Media Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 27, 2016
Contact: Ryan Downey, 757/728-5328
[email protected]
Seamus McGrann, 757/727-6841
[email protected]
‘1619: Arrival of the First Africans’ Exhibit
Opens at Hampton History Museum August 20 with
Free Weekend Admission
Hampton, Virginia- In commemoration of the 1619 arrival of the first Africans in
English North America, the Hampton History Museum will open a new addition to its
17th century section of the Hampton History Galleries on Saturday, August 20. Museum
admission will be free on Saturday, August 20, 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., and Sunday,
August 21, 1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Drawing on the latest research, the exhibit will tell the story of the Africans’ home in
Angola, how they came to be enslaved aboard a Spanish slave ship Sao Joao Bautista,
-More-
‘1619: Arrival of the First Africans’ Exhibit Opens at Hampton History Museum
August 20 with Free Weekend Admission- Page 2
the terrible 10,000 nautical mile voyage that brought them to Virginia, and their lives on
the farms and plantations in the new colony.
In late August 1619 the privateer White Lion arrived off Point Comfort near present day
Fort Monroe. Aboard was a captive cargo of “..not any thing but 20. and odd Negroes,
which the Governor and Cape Marchant bought for victualls…” (John Rolfe, 1619.
Letter to Sir Edwin Sandys of the Royal Virginia Company).
These 20 individuals were the first Africans arriving in the new Virginia colony. Their
names, given by Portuguese missionaries: Antony, Isabela, William, Angela, Anthony,
Frances, Margaret, Anthony, John, Edward, Anthony and others whose names are not yet
known.
The Virginia colony’s first Africans had lived in the Ndongo Kingdom in Angola in West
Central Africa on a lush, green, high plateau 150 miles from the Atlantic. The Portuguese
and their mercenary allies, the Imbangala, waged war on the Ndongo kingdom, the most
powerful state in the Mbundu region, to gain control of the region and provide slaves for
the trade.
The Angolans on the White Lion had been taken from the Spanish slave ship Sao Joao
Bautista. The Captain of the White Lion, John Jope, traded the captured Angolans to the
Virginians represented by Governor George Yeardley and his Cape Merchant Abraham
Piersey. These were in turn taken into servitude in local homes and plantations.
The exhibit details how the Africans came into the possession of Captain Jope and taken
aboard the White Lion, including the politics and piracy that put them in the hands of the
Englishmen who had taken them from the Spanish slave trader and diverted them from
their original destination of Vera Cruz in Mexico to Virginia.
-More-
‘1619: Arrival of the First Africans’ Exhibit Opens at Hampton History Museum
August 20 with Free Weekend Admission- Page 3
The exhibit will contain a pair of slave shackles from the period, a hoe and axe dating
from around 1660 unearthed at the Thomas Jarvis site in Hampton (where the Hampton
History Museum now stands), images of period maps of Virginia and West Africa, 17th
century artists depictions of encounters in Africa and arrival in Virginia, as well as charts
detailing the arduous journey that the Africans were subjected to, a model of the White
Lion and other interpretive materials.
Inclusion of “1619: The Arrival of the First Africans” into the Hampton History Galleries
is being done in conjunction with a host of events taking place throughout the City of
Hampton on August 19-21 commemorating the arrival of the first Africans in English
North America. Further information on African Arrival Day Commemoration events and
activities can be found at www.africanarrivalday.com
The Hampton History Museum is located at 120 Old Hampton Lane in Downtown
Hampton. There is plenty of free parking in the garage across the street from the
museum. For more information, dial 757/727-1610 or visit
www.HamptonHistoryMuseum.org.
Partially bordered by the Hampton Roads harbor and Chesapeake Bay, Hampton, with
the 344,000 sq. ft. Hampton Roads Convention Center and the award-winning Hampton
Coliseum, is located in the center of Coastal Virginia and the Hampton Roads
metropolitan area. Hampton is the site of America's first continuous English-speaking
settlement, the site of the first arrival of Africans in English North America, and is home
to such visitor attractions as the Virginia Air & Space Center, Fort Monroe National
Monument, Hampton History Museum, harbor tours and cruises, Hampton University
Museum, The American Theatre, among others.
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