies involuntary servitude,-a state of bondage; the ownership of mankind as a chattel, or, at least, the control of the labor and services of one man for the benefit of another, and the absence of a legal right to the disposal of his own person, property, and services. This amendment was said … to have been intended primarily to abolish slavery, as it had been previously known in this country, and that it equally forbade Mexican peonage or the Chinese coolie trade, when they amounted to slavery or involuntary servitude, and that the use of the word ‘servitude’ was intended to prohibit the use of all forms of involuntary slav- ery, of whatever class or name. It was intimated, however, in that case, that this amendment was regarded by the statesmen of that day as insufficient to protect the colored race from certain laws which had been enacted in the Southern states, imposing upon the colored race onerous disabilities and burdens, and curtailing their rights in the pursuit of life, liberty, and property to such an extent that their freedom was of little value; and that the fourteenth amendment was devised to meet this exigency.
So, too, in the Civil Rights Cases, it was said that the act of a mere individual, the owner of an inn, a public convey- ance or place of amusement, refusing accommodations to colored people, cannot be justly regarded as imposing any badge of slavery or servitude upon the applicant, but only as involving an ordinary civil injury, properly cognizable by the laws of the state, and presumably subject to redress by those laws until the contrary appears. ‘It would be running the slavery question into the ground,’ said Mr. Justice Bradley, ‘to make it apply to every act of discrimina- tion which a person may see fit to make as to the guests he will entertain, or as to the people he will take into his coach or cab or car, or admit to his concert or theater, or deal with in other matters of intercourse or business.’
A statute which implies merely a legal distinction between the white and colored races-a distinction which is found- ed in the color of the two races, and which must always exist so long as white men are distinguished from the other race by color-has no tendency to destroy the legal equality of the two races, or re-establish a state of involuntary servitude…
2. …The object of the [Fourteenth] amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races
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before the law, but, in the nature of things, it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political, equality, or a commingling of the two races upon terms unsatis- factory to either. Laws permitting, and even requiring, their separation, in places where they are liable to be brought into contact, do not necessarily imply the inferiority of either race to the other, and have been generally, if not uni- versally, recognized as within the competency of the state legislatures in the exercise of their police power. The most common instance of this is connected with the establishment of separate schools for white and colored chil- dren, which have been held to be a valid exercise of the legislative power even by courts of states where the political rights of the colored race have been longest and most earnestly enforced.
One of the earliest of these cases is that of Roberts v. City of Boston, which the supreme judicial court of Massachu- setts held that the general school committee of Boston had power to make provision for the instruction of colored children in separate schools established exclusively for them, and to prohibit their attendance upon the other schools. …Similar laws have been enacted by congress under its general power of legislation over the District of Columbia, as well as by the legislatures of many of the states, and have been generally, if not uniformly, sustained by the courts…
Laws forbidding the intermarriage of the two races may be said in a technical sense to interfere with the freedom of contract, and yet have been universally recognized as within the police power of the state….
…It is claimed by [Plessy], in any mixed community, the reputation of belonging to the dominant race, in this in- stance the white race, is ‘property,’ in the same sense that a right of action or of inheritance is property. Conceding this to be so, for the purposes of this case, we are unable to see how this statute deprives him of, or in any way af- fects his right to, such property. If he be a white man, and assigned to a colored coach, he may have his action for damages against the company for being deprived of his so-called ‘property.’ Upon the other hand, if he be a colored man, and be so assigned, he has been deprived of no property, since he is not lawfully entitled to the reputation of being a white man.
[Counsel for Plessy suggests] that the same argument that will justify the state legislature in requiring railways to provide separate accommodations for the two races will also authorize them to require separate cars to be provided for people whose hair is of a certain color, or who are aliens, or who belong to certain nationalities, or to enact laws requiring colored people to walk upon one side of the street, and white people upon the other, or requiring white men's houses to be painted white, and colored men's black, or their vehicles or business signs to be of different col- ors, upon the theory that one side of the street is as good as the other, or that a house or vehicle of one color is as good as one of another color. The reply to all this is that every exercise of the police power must be reasonable, and extend only to such laws as are enacted in good faith for the promotion of the public good, and not for the annoy- ance or oppression of a particular class…
So far, then, as a conflict with the fourteenth amendment is concerned, the case reduces itself to the question wheth- er the statute of Louisiana is a reasonable regulation, and with respect to this there must necessarily be a large dis- cretion on the part of the legislature. In determining the question of reasonableness, it is at liberty to act with refer- ence to the established usages, customs, and traditions of the people, and with a view to the promotion of their com- fort, and the preservation of the public peace and good order. Gauged by this standard, we cannot say that a law which authorizes or even requires the separation of the two races in public conveyances is unreasonable, or more obnoxious to the fourteenth amendment than the acts of congress requiring separate schools for colored children in the District of Columbia, the constitutionality of which does not seem to have been questioned, or the corresponding acts of state legislatures.
We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff's argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced separa- tion of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it. The argument neces- sarily assumes that if, as has been more than once the case, and is not unlikely to be so again, the colored race
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should become the dominant power in the state legislature, and should enact a law in precisely similar terms, it would thereby relegate the white race to an inferior position. We imagine that the white race, at least, would not acquiesce in this assumption. The argument also assumes that social prejudices may be overcome by legislation, and that equal rights cannot be secured to the negro except by an enforced commingling of the two races. We cannot accept this proposition. If the two races are to meet upon terms of social equality, it must be the result of natural affinities, a mutual appreciation of each other's merits, and a voluntary consent of individuals. …Legislation is pow- erless to eradicate racial instincts, or to abolish distinctions based upon physical differences, and the attempt to do so can only result in accentuating the difficulties of the present situation. If the civil and political rights of both races be equal, one cannot be inferior to the other civilly or politically. If one race be inferior to the other socially, the consti- tution of the United States cannot put them upon the same plane…
…The judgment of the court below is therefore affirmed.
Mr. Justice HARLAN dissenting.
…Under this [Louisiana] statute, no colored person is permitted to occupy a seat in a coach assigned to white per- sons; nor any white person to occupy a seat in a coach assigned to colored persons. …Only ‘nurses attending chil- dren of the other race’ are excepted from the operation of the statute. No exception is made of colored attendants traveling with adults. A white man is not permitted to have his colored servant with him in the same coach, even if his condition of health requires the constant personal assistance of such servant. If a colored maid insists upon riding in the same coach with a white woman whom she has been employed to serve, and who may need her personal at- tention while traveling, she is subject to be fined or imprisoned for such an exhibition of zeal in the discharge of duty.
…In respect of civil rights, common to all citizens, the constitution of the United States does not, I think, permit any public authority to know the race of those entitled to be protected in the enjoyment of such rights. Every true man has pride of race, and under appropriate circumstances, when the rights of others, his equals before the law, are not to be affected, it is his privilege to express such pride and to take such action based upon it as to him seems proper. But I deny that any legislative body or judicial tribunal may have regard to the race of citizens when the civil rights of those citizens are involved. Indeed, such legislation as that here in question is inconsistent not only with that equality of rights which pertains to citizenship, national and state, but with the personal liberty enjoyed by every one within the United States.
The thirteenth amendment does not permit the withholding or the deprivation of any right necessarily inhering in freedom. It not only struck down the institution of slavery as previously existing in the United States, but it prevents the imposition of any burdens or disabilities that constitute badges of slavery or servitude. It decreed universal civil freedom in this country. This court has so adjudged. But, that amendment having been found inadequate to the pro- tection of the rights of those who had been in slavery, it was followed by the fourteenth amendment, which added greatly to the dignity and glory of American citizenship, and to the security of personal liberty, by declaring that ‘all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside,’ and that ‘no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.’ These two amendments, if enforced according to their true intent and meaning, will protect all the civil rights that pertain to freedom and citizenship. Finally, and to the end that no citizen should be denied, on account of his race, the privilege of participating in the political control of his country, it was declared by the fifteenth amendment that ‘the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude.’
…It was said in argument that the statute of Louisiana does not discriminate against either race, but prescribes a rule
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applicable alike to white and colored citizens. But this argument does not meet the difficulty. Every one knows that the statute in question had its origin in the purpose, not so much to exclude white persons from railroad cars occu- pied by blacks, as to exclude colored people from coaches occupied by or assigned to white persons. Railroad corpo- rations of Louisiana did not make discrimination among whites in the matter of accommodation for travelers. The thing to accomplish was, under the guise of giving equal accommodation for whites and blacks, to compel the latter to keep to themselves while traveling in railroad passenger coaches…
…If a state can prescribe, as a rule of civil conduct, that whites and blacks shall not travel as passengers in the same railroad coach, why may it not so regulate the use of the streets of its cities and towns as to compel white citizens to keep on one side of a street, and black citizens to keep on the other? Why may it not, upon like grounds, punish whites and blacks who ride together in street cars or in open vehicles on a public road or street? Why may it not re- quire sheriffs to assign whites to one side of a court room, and blacks to the other? And why may it not also prohibit the commingling of the two races in the galleries of legislative halls or in public assemblages convened for the con- sideration of the political questions of the day? Further, if this statute of Louisiana is consistent with the personal liberty of citizens, why may not the state require the separation in railroad coaches of native and naturalized citizens of the United States, or of Protestants and Roman Catholics?
The answer given at the argument to these questions was that regulations of the kind they suggest would be unrea- sonable, and could not, therefore, stand before the law. Is it meant that the determination of questions of legislative power depends upon the inquiry whether the statute whose validity is questioned is, in the judgment of the courts, a reasonable one, taking all the circumstances into consideration?
…The white race deems itself to be the dominant race in this country. And so it is, in prestige, in achievements, in education, in wealth, and in power. So, I doubt not, it will continue to be for all time, if it remains true to its great heritage, and holds fast to the principles of constitutional liberty. But in view of the constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here. Our constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the most powerful. The law regards man as man, and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved. It is therefore to be regretted that this high tribunal, the final expositor of the fundamental law of the land, has reached the conclusion that it is competent for a state to regulate the enjoyment by citizens of their civil rights solely upon the basis of race.
In my opinion, the judgment this day rendered will, in time, prove to be quite as pernicious as the decision made by this tribunal in the Dred Scott Case.
…The present decision, it may well be apprehended, will not only stimulate aggressions, more or less brutal and irritating, upon the admitted rights of colored citizens, but will encourage the belief that it is possible, by means of state enactments, to defeat the beneficent purposes which the people of the United States had in view when they adopted the recent amendments of the constitution, by one of which the blacks of this country were made citizens of the United States and of the states in which they respectively reside, and whose privileges and immunities, as citi- zens, the states are forbidden to abridge. Sixty millions of whites are in no danger from the presence here of eight millions of blacks. The destinies of the two races, in this country, are indissolubly linked together, and the interests of both require that the common government of all shall not permit the seeds of race hate to be planted under the sanction of law. What can more certainly arouse race hate, what more certainly create and perpetuate a feeling of distrust between these races, than state enactments which, in fact, proceed on the ground that colored citizens are so inferior and degraded that they cannot be allowed to sit in public coaches occupied by white citizens? That, as all will admit, is the real meaning of such legislation as was enacted in Louisiana.
