They came in chains: Americans from Africa

Abstract

SAILS FURLED, FLAG drooping at her rounded stern, she rode the tide in From the sea. She was a strange ship; indeed, by all accounts, a frightening ship, a ship of mystery. Whether she was trader, privateer, or man-of-war no one knows. Through her bulwarks black-mouthed cannon yawned. The Bag she flew was Dutch; her crew a motley. Her master, a Captain Tope. Her true registry? Unknown. Her port of call, an English settlement, Jamestown, in the colony of Virginia. She came, she traded, and shortly afterwards was gone. Probably no ship in modern history has carried a more portentous freight. Her cargo? Twenty slaves. Not that these twenty were the first black slaves. The ancient world had known them. Parts of medieval Europe, especially those areas bordering Mohammedan lands, had bought and sold their like for two hundred years. Negroes, who were probably slaves, figure in the accounts of Spanish Conquistadors who girdled the new western world with a path of blood and gold. There was one with Columbus. His name was Pedro Alonzo, and he was captain of the Nina. Negroes accompanied Balboa when he explored the Pacific. They were with Cortez in Mexico, Ponce de Leon in Florida, and Coronado in New Mexico. Estevanico, a Negro with De Vaca, discovered the Zuni Indians. Indeed, near the site where the mystery ship dropped anchor in 16'9, Negro slaves had lived almost a hundred years before. But they rebelled, and the Spanish settlement they helped to found was soon abandoned. Fifty years before the discovery of America black slaves had been imported from Africa to Europe. The Portuguese started it in 1442 as an incident of their country's commercial expansion.