Program Information

The great tobacco fortunes of early Virginia would not have been possible but for the steady supply of African slaves toward the end of the 17th Century. They were transported from Africa along an extensive and sophisticated pipeline. "Jamestown: A Fruitful Soil" provides a historical overview of the people and events of 17th-century Virginia.

Transcript

The great tobacco fortunes of early Virginia would not have been possible but for the steady supply of African slaves toward the end of the 17th Century. They were transported from Africa along an extensive and sophisticated pipeline.

I’m Steve Clark with Jamestown: A Fruitful Soil, a celebration of Virginia’s Quadricentennial sponsored by Jamestown Settlement, a living history museum in the Williamsburg area of Virginia.

Africans first arrived in Virginia in 1619 almost by accident. They were westbound from Angola intended to be delivered to the Spanish colony of Mexico, but were waylaid in the Caribbean and brought to Virginia by English and Dutch privateers.

The African slave trade from which these slaves came was an elaborate system. Established by the Portuguese, it arose primarily to supply slaves to the Portuguese and later Spanish colonies in Central and South America.

In the early days of Virginia, settlers worked for the Virginia Company, but after 1618 colonists could own their own land. Many obtained their passage to the Chesapeake through indentured service. Yet, as the word filtered back to England about the perils of life in a hostile wilderness, of possible starvation, of sometimes deadly attacks by Virginia Indians, the number taking indenture gradually dropped.

This reduction in the number of working immigrants came about the time that tobacco plantations were really beginning to come into their own. There was a desperate need in Virginia for a steady and growing supply of laborers to work labor-intensive fields and fuel the fortunes of the tobaccocracy. The solution was to import slaves from West Africa.

With little concern for the African lives disrupted or families sundered, a variety of European traders, including the English Royal African Company entered into a burgeoning “triangle trade.” …Virginia tobacco to England, English manufactured goods to Africa, African slaves to Virginia.

To learn more, visit history is fun dot org.

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