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There is a race so different from our own that we do not permit those belonging to it to become citizens of the Unit- ed States. Persons belonging to it are, with few exceptions, absolutely excluded from our country. I allude to the Chinese race. But, by the statute in question, a Chinaman can ride in the same passenger coach with white citizens of the United States, while citizens of the black race in Louisiana, many of whom, perhaps, risked their lives for the preservation of the Union, who are entitled, by law, to participate in the political control of the state and nation, who are not excluded, by law or by reason of their race, from public stations of any kind, and who have all the legal rights that belong to white citizens, are yet declared to be criminals, liable to imprisonment, if they ride in a public coach occupied by citizens of the white race. It is scarcely just to say that a colored citizen should not object to oc- cupying a public coach assigned to his own race. He does not object, nor, perhaps, would he object to separate coaches for his race if his rights under the law were recognized. But he does object, and he ought never to cease ob- jecting, that citizens of the white and black races can be adjudged criminals because they sit, or claim the right to sit, in the same public coach on a public highway.
…The arbitrary separation of citizens, on the basis of race, while they are on a public highway, is a badge of servi- tude wholly inconsistent with the civil freedom and the equality before the law established by the constitution. It cannot be justified upon any legal grounds…
U.S. 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson 163 U.S. 537, 16 S.Ct. 1138, 41 L.Ed. 256
END OF DOCUMENT
LOVING V. VIRGINIA 388 U.S. 1 (1967) SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Mr. Chief Justice WARREN delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents a constitutional question never addressed by this Court: whether a statutory scheme adopted by the State of Virginia to prevent marriages between persons solely on the basis of racial classifications violates the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. For reasons which seem to us to reflect the central meaning of those constitutional commands, we conclude that these statutes cannot stand consistently with the Fourteenth Amendment.
In June 1958, two residents of Virginia, Mildred Jeter, a Negro woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, were married in the District of Columbia pursuant to its laws. Shortly after their marriage, the Lovings returned to Virginia and established their marital abode in Caroline County. At the October Term, 1958, of the Circuit Court of Caroline County, a grand jury issued an indictment charging the Lovings with violating Virginia's ban on interracial marriages. On January 6, 1959, the Lovings pleaded guilty to the charge and were sentenced to one year in jail; however, the trial judge suspended the sentence for a period of 25 years on the condition that the Lovings leave the State and not return to Virginia together for 25 years. He stated in an opinion that:
‘Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.’
After their convictions, the Lovings took up residence in the District of Columbia. On November 6, 1963, they filed a motion in the state trial court to vacate the judgment and set aside the sentence . . . .
The two statutes under which appellants were convicted and sentenced are part of a comprehensive statutory scheme aimed at prohibiting and punishing interracial marriages. The Lovings were convicted of violating [a section] of the Virginia Code:
‘Leaving State to evade law.-If any white person and colored person shall go out of this State, for the purpose of being married, and with the intention of returning, and be married out of it, and afterwards return to and reside in it, cohabiting as man and wife, they shall be punished as provided in § 20-59, and the marriage shall be governed by the same law as if it had been solemnized in this State. The fact of their cohabitation here as man and wife shall be evidence of their marriage.’
Section 20-59, which defines the penalty for miscegenation, provides: “Punishment for marriage.-If any white person intermarry with a colored person, or any colored person intermarry with a white person, he shall be guilty of a felony and shall be punished by confinement in the penitentiary for not less than one nor more than five years.”
[Of o]ther central provisions in the Virginia statutory scheme . . . [one] automatically voids all marriages between ‘a white person and a colored person’ without any judicial proceeding [like a divorce or annulment], and [others] which . . . define ‘white persons' and ‘colored persons and Indians' for purposes of the statutory prohibitions. The Lovings have never disputed in the course of this litigation that Mrs. Loving is a ‘colored person’ or that Mr. Loving is a ‘white person’ within the meanings given those terms by the Virginia statutes.
Virginia is now one of 16 States which prohibit and punish marriages on the basis of racial classifications. Penalties for miscegenation arose as an incident to slavery and have been common in Virginia since the colonial period. The present statutory scheme dates from the adoption of the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, passed during the period of extreme nativism which followed the end of the First World War. The central features of this Act, and current Virginia law, are the absolute prohibition of a ‘white person’ marrying other than another ‘white person,' a prohibition against issuing marriage licenses until the issuing official is satisfied that the applicants' statements as to their race are correct, certificates of ‘racial composition’ to be kept by both local and state registrars, and the carrying forward of earlier prohibitions against racial intermarriage.
I.
In upholding the constitutionality of these provisions in the decision below, the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia referred to its 1955 decision in Naim v. Naim, 197 Va. 80, 87 S.E.2d 749, as stating the reasons supporting the validity of these laws. In Naim, the state court concluded that the State's legitimate purposes were ‘to preserve the racial integrity of its citizens,’ and to prevent ‘the corruption of blood,’ ‘a mongrel breed of citizens,’ and ‘the obliteration of racial pride,’ obviously an endorsement of the doctrine of White Supremacy. Id., at 90, 87 S.E.2d, at 756. The court also reasoned that marriage has traditionally been subject to state regulation without federal intervention, and, consequently, the regulation of marriage should be left to exclusive state control by the Tenth Amendment.
While the state court is no doubt correct in asserting that marriage is a social relation subject to the State's police power, Maynard v. Hill, 125 U.S. 190 (1888), the State does not contend in its argument before this Court that its powers to regulate marriage are unlimited notwithstanding the commands of the Fourteenth Amendment. Nor could it do so in light of Meyer v. State of Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923), and Skinner v. State of Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535 (1942). Instead, the State argues that the meaning of the Equal Protection Clause, as illuminated by the statements of the Framers, is only that state penal laws containing an interracial element as part of the definition of the offense must apply equally to whites and Negroes in the sense that members of each race are punished to the same degree. Thus, the State contends that, because its miscegenation statutes punish equally both the white and the Negro participants in an interracial marriage, these statutes, despite their reliance on racial classifications do not constitute an invidious discrimination based upon race. The second argument advanced by the State assumes the validity of its equal application theory. The argument is that, if the Equal Protection Clause does not outlaw miscegenation statutes because of their reliance on racial classifications, the question of constitutionality would thus become whether there was any rational basis for a State to treat interracial marriages differently from other marriages. On this question, the State argues, the scientific evidence is substantially in doubt and, consequently, this Court should defer to the wisdom of the state legislature in adopting its policy of discouraging interracial marriages. Because we reject the notion that the mere ‘equal application’ of a statute containing racial classifications is enough to remove the classifications from the Fourteenth Amendment's proscription of all invidious racial discriminations, we do not accept the State's contention that these statutes should be upheld if there is any possible basis for concluding that they serve a rational purpose. The mere fact of equal application does not mean that our analysis of these statutes should follow the approach we have taken in cases involving no racial discrimination where the Equal Protection Clause has been arrayed against a statute discriminating between the kinds of advertising which may be displayed on trucks in New York City, Railway Express Agency, Inc. v. People of State of New York, 336 U.S. 106 (1949), or an exemption in Ohio's ad valorem tax for merchandise owned by a non-resident in a storage warehouse, Allied Stores of Ohio, Inc. v. Bowers, 358 U.S. 522 (1959). In these cases, involving distinctions not drawn according to race, the Court has merely asked whether there is any rational foundation for the discriminations, and has deferred to the wisdom of the state legislatures. In the case at bar, however, we deal with statutes containing racial classifications, and the fact of equal application does not immunize the statute from the very heavy burden of justification which the Fourteenth Amendment has traditionally required of state statutes drawn according to race.
The State argues that statements in the Thirty-ninth Congress about the time of the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment indicate that the Framers did not intend the Amendment to make unconstitutional state miscegenation laws. Many of the statements alluded to by the State concern the debates over the Freedmen's Bureau Bill, which President Johnson vetoed, and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, 14 Stat. 27, enacted over his veto. While these statements have some relevance to the intention of Congress in submitting the Fourteenth Amendment, it must be understood that the pertained to the passage of specific statutes and not to the broader, organic purpose of a constitutional amendment. As for the various statements directly concerning the Fourteenth Amendment, we have said in connection with a related problem, that although these historical sources ‘cast some light’ they are not sufficient to resolve the problem;
[a]t best, they are inconclusive. The most avid proponents of the post-War Amendments undoubtedly intended them to remove all legal distinctions among ‘all persons born or naturalized in the United States.’ Their opponents, just as certainly, were antagonistic to both the letter and the spirit of the Amendments and wished them to have the most limited effect.
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483, 489 (1954). See also Strauder v. State of West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303, 310 (1880). We have rejected the proposition that the debates in the Thirty-ninth Congress or in the state legislatures which ratified the Fourteenth Amendment supported the theory advanced by the State, that the requirement of equal protection of the laws is satisfied by penal laws defining offenses based on racial classifications so long as white and Negro participants in the offense were similarly punished. McLaughlin v. State of Florida, 379 U.S. 184 (1964).
The State finds support for its ‘equal application’ theory in the decision of the Court in Pace v. State of Alabama, 106 U.S. 583 (1883). In that case, the Court upheld a conviction under an Alabama statute forbidding adultery or fornication between a white person and a Negro which imposed a greater penalty than that of a statute proscribing similar conduct by members of the same race. The Court reasoned that the statute could not be said to discriminate against Negroes because the punishment for each participant in the offense was the same. However, as recently as the 1964 Term, in rejecting the reasoning of that case, we stated ‘Pace represents a limited view of the Equal Protection Clause which has not withstood analysis in the subsequent decisions of this Court.’ McLaughlin v. Florida, 379 U.S. at 188. As we there demonstrated, the Equal Protection Clause requires the consideration of whether the classifications drawn by any statute constitute an arbitrary and invidious discrimination. The clear and central purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was to eliminate all official state sources of invidious racial discrimination in the States.
There can be no question but that Virginia's miscegenation statutes rest solely upon distinctions drawn according to race. The statutes proscribe generally accepted conduct if engaged in by members of different races. Over the years, this Court has consistently repudiated “[d]istinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry” as being “odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality.” Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U.S. 81, 100 (1943). At the very least, the Equal Protection Clause demands that racial classifications, especially suspect in criminal statutes, be subjected to the “most rigid scrutiny,” Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214, 216 (1944), and, if they are ever to be upheld, they must be shown to be necessary to the accomplishment of some permissible state objective, independent of the racial discrimination which it was the object of the Fourteenth Amendment to eliminate. Indeed, two members of this Court have already stated that they ‘cannot conceive of a valid legislative purpose . . . which makes the color of a person's skin the test of whether his conduct is a criminal offense.’ McLaughlin v. Florida, 379 U.S. at 198 (Stewart, J., joined by Douglas, J., concurring).
There is patently no legitimate overriding purpose independent of invidious racial discrimination which justifies this classification. The fact that Virginia prohibits only interracial marriages involving white persons demonstrates that the racial classifications must stand on their own justification, as measures designed to maintain White Supremacy.1 We have consistently denied the constitutionality of measures which restrict the rights of citizens on account of race. There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the Equal Protection Clause.
