02/01/2021
Happy February 1st! Not only is it a fresh start with it being a new month, but itβs also BLACK HISTORY MONTH!
Slavery in Williamsburg:
Though the transatlantic slave trade began in the sixteenth century, the first Africans to be forcibly brought to British North America arrived by 1619 in Virginia's capital, Jamestown. Early forms of forced labor in the emerging colony consisted of white and black indentured servitude, as well as Native American and African slavery. Virginia legislators legally codified slavery and restricted the rights of free blacks by the 1660s. After the colony's capital was moved to Williamsburg in 1699, Virginia continued to grow as a slave society, dependent on the forced labor of about 42 percent of its population. As enslaved people struggled to forge meaningful lives in bo***ge, they helped to build a thriving commercial society through field work, skilled trades, and domestic labor. Some men and women fled their circumstances for uncertain lives at the fringes of slave society. Most, however, remained enslaved and claimed whatever they could to improve their circumstances and maintain ties to their families and communities.
As white Virginians declared independence from Great Britain, the ideals of their leaders, based upon liberty and man's natural rights, exposed a deep contradiction: their freedom depended upon slavery. During the American Revolution, approximately 5,000 free blacks and slaves joined the American Continental Army, while more than twenty thousand blacks supported the British forces. Since 1979, Colonial Williamsburg has interpreted these complicated eighteenth-century stories though groundbreaking African American programs, supported by rigorous scholarship.
Information found using this link: http://slaveryandremembrance.org/partners/partner/?id=P0000
Did you know Colonial Williamsburg is offering a βblast to the pastβ tour all month long! This is the ONLY tour in Williamsburg dedicated solely to Black History. You can purchase tickets here https://williamsburgwalkingtours.com/african-american-history/