The 1619 Project
Slavery's explosive growth, in charts: How '20 and odd' became millions
See how slavery grew in the U.S. over two centuries
Just over a decade after the Virginia Colony was settled, a ship — the San Juan Bautista — set sail from Angola with an estimated 350 kidnapped Africans aboard.
It was bound for Mexico as part of the burgeoning Atlantic slave trade.
A twist of fate ended this torturous journey on the colony’s shores for more than 20 of the Bautista’s enslaved Angolans.
Their landing would presage a trade and industry built on African labor that would reach a staggering scale in the United States over 200 years:
April-May 1619
The San Juan Bautista, a Spanish slave ship, leaves Luanda, Angola, with about 350 kidnapped Africans.
It’s bound for Veracruz, Mexico.
June 1619
An estimated 143 Africans die of disease during the ocean crossing.
July 1619
In Jamaica, the ship trades 24 African boys for supplies.
July 1619
Two English privateers – essentially licensed pirates sailing under foreign flags of convenience – attack the San Juan Bautista in the Bay of Campeche.
The privateers take 60 Africans.
The remaining 123 Africans are taken to Veracruz by another ship, which claims 147 Africans as its cargo.
This is believed to include the 24 boys sold in Jamaica.
August 1619
The White Lion arrives at Point Comfort (now Hampton, Virginia) carrying between 20 and 30 Africans.
They are the first recorded Africans in the English colonies.
The Treasurer arrives at Point Comfort a few days later and leaves two or three Africans.
The last 27-28 Africans are taken to Bermuda.
For every 1,000 Africans kidnapped in the slave trade,
640 survived the forced march from the African interior,
570 survived to board the waiting slave ship,
and many died of disease on the ship.
In the end, only 480 lived to see the Americas.
After the 32 Africans landed in Virginia,
few Africans were taken to the colonies in next decades.
The growth of the slave trade was explosive over the next 150 years.
Hundreds, then thousands were captured and brought mostly to Virginia, Maryland and South Carolina.
As Congress prepared to outlaw the slave trade in 1807, more than 24,000 Africans were brought to the U.S. — the largest influx in its history.
After two centuries, more than 360,000 Africans had survived the harrowing trip across the Atlantic.
But they were just a fraction of the people who were born into slavery for generation after generation.
We'll try to put the growth in perspective:
Census data shows an escalating slave population by state.
By 1800, the total number of enslaved people had grown to 800,000.
That number grew fivefold to 4 million people as the Civil War started just 60 years later.
Accounting for the millions of slaves
Just how many people were enslaved since those 32 Africans were taken ashore at Point Comfort in August 1619?
It’s doubtful that question will ever be definitively answered.
Population estimates before 1790 don’t specify whether a black person was enslaved or free.
We’ll use this group of 200 Africans to show you what we do know.
First, we know Virginia was the center of colonial slavery with a surging tobacco industry and its thirst for labor.
By 1700, the black population grew to 16,390 — the largest in the colonies.
In the first hundred years of slavery, more than 36,000 (36,646) Africans were brought to the colonies.
We also know the trans-Atlantic slave trade brought 365,000 (365,603) Africans to our shores in its two centuries.
At least that many of their countrymen died before arriving in the colonies.
By 1810, more than 1 million people were enslaved in the U.S., and cotton was about to take over the economy.
Even though the grueling work cut short many lives, the enslaved population more than tripled as cotton fed the U.S. economy in the 1800s, and the country veered toward war.
Just how many Africans were enslaved?
Two historians estimated for USA TODAY that as many as 6 million people lived and died in the American slave industry before 4 million people were declared free by 1865 – the end of the Civil War.
250 years, 10 million enslaved.
Source:
J David Hacker, University of Minnesota; Adam Rothman, Georgetown University, Hampton History Museum; slavevoyages.org; historicjamestowne.org; William and Mary Quarterly; National Park Service; nationalgeographic.org; virtualjamestown.org; Library of Congress; history.org; swarthmore.edu; Gilder Lehrman Institute; facinghistory.org; American Geographical Society; Sam Houston State University Unveiled:
The Twenty & Odd, Documenting the First Africans in England’s America, 1619-1625 and Beyond, K.I. Knight, First Freedom Publishing, 2019Credit:
George Petras, Ramon Padilla, Shuai Hao, Sheldon Sneed, Jim Sergent, Shawn Sullivan, Mitchell Thorson, Javier Zarracina and Mark Nichols, USA TODAYWould You Like To Know More?
https://www.usatoday.com/pages/interactives/1619-african-slavery-history-maps-routes-interactive-graphic/