II.
These statutes also deprive the Lovings of liberty without due process of law in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.
Marriage is one of the ‘basic civil rights of man,’ fundamental to our very existence and survival. Skinner v. State of Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535, 541 (1942). See also Maynard v. Hill, 125 U.S. 190 (1888). To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.
These convictions must be reversed. It is so ordered.
1 [11] Appellants point out that the State's concern in these statutes, as expressed in the words of the 1924 Act's title, ‘An Act to Preserve Racial Integrity,’ extends only to the integrity of the white race. While Virginia prohibits whites from marrying any nonwhite (subject to the exception for the descendants of Pocahontas), Negroes, Orientals, and any other racial class may intermarry without statutory interference. Appellants contend that this distinction renders Virginia's miscegenation statutes arbitrary and unreasonable even assuming the constitutional validity of an official purpose to preserve ‘racial integrity.’ We need not reach this contention because we find the racial classifications in these statutes repugnant to the Fourteenth Amendment, even assuming an even-handed state purpose to protect the ‘integrity’ of all races.
Clarence Taylor, “Introduction: African Americans, Police Brutality, and the U.S. Criminal Justice System, The Journal of African American History 98, (Spring 2013) No. 2, Special Issue: “African Americans, Police Brutality, and the U.S. Criminal Justice System: Historical Perspectives,” 200-204.
Christian G. Samito, Becoming American under Fire: Irish Americans, African Americans, and the Politics of Citizenship during the Civil War Era. Cornell University Press, 2009. 1. INTRODUCTION Attorney General Edward Bates grew frustrated as he contemplated, in late 1862, what constituted citizenship in the United States. Despite the Supreme Court’s exclusionary Dred Scott v. Sandford ruling in 1857, Secretary of the Treasury Salmon Chase asked Bates for his official opinion as to whether the United States could recognize black men as citizens, making them eligible to command American ships, after a federal revenue cutter detained a schooner captained by a black man.
2. CHAPTER 1 The Crisis of Citizenship in the 1850s (pp. 13-25) A crisis of citizenship wracked the United States between the Mexican War and the Civil War. Debate concerning slavery, citizenship for free blacks and immigrants, and the rights applicable to both groups, intensified during the 1850s. These discussions reveal a broader question with which society wrestled in the decade before the Civil War and another one that it tried to avoid: Who comprised the American people and what did citizenship mean? The idea of citizenship based on voluntary consent emerged during the Revolutionary era, when Americans rejected subjectship and developed the concept that individuals had the right to choose their national identity.
3. CHAPTER 2 The Question of Armed Service As the crisis of citizenship culminated with the Civil War, whether African Americans or Irish Americans would actively participate in the struggle for the Union remained uncertain in light of their prewar experiences and ambiguous allegiances. Yet many Irish Americans and African Americans seized on the opportunity provided them by the Civil War to work toward membership in the broader local and national community, and they entered a new phase in the debate about what American citizenship meant and who could partake in it.
4. CHAPTER 3 African Americans in Arms Minutes after Alexander T. Augusta boarded a train in Baltimore, a white teenager tore off a shoulder strap from his uniform. As Augusta scolded the boy, a man tore off his other strap, and other people menaced the distinguished thirty-eight-year-old doctor as he quietly took his seat. Augusta, educated in Canada and the first black surgeon to serve in the American army, reported the incident to provost guards elsewhere in the car once the group left.
5. CHAPTER 4 Equal Rights and the Experience of Military Justice for African American Soldiers While at camp on Folly Island, South Carolina, on May 1, 1864, Wallace Baker of the Fifty-fifth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry mutinied against Lieutenant Thomas F. Ellsworth, a twenty-three-year-old from Ipswich, Massachusetts, who earned a corporal’s stripe for bravery at Gettysburg before he joined the Fifty-fifth Massachusetts as an officer. Slightly younger and hailing from Kentucky, Baker lost his temper when Ellsworth sent him to his quarters for arriving at an inspection unprepared. Baker returned before Ellsworth dismissed the company and, exasperated at his command’s laughter, the lieutenant repeatedly ordered Baker to his tent.
6. CHAPTER 5 Irish Americans in Arms In March 1863, an Irish-born sergeant in the Ninth Massachusetts presented his young lieutenant, an Irish American born in Boston, with a sword on behalf of their company. Sergeant Frank Lawler anticipated that the recipient would “tarnish its bright hue in the crimson tide of those recreants who would rend to pieces our beloved adopted country.” A notion of agency pervaded that phrase commonly used by Irish American leaders, “adopted country,” in contrast to the harsh realities of the Famine which forced most of the Irish to migrate in the first place.
7. CHAPTER 6 African Americans and the Call for Rights In 1868, Kentucky’s superintendent of freedmen’s affairs, Benjamin P. Runkle, announced in a speech to blacks in Louisville, “At last when the government, casting aside the last lingering remnants of prejudice, determined to use all the power it could command to crush the rebellion it offered the musket to the Black man—the musket without the promise of bounty and without the sword—How they responded let the names of 125,000 black men on the rolls of the National Army answer! How they used their arms, let Fort Wagner and Port Hudson respond!”
8. CHAPTER 7 The Affirmation of Naturalized Citizenship in America On June 15, 1864, the men of the Ninth Massachusetts gathered at Faneuil Hall in Boston to celebrate their homecoming after the expiration of their three-year term of enlistment. The city’s mayor thanked the veterans for doing as much as any citizens had to sustain the Union, and Massachusetts adjutant general William Schouler declared that their service helped to undermine pre-war nativism. Afterward, the regiment marched to Boston’s Irish American district in the North End for a grand reception...
9. CHAPTER 8 The Affirmation of Naturalized Citizenship Abroad In the spring of 1867, Fenians dispatched arms and men to Ireland aboard a ship they named Erin’s Hope. Britain arrested twenty-eight of thirty-one men within a day of their landing on Irish soil, including native-born American William J. Nagle and naturalized American John Warren. According to Nagle, the British arrested the two former Civil War officers on June 1 and kept them in the local prison at Youghal until June 4 before marching them in handcuffs through the streets of Cork to the jail in that city—“the penalty of being an American soldier with Irish blood in my veins.
10. EPILOGUE: The Legacy of National Citizenship in the Era of the Civil War and Reconstruction Americans confronted anew during the 1860s the issues of who comprised “the people,” as well as what citizenship meant, and they did so in the course of the hard-fought triumph of the Founders’ ideals of liberty and freedom over the paradox of slavery. From the smoke of the Civil War battlefields, and equally hazy antebellum understandings of what national citizenship meant, Americans began to clarify citizenship doctrine and practice in ways still with us today. Citizenship as a concept became primarily national in character. It contained certain civil, political, and economic rights to be safeguarded principally by the federal government.
Slavery and the Law in Virginia https://www.history.org/history/teaching/slavelaw.cfm
The Growth of the Black Population: 1625 23 1648 300 1671 2,000 1680 3,000 1700 16,390 1720 26,559 1730 30,000 1740 60,000
1775 210,000
SLAVE LAWS PASSED IN VIRGINIA: 1640 — 1660: The Critical Period: Custom to Law when Status Changed to "Servant for Life" • 1639/40 - The General Assembly of Virginia specifically excludes blacks from the requirement of possessing arms • 1642 - Black women are deemed tithables (taxable), creating a distinction between African and English women. • 1662 - Blacks face the possibility of life servitude. The General Assembly of Virginia decides that any child born to an enslaved woman will also be a slave. 1660 — 1680: Slave Laws Further Restrict Freedom of Blacks and Legalize Different Treatment for Blacks and Whites • 1667 - Virginia lawmakers say baptism does not bring freedom to blacks. The statute is passed because some slaves used their status as a Christian in the 1640s and 1650s to argue for their freedom or for freedom for a child. Legislators also encourage slave owners to Christianize their enslaved men, women and children. • 1668 - Free black women, like enslaved females over the age of 16, are deemed tithable. The Virginia General Assembly says freedom does not exempt black women from taxation. • 1669 - An act about the "casual killing of slaves" says that if a slave dies while resisting his master, the act will not be presumed to have occurred with “prepensed malice.” • 1670 - Free blacks and Native Americans who had been baptized are forbidden to buy Christian servants. • 1672 - It becomes legal to wound or kill an enslaved person who resists arrest. Legislators also deem that the owner of any slave killed as he resisted arrest will receive financial compensation for the loss of an enslaved laborer. Legislators also offer a reward to Indians who capture escaped slaves and return them to a justice of the peace. 1680 — 1705: Slave Laws Reflect Racism and the Deliberate Separation of Blacks and Whites. Color becomes the Determining Factor. Conscious Efforts to Rigidly Police Slave Conduct. • 1680 - Virginia’s General Assembly restricts the ability of slaves to meet at gatherings, including funerals. It becomes legal for a white person or person to kill an escaped slave who resists capture. Slaves also are forbidden to: • arm themselves for either offensive or defensive purposes. Punishment: 20 lashes on one’s bare back. • leave the plantation without the written permission of one’s master, mistress or overseer. Punishment: 20 lashes on one’s bare back. • “…lift up his hand against any Christian." Punishment: 30 lashes on one’s bare back. • 1691 - Any white person married to a black or mulatto is banished and a systematic plan is established to capture "outlying slaves." • If an outlying slave is killed while resisting capture, the owner receives financial compensation for the laborer. • Partners in an interracial marriage cannot stay in the colony for more than three months after they married. • A fine of 15 pounds sterling is levied on an English woman who gives birth to a mulatto child. The fine is to be paid within a month of the child’s birth. If a woman cannot pay the fine, she is to serve five years as an indentured servant. If the mother is an indentured servant, she faces an additional five years of servitude after the completion of her indenture. • A mulatto child born to a white indentured servant will serve a 30- year indenture. • A master must transport an emancipated slave out of Virginia within six months of receiving his or her freedom. • 1692 - Slaves are denied the right to a jury trial for capital offenses. A minimum of four justices of the peace hear evidence and determine the fate of the accused. Legislators also decide that enslaved individuals are not permitted to own horses, cattle and hogs after December 31 of that year. • 1705 - Free men of color lose the right to hold public office. • 1705 - Blacks — free and enslaved — are denied the right to testify as witnesses in court cases. • 1705 - All black, mulatto, and Indian slaves are considered real property. • 1705 - Enslaved men are not allowed to serve in the militia. • 1705 - In An act concerning Servants and Slaves, Virginia’s lawmakers: • Increase the indenture of a mulatto child born to a white woman to 31 years. • Determine that if a white man or white woman marries a black partner, the white individual will be sent to jail for six months and fined 10 pounds current money of Virginia. • Determine that any minister who marries an interracial couple will be assessed a fine of 10,000 pounds of tobacco. • Determine that any escaped slave who is unwilling or unable to name his or her owner will be sent to the public jail.
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Supreme Court of the United States BROWN et al. v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF TOPEKA, SHAWNEE COUNTY, KAN., et al. BRIGGS et al. v. ELLIOTT et al. DAVIS et al. v. COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD OF PRINCE EDWARD COUNTY, VA., et al. GEBHART et al. v. BELTON et al. Nos. 1, 2, 4, 10.
