Question

Did slaves change Jamestown if so how

Answer 1

In August 1619 more people arrived on the Dutch Man-of-War ship at Jamestown colony. This is the earliest record of Black people in colonial America. These colonists were freemen and indentured servants. At this time the slave trade between Africa and the English colonies had not yet been established.

Records from 1623 and 1624 listed the African inhabitants of the colony as servants, not slaves. In the case of William Tucker, the first Black person born in the colonies, freedom was his bright right. He was son of "Antony and Isabell", a married couple from Angola who worked as indentured servants for Captain William Tucker whom he was named after. Yet, court records show that at least one African had been declared a slave by 1640; John Punch. He was an indentured servant who ran away along with two White indentured servants and he was sentenced by the governing council to lifelong servitude. This action is what officially marked the institution of slavery in Jamestown and the future United States.