Slavery in America started in 1619, when the privateer The White Lion brought 20 African slaves ashore in the British colony of Jamestown, Virginia. The crew had seized the Africans from the Portugese slave ship Sao Jao Bautista.
In 1619, Dutch traders brought African slaves taken from a Spanish ship to Point Comfort; in North America, the Africans were also generally treated as indentured servants in the early colonial era. Several colonial colleges held enslaved people as workers and relied on them to operate.