Reargued Dec. 7, 8, 9, 1953. Decided May 17, 1954.
Mr. Chief Justice WARREN delivered the opinion of the Court.
These cases come to us from the States of Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware. They are premised on different facts and different local conditions, but a common legal question justifies their consideration together in this consolidated opinion.
…In each of the cases, minors of the Negro race, through their legal representatives, seek the aid of the courts in obtaining admission to the public schools of their community on a nonsegregated basis. In each instance, they have been denied admission to schools attended by white children under laws requiring or permitting segregation accord- ing to race. This segregation was alleged to deprive the plaintiffs of the equal protection of the laws under the Four- teenth Amendment. In each of the cases other than the Delaware case, a three-judge federal district court denied relief to the plaintiffs on the so-called ‘separate but equal’ doctrine announced by this Court in Plessy v. Ferguson. Under that doctrine, equality of treatment is accorded when the races are provided substantially equal facilities, even though these facilities be separate. In the Delaware case, the Supreme Court of Delaware adhered to that doctrine, but ordered that the plaintiffs be admitted to the white schools because of their superiority to the Negro schools.
The plaintiffs contend that segregated public schools are not ‘equal’ and cannot be made ‘equal,’ and that hence they are deprived of the equal protection of the laws. Because of the obvious importance of the question presented, the Court took jurisdiction. Argument was heard in the 1952 Term, and reargument was heard this Term on certain questions propounded by the Court.
…Reargument was largely devoted to the circumstances surrounding the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868. It covered exhaustively consideration of the Amendment in Congress, ratification by the states, then existing practices in racial segregation, and the views of proponents and opponents of the Amendment. This discussion and our own investigation convince us that, although these sources cast some light, it is not enough to resolve the prob- lem with which we are faced. At best, they are inconclusive. The most avid proponents of the post-War Amend- ments undoubtedly intended them to remove all legal distinctions among ‘all persons born or naturalized in the
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United States.’ Their opponents, just as certainly, were antagonistic to both the letter and the spirit of the Amend- ments and wished them to have the most limited effect. What others in Congress and the state legislatures had in mind cannot be determined with any degree of certainty.
An additional reason for the inconclusive nature of the Amendment's history, with respect to segregated schools, is the status of public education at that time. In the South, the movement toward free common schools, supported by general taxation, had not yet taken hold. Education of white children was largely in the hands of private groups. Ed- ucation of Negroes was almost nonexistent, and practically all of the race were illiterate. In fact, any education of Negroes was forbidden by law in some states. Today, in contrast, many Negroes have achieved outstanding success in the arts and sciences as well as in the business and professional world. It is true that public school education at the time of the Amendment had advanced further in the North, but the effect of the Amendment on Northern States was generally ignored in the congressional debates. Even in the North, the conditions of public education did not approx- imate those existing today. The curriculum was usually rudimentary; ungraded schools were common in rural areas; the school term was but three months a year in many states; and compulsory school attendance was virtually un- known. As a consequence, it is not surprising that there should be so little in the history of the Fourteenth Amend- ment relating to its intended effect on public education.
In the first cases in this Court construing the Fourteenth Amendment, decided shortly after its adoption, the Court interpreted it as proscribing all state-imposed discriminations against the Negro race.FN5 The doctrine of “separate but equal” did not make its appearance in this court until 1896 in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, supra, involving not education but transportation. American courts have since labored with the doctrine for over half a century. In this Court, there have been six cases involving the ‘separate but equal’ doctrine in the field of public education. In Cumming v. Board of Education of Richmond County, and Gong Lum v. Rice, the validity of the doctrine itself was not challenged. In more recent cases, all on the graduate school level, inequality was found in that specific benefits enjoyed by white students were denied to Negro students of the same educational qualifications. State of Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada; Sipuel v. Board of Regents of University of Oklahoma; Sweatt v. Painter,; McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents. In none of these cases was it necessary to re-examine the doctrine to grant relief to the Negro plaintiff. And in Sweatt v. Painter, supra, the Court expressly reserved decision on the question whether Plessy v. Ferguson should be held inapplicable to public education.
In the instant cases, that question is directly presented. Here, unlike Sweatt v. Painter, there are findings below that the Negro and white schools involved have been equalized, or are being equalized, with respect to buildings, curric- ula, qualifications and salaries of teachers, and other ‘tangible’ factors. Our decision, therefore, cannot turn on mere- ly a comparison of these tangible factors in the Negro and white schools involved in each of the cases. We must look instead to the effect of segregation itself on public education.
In approaching this problem, we cannot turn the clock back to 1868 when the Amendment was adopted, or even to 1896 when Plessy v. Ferguson was written. We must consider public education in the light of its full development and its present place in American life throughout the Nation. Only in this way can it be determined if segregation in public schools deprives these plaintiffs of the equal protection of the laws.
Today, education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. Compulsory school attend- ance laws and the great expenditures for education both demonstrate our recognition of the importance of education to our democratic society. It is required in the performance of our most basic public responsibilities, even service in the armed forces. It is the very foundation of good citizenship. Today it is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training, and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment. In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education. Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.
We come then to the question presented: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race,
74 S.Ct. 686 FOR EDUCATIONAL USE ONLY Page 3 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 38 A.L.R.2d 1180, 98 L.Ed. 873, 53 O.O. 326 (Cite as: 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686)
even though the physical facilities and other ‘tangible’ factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does.
In Sweatt v. Painter … in finding that a segregated law school for Negroes could not provide them equal educational opportunities, this Court relied in large part on ‘those qualities which are incapable of objective measurement but which make for greatness in a law school.’ In McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents … the Court, in requiring that a Negro admitted to a white graduate school be treated like all other students, again resorted to intangible considera- tions: ‘* * * his ability to study, to engage in discussions and exchange views with other students, and, in general, to learn his profession.’ Such considerations apply with added force to children in grade and high schools. To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone. The effect of this separation on their educational opportunities was well stated by a finding in the Kansas case by a court which nevertheless felt compelled to rule against the Negro plaintiffs:
'Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law; for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segrega- tion with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to (retard) the educational and mental development of Negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racial(ly) integrated school system.'
Whatever may have been the extent of psychological knowledge at the time of Plessy v. Ferguson, this finding is amply supported by modern authority.FN11 Any language in Plessy v. Ferguson contrary to this finding is rejected.
FN11. K. B. Clark, Effect of Prejudice and Discrimination on Personality Development (Midcentury White House Conference on Children and Youth, 1950)…And see generally Myrdal, An American Dilemma (1944).
We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educa- tional facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. This disposition makes unnecessary any discussion whether such segregation also violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Because these are class actions, because of the wide applicability of this decision, and because of the great variety of local conditions, the formulation of decrees in these cases presents problems of considerable complexity. On rear- gument, the consideration of appropriate relief was necessarily subordinated to the primary question-the constitu- tionality of segregation in public education. We have now announced that such segregation is a denial of the equal protection of the laws. In order that we may have the full assistance of the parties in formulating decrees, the cases will be restored to the docket, and the parties are requested to present further argument on Questions 4 and 5 previ- ously propounded by the Court for the reargument this Term. The Attorney General of the United States is again invited to participate. The Attorneys General of the states requiring or permitting segregation in public education will also be permitted to appear as amici curiae upon request to do so by September 15, 1954, and submission of briefs by October 1, 1954.
It is so ordered. U.S. 1954. Brown v. Board of Ed. of Topeka, Shawnee County, Kan. END OF DOCUMENT
1619: Virginia’s First Africans
Prepared by Beth Austin Registrar & Historian Hampton History Museum 2018
Contents Landing of the First Africans in Virginia The Treasurer Scandal From West Central Africa to Virginia The Early Africans in Virginia Were the First Africans Indentured Servants or Enslaved? Slavery and Christianity Slavery and Indentured Servitude Slavery and the Law Other “First” Africans Timeline Principal Primary Sources Sources Consulted & Further Reading
1619: Virginia’s First Africans Hampton History Museum Modified: 11 December 2018 1 www.HamptonHistoryMuseum.org/1619 In late August, 1619, 20-30 enslaved Africans landed at Point Comfort, today’s Fort Monroe in Hampton, Va., aboard the English privateer ship White Lion. In Virginia, these Africans were traded in exchange for supplies. Several days later, additional enslaved Africans arrived in Virginia aboard a second ship, Treasurer. The Africans brought on both ships were Kimbundu-speaking people from west central Africa and had been captured by English privateers from the Spanish slave ship San Juan Bautista. They are the first recorded Africans to arrive in England’s mainland American colonies.
Landing of the First Africans in Virginia In late Augusta, 1619, the English privateer ship White Lion arrived at Point Comfort. On board were “20 and odd”b captives taken from the Kingdom of Ndongo in west central Africa. They were sold to Sir George Yeardley (Virginia’s governor) and Abraham Peirsey (the Cape Merchant, the colony’s supply officer and trade agent) in return for food and supplies. Surviving documents do not describe the first Africans coming ashore, but they probably were taken off White Lion at Point Comfort, either temporarily before the White Lion sailed to Jamestown or to be transferred to smaller crafts to be re- sold elsewhere.c Three or four days later, the White Lion’s consort ship Treasurer arrived with additional enslaved Africans at nearby Kicotan, also in present-day Hampton. The Treasurer did not stay long at Kicotan, departing quickly to avoid an ensuing scandal and potential seizure. It is unclear how many of the Africans onboard the Treasurer were traded and remained in Virginia. Treasurer sailed to Bermuda, where a friendly governor allowed her commander, Captain Daniel Elfrith, to land and trade. When she arrived in Bermuda, 27-29 enslaved Africans were aboard. The captives aboard White Lion and Treasurer had been stolen from the Spanish slave ship San Juan Bautista (or São João Bautista in Portuguese records). The two English privateers had attacked the Spanish slave ship a few weeks before arriving in Virginia. A March 1620 censusd of inhabitants of Virginia lists 32 Africans, 15 male and 17 female (as “Others not Christianse in the Service of the English”). All probably came from the White Lion and Treasurer groups taken from the San Juan Bautista.f None are identified by name.
a The landing date is sometimes traditionally observed on August 20th or August 25th, but there is no evidence supporting any specific landing date, which remains unknown. b I.e. twenty-some; any number between 20 and 30. c The extant primary sources do not mention Jamestown after describing the landing at Point Comfort, but it is unclear whether the two colonial officials traveled to Point Comfort or dealt with the White Lion’s captain, John Jope, at Jamestown. John Pory, Secretary of the colony, entrusted a letter describing the Treasurer’s exploits to Marmaduke Raynor, the White Lion’s pilot. The letter is dated 30 September from James City, so the White Lion was in Virginia for at least a month and probably sailed up to Jamestown. d The date on this census is labeled as March 1619, and some historians have erroneously concluded that 32 Africans were already present in Virginia before the arrival of the White Lion and Treasurer. However, the census was actually taken in 1620; it bears the date of 1619 because it is dated by the old Julian calendar, in which the new year did not occur until spring. e The 32 “non-Christians” in the census does not include any Indians; Native servants were listed separately. See below for additional discussion of the status of Christianized enslaved Africans. f It is possible other Africans had arrived on other ships, but there is no evidence to indicate this. While the Portuguese/Spanish controlled trade from West Africa, enslaved captives on English or Dutch ships or in their colonies could only come from privateer attacks on Spanish/Portuguese slave ships or from irregular trade with Spanish/Portuguese colonies. Spanish records do not note any other privateer attacks between 1618 and 1622.
1619: Virginia’s First Africans Hampton History Museum Modified: 11 December 2018 2 www.HamptonHistoryMuseum.org/1619
The Treasurer Scandal: Piracy and the First Africans The fate of the Africans taken from the San Juan Bautista was bound up in a web of piracy, illicit trade, and scandal for the Virginia Company. Privateering/piracy against Spanish ships sailing from the Americas was commonplace for privately owned English vessels during Elizabeth I’s reign, but King James I’s 1604 Treaty of London made peace with Spain and outlawed piracy. After 1604, English ships wishing to continue privateering had to secure commissions or authorizations, called letters of marque, from other European heads of state; White Lion’s letter of marque was issued from Flushing, Zeeland (now Vlissingen, Holland), and Treasurer’s letter of marque came from the Duke of Savoy (now part of northeastern Italy) and was probably issued by the Duke’s ambassador in London, who was known to issue marques to ship captains. However, by the time of the attack on the San Juan Bautista, the Duke of Savoy had made peace with Spain, rendering the Treasurer’s letter of marque invalid. White Lion sailed from Flushing, a Dutch port well-known as a base for English privateers, and both crews probably included Dutch sailors. Several records refer to White Lion as “Dutch,” “from Flushing,” or “out of Flushing.” These records do not imply the ship was Dutch, but rather that it was an English ship based from Flushing, a commonly understood practice. They also may have wished to emphasize the White Lion’s Dutch letter of marque to distance themselves from the practice of privateering.
Treasurer had a long history of piracy in the West Indies as well as dishonest dealings with other ships, and her connection to disgraced Virginia governor Sir Samuel Argall ballooned into a major scandal that eventually contributed to the dissolution of the Virginia Company. Efforts to minimize or cover up her piratical activity and the involvement of her owners and investors have obscured the historical record. Treasurer last left England in April 1618, and it is unclear whether her captain, Daniel Elfrith, knew his letter of marque was invalid when the two ships attacked the San Juan Bautista. If Elfrith knew, he likely assumed he would meet a ready welcome from friends in Virginia; Treasurer was formerly captained by acting Virginia governor Samuel Argall. Argall, in league with part owner Sir Robert Rich (Earl of Warwick), regularly supplied the ship at Jamestown, which acted as a base for Treasurer to privateer in the West Indies (depositions indicate the Treasurer was reported to authorities as fitted out as a fishing vessel but in reality was armed as a warship).
Between 1618 and 1620, a rival faction within the Virginia Company, led by Sir Edwin Sandys and Sir Thomas Wriothesley (Earl of Southampton), worked to expose Argall’s and Warwick’s illegal activities and oust them from power. In 1618, the Virginia Company dispatched Sir George Yeardley to replace Argall as governor of Virginia, investigate complaints of corruption and piracy, and “send home the said Captain Argall in quality of a malefactor and to sequester all his goods there for restitution to the Company.” Argall escaped on a small ship sent speedily from England before Yeardley’s arrival in Virginia in April, 1619. By June, 1619, the Virginia Company wrote instructions to Yeardley to “give diligent order that the ship [Treasurer] be seized immediately upon her return, and examination taken of her course and proceeding.” It is unclear whether this letter reached Yeardley in Virginia before the Treasurer’s return in late August or early September, but even if not, Yeardley instructed John Rolfe and two other officials to bring the ship to Jamestown after learning of its return.
When Treasurer arrived at Kicotan, Elfrith sent word to Jamestown, expecting the message to be received by Argall, but left Virginia hastily after learning of Argall’s flight and the men on their way to bring the ship to Jamestown. The inhabitants of Kicotan refused to resupply Treasurer. However, at least one sailor from the Treasurer remained in Virginia after the ship departed, and an unknown number of enslaved Africans, including a woman named Angelo, were sold privately to individuals, possibly those more friendly to Argall’s faction. After sailing from Kicotan, Treasurer received a better welcome in Bermuda, where governor Nathaniel Butler was friendly to privateers and was also a former captain and associate of Warwick. If Treasurer had been welcomed in Virginia and allowed to trade openly, it is likely all the Africans aboard would have been sold and remained in Virginia alongside the Africans from the White Lion.
Eyewitness testimony about the Treasurer’s activities was recorded from sailors and officials in England, Bermuda, and Virginia. These depositions contain conflicting accounts of the ship’s movements and activities. Some describe the ship as unseaworthy and imply she was destroyed or salvaged in Bermuda. Colonial Bermuda records indicate most or all of the remaining enslaved Africans from the Treasurer were temporarily seized by the colony because of the privateering scandal. Some of the enslaved Africans from the Treasurer labored for the colony and on the property of the Earl of Warwick, under the auspices of governors Miles Kendall and Nathaniel Butler. Miles Kendall wrote to Nathaniel Rich, “If it were not for the accidental negroes [those from the Treasurer and another privateer], I were not able to raise one pound of tobacco this year for the defrayment of any public work….These slaves are the most proper and cheap instruments for this plantation that can be.” Between 1618 and 1620, Warwick set about replacing white tenant farmers on his land in Bermuda with enslaved Africans so he would not have to pay them their share of tobacco. However, word of the Treasurer scandal reached Bermuda, and Butler, aligned with Warwick’s faction, was ousted from power.
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The issue of the Treasurer’s exploits in the West Indies was reported by Sir Edwin Sandys to the Privy Council, where the Spanish ambassador lodged a complaint against the attack on San Juan Bautista. The Company disavowed Argall’s operations and the Treasurer’s part in the attack. (Elfrith may have anticipated Spanish reprisal for the attack on the Bautista, for he warned the inhabitants of Kicotan that a Spanish attack was likely and Point Comfort should be further fortified. No attack materialized.) An investigation ensued. Some witnesses, friends of Argall, Elfrith, or Warwick, told the Privy Council the White Lion forced the Treasurer into consortship. Other witnesses remaining in Bermuda, not part of the privateers’ faction, suggested Elfrith had stolen some of the captives that were supposed to go to Capt. Jope and the White Lion. If so, this would explain why White Lion apparently had fewer than 30 captives on board when she arrived at Point Comfort, and how Treasurer arrived in Bermuda with 27-29 enslaved Africans even after having sold others at Kicotan. The enslaved Africans brought by the Treasurer were caught up in the ongoing investigation, and some crew members and part owners of the ship filed claims to ownership of a share of the Africans.
There are several reasons why White Lion’s privateering activities were allowed whereas the Treasurer’s parallel actions mushroomed into a years-long scandal: White Lion had a valid letter of marque while Treasurer’s was expired; White Lion dealt transparently with Virginia’s Governor and Cape Merchant; Treasurer was tied to Argall, who was being investigated for corruption and illicit activities; and Treasurer’s connections to Argall and Warwick gave the appearance of the attack on the San Juan Bautista being perpetrated by the Company and linked it to the Crown, putting Virginia in danger of attack from the Spanish or James I in danger of losing England’s peace with Spain. Sandys, as an officer of the Virginia Company, moved to expose and denounce the Treasurer’s exploits to shield the Company from blame. However, the scandal’s permeation of the Company and continuing fallout contributed to the Crown’s revocation of the Virginia Company charter in 1624.
From West Central Africa to Virginia Virginia’s first Africans were probably from the Kingdom of Ndongo, located between the Lukala and Kwanza Rivers in west central Africa and part of present-day Angola. Ndongo’s population was made up of Kimbundu-speaking people living in densely populated, urbanized cities and towns, and nearby farming settlements where people grew sorghum and millet and raised cattle and poultry. The kingdom’s capital city, Kabasa, was its royal seat of power and had a population of up to 50,000. In 1618, the Portuguese allied with Imbangala mercenaries and invaded Ndongo. During the ensuing 1618-1620 campaign, thousands were enslaved; the San Juan Bautista was one of at least 36 ships transporting captives to Spanish/Portuguese colonies in 1619 alone. Most of the captives were probably from urban areas in and near the capital city of Kabasa, and unlike the vast majority of enslaved Africans carried to America, the San Juan Bautista captives probably came from a single or a few related ethnic groups and shared common or similar languages and cultures. They were also captured more directly under Europeans’ authority than most enslaved Africans.g European trade of enslaved Africans began in the 1400s.h In 1575, the Portuguese established the colony of Angola on the Kwanza River. Its purposes were to export enslaved captives and serve as a
g Though the Portuguese government discouraged use of African mercenaries by colonial governors, the practice was commonplace. In the 1618-1620 campaign to conquer Ndongo, governor Mendes de Vasconҫelos allied with three bands of Imbangala warriors. The combined Portuguese-Imbangala forces swiftly conquered Ndongo and its capital city, Kabasa. Manuel Bautista Soares, Bishop of Kongo, reported in 1619 that “in place of leaving off with the Jagas [Imbangala], he [Vasconҫelos] embraced them, and he has gone to war with them for two years, killing with them and capturing innumerable innocent people.” Those who were not able to flee were enslaved; the number of enslaved Africans captured during these campaigns was so great that they far outstripped the capacity of the port of Luanda to hold and export them. h Slavery existed in Africa before European colonization, but it was quite different and does not compare to the scale or extent of enslavement and trade in slaves driven by Europeans. Slaves in pre-colonial Africa still had legal rights, status did not pass from parents to children, slaves were not a major labor force, slavery was not necessarily for life, slaves were only enslaved in specific circumstances [i.e. as prisoners of war or as punishment], and slavery was not race-based. In the colonial period, very few Africans participated in the slave trade with Europeans, and Europeans vastly broadened the scale of the slave trade and locations and
1619: Virginia’s First Africans Hampton History Museum Modified: 11 December 2018 4 www.HamptonHistoryMuseum.org/1619 base for Jesuit Catholic missionaries and trade in goods. From 1576 to 1605, the Portuguese fortified the city of Luanda, a large port through which thousands of captives were exported each year. In early 1619, the San Juan Bautista left Luanda carrying 350 enslaved Africans and bound for Vera Cruz, Mexico. 200 were earmarked to fulfill an asiento (or contract) for delivering enslaved Africans to Spanish colonies. The voyage was apparently beset by disease; between 120 and 150 of the Africans died, a death rate of 35-43%. The captain, Manuel Méndez de Acuña, ordered a stop in Jamaica to “refresh.” There, he traded 24 enslaved boys in return for supplies. In late July or early August, the San Juan Bautista was attacked in the Bay of Campeche (southern Gulf of Mexico) by two English privateers, the White Lion and Treasurer, which stole approximately 60 of the captives (probably the healthiest of the Africans remaining).i After the attack, the Bautista’s remaining captives were transferred by local authorities to the frigate Santa Ana, which arrived in Vera Cruz on August 30, 1619. On its arrival, 147 captives were declared as her cargo; this probably includes the 24 boys sold in Jamaica, but it possibly does not.
The Early Africans in Virginia Virginia’s first census was conducted in early 1620 (see above). 32 Africans, 15 male and 17 female, were living in Virginia. Most likely, all were from the San Juan Bautista and arrived via the White Lion or Treasurer. None are identified by name. The next census, taken in February 1624, records only 21 Africans. Several probably succumbed to disease or died in the 1622 Powhatan Indian uprising, although some may have been traded or moved by enslavers to Bermuda or England. Only 13 are identified by name, and only one has a surname (the rest either have none, or are labeled as “negro”), suggesting most of the Africans were enslaved (see below). At least two Africans in this group were not from the White Lion or Treasurer: Anthony (later known as Anthony Johnsonj) arrived on the James in 1621, and John Phillip, the only African with a surname, was known to have been baptized in England.k A 1625 muster lists 23 Africans; again, several are unnamed. If there were no deaths, it is possible no new Africans were brought to Virginia between the 1624 census and 1625 muster, since two children are listed in 1625. circumstances of their capture and labor. Interestingly, the enslaved Africans on the San Juan Bautista were likely captured directly by Portuguese and allied Imbangala troops as part of a military campaign against Ndongo, though this was not typical. i The summer months were when Spanish treasure galleons transported extracted gold and silver from local ports to Havana to prepare for shipping via an annual convoy to Europe. The English pirates probably hoped Bautista was laden with gold and silver. The wording of the primary sources seems to imply that Bautista stopped in Jamaica after the privateer attack. However, currents in the southern Caribbean flow east to west, and the attack took place on the other side of the Yucatan Peninsula in the Bay of Campeche. It is unlikely the Bautista sailed against the current back to Jamaica when she was so close to Vera Cruz. Moreover, the narrative also indicates that a frigate transported the Bautista’s human cargo into Vera Cruz, presumably following the attack. j Anthony Johnson’s story is well documented. He began an enslaved man but was able to purchase his freedom and eventually acquired a plantation on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. He is perhaps most well-known for taking black and white bound laborers to court to enforce the terms of their contracts or labor. Some online sites have incorrectly claimed that Johnson was the "first slave owner in America.” Oddly, Johnson is often the only individual discussed in descriptions of the landing of the first Africans. Such a narrative is puzzling, since Johnson did not arrive with the first group in 1619. Moreover, Johnson’s story was exceptional and belies the very different experiences of the vast majority of early Africans. Anthony Johnson is sometimes confused with Anthony Tucker in some narratives. k John Phillip’s surname appears in court records in late 1624, but he is not named in the census earlier that year; he may have arrived after the census was taken. John Phillip testified against a white man and is the only African given a surname in early records; he almost certainly was a servant rather than enslaved but was an exception. He had spent 12 years in England, and his command of English language and culture probably set him apart from other Africans in the eyes of English colonizers. He may also have had the opportunity to negotiate an indenture contract before sailing to Virginia.
1619: Virginia’s First Africans Hampton History Museum Modified: 11 December 2018 5 www.HamptonHistoryMuseum.org/1619 In 1624 and 1625, the largest groups of Africans in Virginia were at Flowerdew Hundred (present-day Hopewell), at or near Jamestown, and at Edward Bennett’s plantation (near present-day Smithfield). In Elizabeth City (formerly Kicotan, now Hampton), Anthony and Isabella are first described by name in 1624. Sometime in 1624 or early 1625, they had a son, William, who was baptized; in the 1625 muster they are identified as “Antoney Negro: Isabell Negro: and William theire Child Baptised.” The locations and dates of William’s birth and baptism are not known, though the baptism probably took place at Elizabeth City’s parish church. They labored in the household or on the land of Capt. William Tucker; consequently, they are often described as Anthony, Isabella, and William Tucker, though they never appear with this name in the historical record. The child William is often described as the first African child born in America; however, there is a second child listed in the 1625 muster at Flowerdew Hundred, and no records indicate which child was born first. Like all Africans at Flowerdew Hundred, the second child’s name is unknown. No other written records of Anthony, Isabella, and William exist, though unwritten local traditions have found their way into many narratives. By 1625, John Pedrol was also living at Elizabeth City in the household of Francis West. Angelo (or Angela),m an African woman, was described in both lists at the residence of William Peirce at Jamestown. The 1625 muster notes that Angelo arrived on the Treasurer, meaning she is the earliest African whose arrival can be individually dated by name. (Though the vast majority of the Africans in Virginia arrived on the White Lion in 1619 or Treasurer in 1619, no records place any other Africans by name firmly on either ship.)
Were the First Africans Indentured Servants or Enslaved? Because of the absence of clear records, it is impossible to know for sure. However, the existing evidence points to most Africans being treated as enslaved beginning in 1619.n Certainly, they arrived in Virginia enslaved. They were clearly not indentured servants. However, some early Africans may have had more opportunity to become free than was possible under hardening racial attitudes later in the 17th century.
Historian Alden T. Vaughan summarized it best: “The evidence from Virginia and elsewhere refutes the popular myth that slavery was rare or nonexistent before the legislation of the 1660s and 1670s, that free blacks were numerous, and that most blacks were indentured servants. The surviving records support a very different distribution: slavery from the outset for the vast majority, freedom for some (by a variety of means), and temporary servitude (rarely with a legal indenture) for the smallest number” (Vaughan, “The Origins Debate,” p. 341).
There is no “smoking gun” for slavery in early Virginia records. However, there is overwhelming evidence from Virginia and other English colonies. The Africans aboard San Juan Bautista were transported from the port of Luanda in Angola and bound for America as property. As pirate loot, they were stolen goods, and they were traded for goods and resold when reaching Virginia. At every step of their journey after their capture, they were considered commodities or property.
l Pedro is probably not a surname; John Pedro follows double naming practices found in Portuguese and Kimbundu cultures. m In both Portuguese and Kimbundu languages, the final “o” included both masculine and feminine uses. n The only known exception was John Phillip, described above. A small number of Africans and African Americans appear as free in later records, but it is unclear whether they were released by their masters, purchased their freedom, or were treated similarly to white servants. See below; a small number of free blacks arrived in Virginia by way of England, where they may have entered into regular indentures, unlike Africans arriving via Atlantic or inter-colonial trade.
1619: Virginia’s First Africans Hampton History Museum Modified: 11 December 2018 6 www.HamptonHistoryMuseum.org/1619 By 1619, slavery was a familiar institution in England, English colonies, and throughout the English Atlantic. Enslaved Africans were present in England, and Africans’ status as commodities was understood when they arrived in Bermuda and Virginia. English mariners had long been involved in the slave trade as pirates preying on Spanish or Portuguese ships and colonies. In 1562, pirate John Hawkins was the first Englishman to complete the “triangle trade” and transport captives from Africa to the Americas for sale. Along with Hawkins, Sir Francis Drake often stole and traded enslaved Africans. In the 1610s, English ships regularly traded captives raided or bought from Africa or Spanish settlements in America. Enslaved captives were one of the most common forms of loot for the Earl of Warwick’s fleet of privateers, including Treasurer. Warwick was also a founding investor of the slave- trading Guinea Company (1618). In the 1624 census and 1625 muster, many Africans are not identified by any name. Of those with first names, none has a surname. Rather, they are identified as “negro.” By the late 16th century, as English participation in the Atlantic slave trade grew, the words “negro” and “slave” were used interchangeably. 17th century English missionary Morgan Godwyn observed, “These two words, Negro and Slave, being by custom grown homogenous and convertible; even as Negro and Christian, Englishman and Heathen, are by the like corrupt custom and partiality made opposites; thereby as it were implying, that the one could not be Christians, nor the other Infidels.” The Africans from the Treasurer were very clearly described as “slaves” in Bermuda records. Bermuda’s political and legal structures resembled Virginia’s in this period, and there were intimate trade and political links between the two colonies; for a time, Bermuda was operated by the Virginia Company. As in Bermuda, Africans’ introduction to England’s other Atlantic colonies (Barbados, New England, etc.) in the early 17th century seems to have instantly coincided with the assumption that Africans were enslaved. There is no reason to believe Virginia was an exception to this pattern. Africans’ baptism or conversion to Christianity did not seem to alter their status in English colonies. For the English, “Christian” was an ethnic/racial distinction rather than religious identity. (See below for detailed discussion of slavery and Christianity.) In wills and other legal records in Virginia and throughout other English colonies, African laborers are consistently listed with valuations much higher than white servants, indicating a likely expectation of lifetime service. No evidence supports the myth that Africans were ever regarded or treated as indentured servants. They were captured in wars or raids and did not negotiate an indenture contract, unlike white servants whose practice of indenture is well documented. The only blacks that seem to have been indentured (for example, John Phillip) appear to have arrived via England, where they may have had the opportunity to negotiate contract terms or enter into an indenture voluntarily. Some Africans were able to become free; some likely took advantage of comparatively loose (though significant) racial restrictions and purchased their freedom, while others may have been treated more similarly to white servants and released after a certain number of years. However, there is no evidence that this practice was commonplace, and there was no legal reason for masters to release them. The experiences of free blacks were exceptional.
1619: Virginia’s First Africans Hampton History Museum Modified: 11 December 2018 7 www.HamptonHistoryMuseum.org/1619 Slavery and Christianity Until later in the 17th century, “Christian” had an ethnic, cultural, and racial definition rather than referring to someone’s religious identity or beliefs. “Christian” meant someone from somewhere within Christendom, i.e. Europe. For example, the 1620 Virginia census identified Africans as “Others not Christians in the Service of the English.” In 1630, a white settler was whipped for “mixing his Christian body with a heathen one” by fornicating with a “Negro.” In 1662, a Virginia law prohibiting interracial sexual relationships imposed a fine if “any Christian commit fornication with a negro man or woman.”
This assumption was a strong feature of English Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture but less so of the Iberian Catholic worldview. (This is why the English were able culturally to adapt so easily to the practice of enslaving Christian Africans, whereas it was outlawed in Catholic countries. Even so, Portuguese enslavers were required to nominally baptize Africans before they were exported from Angola.) Non-European culture, along with skin color, set Africans apart. From the 16th century until the early 20th century, English/British colonizers tended to consider non-whites not following Euro-centric cultural norms as “heathen,” regardless of whether they had converted to Christianity as a religion.
The process of transforming Christian identity from an ethnic/racial one to a religious one began in earnest with the evangelical impulses of the First and Second Great Awakenings of the 18th and early 19th centuries. Unlike Catholic France, Spain, and Portugal, English Protestants made very little effort overall to convert non-white, non-Christian peoples until the two Awakenings engendered widespread evangelical efforts. Far more often, converting non-whites to Christianity was used as justification for colonization, but actual missionary operations were paltry or non-existent. Early English missionaries also distinguished between Indians and Africans. While there were some organized efforts to Christianize natives, especially in Puritan New England, there were no major efforts for Africans until the 18th century; from Virginia, narratives like Richard Hakluyt’s and John Smith’s emphasized the possibility of natives’ cultural and religious conversion as a way to whiteness, like Pocahontas’ baptism and transformation into Rebecca Rolfe, but dismissed the ability of Africans to become “civilized.”
Some historians believe some of the Africans on the San Juan Bautista may have been Christianized in whole or in part, since many had Christian/European names (and therefore may have been baptized), Portuguese Catholic missionaries had been active in West Africa for over a century by this time, and some Christian Africans from Kongo and Ndongo were being enslaved by the Portuguese; the Bishop of Angola lodged a complaint against this practice in 1619, claiming that over 4,000 of the captives exported from Ndongo were Christians and had been enslaved illegally. But, there is no clear evidence indicating what the religious beliefs of the Bautista Africans were.
Africans’ baptism or conversion to Christianity did not seem to alter their status in English colonies. Two Virginia legal suits illuminate this problem further. In 1656, Elizabeth Key sued for her freedom, arguing that she had been baptized, she had been bound for a finite term rather than for life, and her father was a free white man (under English common law, children took the status of their father; a 1662 Virginia law confirmed children would take the status of their mother). A local jury decided in Key’s favor, but an appeal to the General Court ruled Key was enslaved. A further appeal to the General Assembly went unresolved, and the case was slated for retrial but ended when the overseers of Key’s enslaver apparently dropped their argument. In 1667, an enslaved man named Fernando sued for his freedom on the grounds that “he was a Christian and had been several years in England” and even had written documentation in Portuguese of his baptism. However, his suit was dismissed. Fernando clearly believed his Christian status entitled him to freedom, but this idea probably came from his experience with the Portuguese or in England, not in Virginia. (Later in 1667, the General Assembly clarified that “conferring of baptism doth not alter the condition of the person as to his bondage or freedom.” The act explained that “some doubts have risen whether children that are slaves by birth…should by virtue of their baptism be made free,” indicating that some others in Virginia possibly wrestled with the same question, but there is no evidence of freedom for any baptized captives anytime between 1619 and 1667.) In neither Key’s nor Fernando’s case did evidence of baptism or Christian status provide enough support for a successful claim to freedom. Most significant is that both enslaved individuals were held in bondage by their enslavers despite strong, public evidence of their baptism, revealing that the overwhelming attitude among English colonizers in Virginia was that Christianity did not alter the status of enslaved people.
Slavery and Indentured Servitude Indentures were a form of legal contract, evolved from the feudal system of the Middle Ages, in which an apprentice or servant was bound to a master for a set number of years. While under indenture, servants lacked some personal freedoms but still had legal protections. Indenture contracts could be bought and sold. In Virginia, indentures were a key component of migration; laborers bound themselves to landowners in return for their passage. Most laborers entered into indentures with merchants, ship captains, or planters’ agents before boarding ships in England, then their indentures were sold to planters when they arrived in Virginia.
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A small number of early white servants arrived from England without contracts and negotiated indentures with planters once in
Virginia. In 1619, before the African landing, the first General Assembly passed legislation requiring the registration of all indentures, to prevent uncontracted servants taking advantage of the widely circulated English Common Law dictum of a one year period of service for servants without a formal indenture contract. All records from Virginia indicate that Africans served far longer than their white indentured counterparts, so it is clear they were not treated as uncontracted indentured servants when they arrived. Moreover, there is no evidence Africans were included in the mandated registration of indentures.
In 1643, the Assembly passed legislation setting standard terms of service for as-yet-unindentured servants based on age; this law suggests it never was applied to Africans beforehand and clearly did not apply to Africans at the time, since no documents recorded Africans’ ages as they did for white servants. A very small number of Africans, like John Phillip, were known to come from England; some of this group may have been able to negotiate regular indentures, and this small group probably accounts for a disproportionate number of free blacks in early Virginia.
Some Africans attempted to sue for freedom by claiming they were indentured servants. However, they usually could not prove their claim. For example, in 1655 John Casor, a black servant of Anthony Johnson, testified that he was due his freedom after completing an indenture of seven or eight years. However, the court ruled in favor of Johnson, probably because Casor could not produce a valid indenture contract or evidence an indenture was recorded by the colonial government when he arrived in Virginia.
Some proponents of the “indentured servant” theory of Africans’ status emphasize the use of “negro” as a signifier of nationality, akin to “Irishman” or other labels found in some very early Virginia records. However, these white nationality labels all but disappear from the record in the 1620s, whereas they persisted for Africans. Additionally, and more strikingly, there are no examples of ethnic labels also applying to children of whites, whereas Africans and their African American descendants were consistently labeled for generations as “negro.”
Some scholarly works and popular websites still describe Africans as indentured servants, but invariably, they cite Breen & Innes’ groundbreaking work on Anthony Johnson, Myne Owne Ground, as their source. This is a misreading of Myne Owne Ground, which claims that some Africans may have had experiences similar to white indentured servants but does not argue that they were indentured servants. While the book is an important narrative, many of its broader claims, especially those applying Johnson’s
Eastern Shore experiences to other Africans’ in Virginia, have been criticized by prominent historians of slavery as exaggerated and unrepresentative of conditions in the rest of the colony. Even Breen & Innes concluded that all of the Eastern Shore Africans probably arrived enslaved. Myne Owne Ground correctly points out that, while equality was not the experience of Africans in early
Virginia, race was marginally more fluid than in the hardened racial lines that developed after 1660. However, Johnson’s experiences were exceptional, and generalizations about the status or experience of blacks in early Virginia cannot be derived from Johnson’s biography.
Slavery and the Law
Between the 1640s and 1705, Virginia’s legal codes gradually constructed the rigid system of slavery in place in the 18th and 19th centuries. These series of laws did not anticipate the existence of slavery; rather, these laws eliminated potential “loop holes” and reinforced a system already deeply embedded in Virginia’s culture and economy. As with most aspects of English Common Law, the absence of written codes does not indicate the absence of a practical or legal reality. Slavery was legal in custom and in fact long before Virginia’s Slave Codes were formally codified. Individual court records indicate slavery was the norm from at least the late 1620s.
Despite the likelihood that nearly all of Virginia’s early Africans were enslaved, no definitive documentary proof exists on an individual basis. The earliest documented enslaved African in Virginia records may be the unnamed mother of Elizabeth Key, a mulatta woman who sued for her freedom in 1655. The suit referred to Key’s mother as enslaved. Based on the dates of Key’s birth, this would date the enslavement of Key’s mother to the late 1620s. Her experience appears to have been typical. Similarly,
Governor George Yeardley’s 1627 will listed Africans separately from servants, indicating Africans were not considered to have the same status as white indentured laborers.
Key’s mother is the earliest person we can definitively prove was enslaved, but her story was not the first appearance of slavery in
Virginia records. While historical records indicate Key’s mother was enslaved in the 1620s, those records were not written until
Key’s 1655 suit. The earliest appearance of an enslaved African in historical records is probably John Punch (or Bunch), who is recorded in 1640 as bound for life. An earlier case (1625) also appears to imply an African named Brase was enslaved for life and considered the property of Sir Francis Wyatt.
1619: Virginia’s First Africans Hampton History Museum Modified: 11 December 2018 9 www.HamptonHistoryMuseum.org/1619 Other “First” Africans Several theories have emerged which posit that America may have been “discovered” by Africans before the arrival of Europeans. Some Arab sources and oral accounts from Caribbean natives suggest that North Africans may have voyaged to America in the medieval period. Additionally, over the 20th century some anthropologists theorized that Africans may have crossed the Atlantic and influenced the ancient Olmec culture of central Mexico. Although there is no verifiable genetic or archaeological evidence to support this theory, the most compelling support comes from masks and sculptures of heads that seem to show African features. However, this theory is not widely accepted among scholars. Free (and possibly enslaved) Africans almost certainly made up part of the crews of Spanish Conquistador ships, including Columbus’ 1492 expedition. Archaeological excavations have unearthed Africans’ remains among those of Spanish conquistadors from the early 16th century. Spanish conquistadors first imported enslaved Africans to Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and Dominican Republic) in 1502. Spanish conquest depended on enslavement of native peoples, but forced labor, cultural and environmental disruption, and waves of devastating epidemics caused native populations to collapse. Within two decades, the Spanish relied on Africans to replace native enslaved labor. The first documented enslaved Africans in the present-day United States were part of a Spanish expedition to present-day South Carolina in 1526. There, the Africans staged a rebellion, and the Spanish abandoned the settlement the next year. The Spanish brought enslaved Africans to St. Augustine (Florida) in 1565. Enslaved Africans may have been left at Roanoke Island (present-day North Carolina) by Sir Francis Drake. In 1586, Drake led an English fleet in pillaging Cartagena and other colonial Spanish settlements. According to Spanish accounts, Drake stole at least 200 enslaved Africans and Turks/Ottomans as part of his loot. Drake’s fleet then sailed to St. Augustine and onto the Roanoke colony. Three Africans left behind at St. Augustine reported that Drake intended to leave the remaining Africans at Roanoke to labor for the benefit of the colony there. However, surviving records do not confirm whether this plan was carried out.o African sailors served on Dutch crews involved in founding New Netherland. Africans were known to be in the colony in 1612, and others were probably present earlier as crew members. Enslaved Africans were imported to Bermuda in 1616. The landing of the “20 and odd” Africans in Virginia in 1619 is the most significant beginning for African Americans who lived enslaved between 1619 and 1865, as well as today’s African American population. The first documented Africans in New France arrived in 1632.
o If these reports are true, it would suggest that the presence, use, and commodification of enslaved Africans was a widespread assumption from very early on in England’s colonial Atlantic endeavors.
1619: Virginia’s First Africans Hampton History Museum Modified: 11 December 2018 10 www.HamptonHistoryMuseum.org/1619 Timeline 1618-1620 Portuguese and allied Imbangala warriors wage a campaign to conquer Ndongo; thousands are enslaved.
Early 1619 The San Juan Bautista leaves Luanda, Angola, carrying 350 enslaved Africans, and bound for Vera Cruz, Mexico. Between 120 and 150 Africans die during the voyage.
(June/July?) 1619 Captain Manuel Méndez de Acuña orders the San Juan Bautista to stop in Jamaica to “refresh.” There, he trades 24 enslaved boys in return for supplies.
Late July or early English privateers White Lion and Treasurer attack the San Juan Bautista in the Bay of August, 1619 Campeche. They steal approximately 60 of the remaining enslaved Africans.
Late August, 1619 White Lion arrives at Point Comfort and trades 20-30 Africans for supplies.
Late August? (a few Treasurer arrives at Kicotan with additional enslaved Africans. The ship leaves quickly days later), 1619 to escape seizure after illicitly trading some of the captives, including Angelo. Treasurer sails to Bermuda, where a friendly governor allows her to land.
30 August, 1619 The frigate Santa Ana arrives in Vera Cruz with the remaining 147 (or possibly 123) captives from the San Juan Bautista.
Late September or White Lion leaves Virginia to return to England. early October, 1619
March, 1620 A census lists 32 Africans in Virginia, 15 male and 17 female.
1621 Anthony Johnson arrives on the James.
February, 1624 A census records 21 Africans in Virginia, including Anthony and Isabella at Elizabeth City, and Angelo at Jamestown.
1624 or January Anthony and Isabella’s son, William, is born and baptized. A second unnamed African 1625 child is also born.
January, 1625 A muster lists 23 Africans living Virginia. This muster is the first record of William’s birth and baptism, as well as Angelo’s arrival on the Treasurer in 1619.
Principal Primary Sources (N.B. Spellings have been modernized, but no word changes have been made.)
Excerpt from letter of John Rolfe to Sir Edwin Sandys, January 1620 (old calendar 1619) (From EncyclopediaVirginia.org. See also Ferrar Papers/Virginia Company Archives document 151.) About the latter end of August, a Dutch man of war of the burden of 160 tons arrived at Point Comfort, the commander’s name Capt. Jope, his pilot for the West Indies one Mr. Marmaduke an Englishman. They met with the Treasurer in the West Indies, and determined to hold consort ship hitherward, but in their passage
1619: Virginia’s First Africans Hampton History Museum Modified: 11 December 2018 11 www.HamptonHistoryMuseum.org/1619 lost one the other. He brought not anything but 20. and odd Negroesp, which the Governor [Sir George Yeardley] and Cape Merchant [Abraham Peirsey] bought for victuals (whereof he was in great need as he pretended) at the best and easiest rates they could. He had a large and ample Commission from his Excellency to range and to take purchase in the West Indies.
Three or 4. days after the Treasurer arrived. At his arrival he sent word presently to the Governor to know his pleasure, who wrote to him, and did request myself and Lieutenant Peace and Mr. Ewens to go down to him, to desire him to come up to James City. But before we got down he had set sail and was gone out of the Bay. The occasion thereof happened by the unfriendly dealing of the inhabitants of Kecoughtan, for he was in great want of victuals, wherewith they would not relieve him nor his Company upon any terms.
Excerpt from letter of John Pory to Sir Dudley Carleton, 30 September 1619, written at Jamestown (From EncyclopediaVirginia.org.) The occasion of this ship’s [White Lion’s] coming hither was an accidental consortship in the West Indies with the Treasurer, an English man of war also, licensed by a commission from the Duke of Savoy to take Spaniards as lawful prize. This ship, the Treasurer, went out of England in April was [last?] twelvemonth, about a month, I think, before any peace was concluded between the King of Spain and that prince. Hither she came to Captain Argall, then governor of this Colony, being part owner of her. He more for love of gain, the root of all evil, than for any true love he bore to this Plantation, victualled and manned her anew, and sent her with the same commission to range the Indies. The event thereof (we may misdoubt) will prove some attempt of the Spaniard upon us, either by way of revenge, or by way of prevention; lest we might in time make this place sedem belli against the West Indies….
…This packet I delivered to one Marmaduke Rayner, an Englishman, who goes entertained as Pilot in this Flemish man of war [White Lion]. If he come to your lordship, as he hath promised, he will be the fittest messenger….
Accounts of the privateer attack on the San Juan Bautista (Archivo General de Indias [or AGI; Seville], in Engel Sluiter, “New Light on the ’20. and Odd.’”) Enter on the credit side the receipt of 8,657.875 pesos paid by Manuel Mendes de Acunha, master of the ship San Juan Bautista, on 147 slave pieces brought by him to the said port on August 30, 1619, aboard the frigate Santa Ana, master Rodrigo Escobar. On the voyage inbound, Mendes de Acunha was robbed at sea off the coast of Campeche by English corsairs. Out of 350 slaves, large and small, he loaded in said Loanda (200 under license issued to him in Sevilla and the rest to be declared later) the English corsairs left him with only 147, including 24 slave boys he was forced to sell in Jamaica, where he had to refresh, for he had many sick aboard, and many had already died. (AGI, Contaduría 883)
[San Juan Bautista was] robbed by corsairs on the coast of Campeche, and from there the civil authorities transported them [the 147, to Vera Cruz] on the frigate, master Roderigo Descobar, who entered the said port on August 30, 1619. (AGI, Indiferente General 2795)
p Some websites and other narratives incorrectly quote Rolfe as writing “Negars” rather than Negroes. The Museum staff has examined images of Rolfe’s letter and confirms he wrote “Negroes.” The incorrect quotations probably confuse Rolfe’s account with what appears in John Smith’s 1624 book, A Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles: “About the last of August came in a Dutch man of war that sold us twenty Negars.” Smith seems to have misquoted Rolfe, the source for his account.
1619: Virginia’s First Africans Hampton History Museum Modified: 11 December 2018 12 www.HamptonHistoryMuseum.org/1619 Sources Consulted & Further Reading Warren M. Billings, “The Cases of Fernando and Elizabeth Key: A Note on the Status of Blacks in Seventeenth-Century Virginia,” William and Mary Quarterly Vol. 30, No. 3 (Jul., 1973), pp. 467-474. Warren M. Billings, “The Law of Servants and Slaves in Seventeenth-Century Virginia,” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography Vol. 99, No. 1 (Jan., 1991), pp. 45-62. T.H. Breen and Stephen Innes, “Myne Owne Ground”: Race & Freedom on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, 1640- 1676 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980). Nathaniel Butler, History of the Bermudas or Summer [Somer] Islands, ed. J. Henry Lefroy (London: Hakluyt Society, 1882). Paul G.E. Clemens, review of Myne Owne Ground, by T.H. Breen and Stephen Innes, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Summer, 1982), pp. 141-142. Peter Wilson Coldham, English Adventurers and Emigrants, 1609-1660: Abstracts of Examinations in the High Court of Admiralty with Reference to Colonial America (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, Inc., 1984). Wesley Frank Craven, The Virginia Company of London, 1606-1624 (Richmond: Virginia 350th Anniversary Celebration Corporation, 1957). Ferrar Papers (Virginia Company Archives), Magdalene College, documents 151, 159, and 403; accessed from www.virginiacompanyarchives.amdigital.co.uk. Paul Finkelman, ed., Slavery & The Law (New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2002). Rebecca Anne Goetz, “’Unthinking Decision’: Old Questions and New Problems in the History of Slavery and Race in the Colonia South,” The Journal of Southern History Vol. 75, No. 3 (Aug., 2009), pp. 599-612. Michael Guasco, Slaves and Englishmen: Human Bondage in the Early Modern Atlantic World (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014). Mark G. Hanna, Pirate Nests and the Rise of the British Empire, 1570-1740 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015). Tim Hashaw, The Birth of Black America: The First African Americans and the Pursuit of Freedom at Jamestown (New York: Basic Books, 2007). Linda M. Heywood and John K. Thornton, Central Africans, Atlantic Creoles, and the Foundation of the Americas, 1585-1660 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). James Horn, 1619: Jamestown and the Forging of American Democracy (New York: Basic Books, 2018). Winthrop D. Jordan, White Over Black: American Attitudes toward the Negro, 1550-1812, 2nd edition (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012). Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America (New York: Nation Books, 2016). Susan Myra Kingsbury, ed., The Records of the Virginia Company of London, 4 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1906-1935). Allan Kulikoff, review of Myne Owne Ground, by T.H. Breen and Stephen Innes, The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 106, No. 4 (Oct., 1982), pp. 561-563. “Lists of the Livinge & the Dead in Virginia,” February 16, 1623/1624, in Colonial Records of Virginia (Richmond: Virginia General Assembly, 1874). Martha McCartney, “A Study of the Africans and African Americans on Jamestown Island and at Green Spring, 1619-1803” (National Park Service and Colonial Williamsburg Foundation: 2003). Retrieved 3 December 2018 from https://www.nps.gov/jame/learn/historyculture/upload/African%20Americans%20on%20Jamestown%20I sland.pdf.
1619: Virginia’s First Africans Hampton History Museum Modified: 11 December 2018 13 www.HamptonHistoryMuseum.org/1619 Martha McCartney, Virginia Immigrants and Adventurers, 1607-1635: A Biographical Dictionary (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, Inc., 2007). Martha McCartney, “Virginia’s First Africans,” Encyclopedia Virginia. Retrieved 5 December 2018 from https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Virginia_s_First_Africans. Thomas D. Morris, “’Villeinage… as It Existed in England, Reflects but Little Light on our Subject’: The Problem of the ‘Sources’ of Southern Slave Law,” The American Journal of Legal History Vol. 32, No. 2 (Apr., 1988): pp. 95-137. “Musters of the Inhabitants of Virginia,” January 23, 1624/1625, in Adventurers of Purse and Person: Virginia 1607-1624/5, 4th edition, Volume I, ed. John Frederick Dorman (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, Inc., 2004). Gary B. Nash, review of Myne Owne Ground, by T.H. Breen and Stephen Innes, Reviews in American History Vol. 10, No. 1 (Mar., 1982), pp. 33-37. The Rich Papers: Letters from Bermuda 1615-1646, Eyewitness Accounts Sent by the Early Colonists to Sir Nathaniel Rich, ed. Vernon A. Ives (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, for Bermuda National Trust, 1984). Engel Sluiter, “New Light on the ‘20. and Odd Negroes’ Arriving in Virginia, August 1619,” William and Mary Quarterly Vol. 54, No. 2 (Apr., 1997): pp. 395-398. N.W. Stephenson, “Some Inner History of the Virginia Company,” William and Mary Quarterly Vol. 22, No. 2 (Oct., 1913): pp. 89-98. John K. Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400-1800 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998). John K. Thornton, “The African Experience of the ’20. and Odd Negroes’ Arriving in Virginia in 1619,” William and Mary Quarterly Vol. 55, No. 3 (Jul., 1998): pp. 421-434. John K. Thornton, “Central African Names and African-American Naming Patterns,” William and Mary Quarterly Vol. 50, No. 4 (Oct., 1993): pp. 727-742. Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, voyage identification numbers 29252 and 29529, retrieved 11 September 2017 from www.slavevoyages.org. (N.B. There are three other entries for 1619 bearing the names San Juan Bautista or São João Bautista. When cross-checked with the voyages listed in appendices in Vila Vilar, Hispanoamerica y el Comercio de Esclavos, it appears these other records do not refer to the same ship, or voyage information for multiple ships has been combined in error.) Alden T. Vaughan, “Blacks in Virginia: A Note on the First Decade,” William and Mary Quarterly Vol. 29, No. 3 (Jul., 1972): pp. 469-478. Alden T. Vaughan, “The Origins Debate: Slavery and Racism in Seventeenth-Century Virginia,” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography Vol. 97, No. 3 (Jul., 1989), pp. 311-354. Enriqueta Vila Vilar, Hispanoamerica y el Comercio de Esclavos (Sevilla: Escuela de Estudios Hispano- Americanos de Sevilla, 1977): Cuado 3, “Navios Negreros Llegados al Puerto de Veracruz desde 1604 a 1640.” Virginia Colonial Records Project survey reports 04526 and 00987b (Library of Virginia). Lorena S. Walsh, review of Myne Owne Ground, by T.H. Breen and Stephen Innes, William and Mary Quarterly Vol. 38, No. 2 (Apr., 1981), pp. 315-318. Brendan Wolfe, “Angela (fl. 1619-1625),” Encyclopedia Virginia. Retrieved 2 November 2018 from https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Angela_fl_1619-1625.
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