The immigration of Africans to America was different than the immigration of other cultures and nationalities. Most European immigrants came to America in hopes of a new freedom and new opportunity. Africans came to America unwillingly and in doing so they withstood loss, pain and suffering.

The years 1450-1750 brought about enormous changes to the North American continent. The Native Americans, or Indians, as the Europeans came to call them, were the first to encounter the European explorers, and before long, witness their world transformed and destroyed. These settlers moved on and traveled the land of Africa, where they began a trans-Atlantic slave trade, very conservatively estimated at bringing 10 million Africans to America.1 This slave trade would, over time, lead to a new social and economic system; one where the color of one's skin could determine whether he or she might live as a free citizen or be enslaved for life.

The slave trading routes formed a triangular shape. Goods being exported from Europe to Africa made up the first side of the triangle. The moving of slaves from Africa to America made up the middle section, which became known as the Middle Passage. The last leg of the triangular trade consisted of the goods produced through slave labor that were shipped back to Europe. 2

Not long after the first colonial settlement in 1619, Africans came to Virginia with the Dutch. At first, like their poor English counterparts, the Africans were treated as indentured servants; laborers under contract to work for several years for a payment of housing, food or other necessities.3 After time served, they would be given what was known as “freedom dues,” which usually included a piece of land and supplies, including a gun. Black-skinned or white-skinned, they became free.4 Once freed; the indentured servants began to pose a threat to the land-owing elite. Landowners began to see slaves as more profitable than servants and over the course of a century, a new race-based slavery system developed. By the dawn of the new century, the majority of Africans and African Americans were slaves.

In 1641, Massachusetts became the first colony to legally recognize slavery. Other states, such as Virginia, followed. Virginia decided that all born in a colony to a slave mother would be enslaved. Slavery was now a life-long condition that could be passed, like skin color, from generation to generation.

Authorities developed laws to keep the African American population under control. Whipping, branding, dismembering, castrating or killing slaves were legal under most circumstances. Freedom of movement, to assemble at a funeral, to earn money or even to read and write became outlawed.

After 1750, increasing numbers of African Americans found their way to freedom -- either by buying themselves, running away, or being emancipated by their masters. These free blacks emerged as leaders and recognized spokespersons for their race.

Former slaves and free African Americans were in the vanguard of the battle for abolition, and they fought on many fronts. They formed local, regional, and national abolitionist societies and toured the country relentlessly. In time, a star team of powerful public speakers was assembled, to be dispatched to trouble spots at a moment's notice, including Frederick Douglass, William Wells Brown, and Isabella Baumfree, better known as Sojourner Truth.

By the 1760's, a few white colonists, publicly noted the paradox between the patriots' demand for liberty and the widespread acceptance of slavery. During these escalating conflicts with the British army, some African Americans, like Crispus Attucks, displayed their devotion to the patriot cause. In 1770, Attucks became the first man to fall in the struggle with the British; he was shot and killed in what became known as the Boston Massacre. His life was representative of the free blacks of his era and inspired others to fight for their rights in this country.

While the Patriots were ultimately victorious in the American Revolution, what mattered most for black people was freedom. An estimated 100,000 African Americans escaped, died or were killed during the American Revolution.

The slave system was one of the principal engines of the new nation's financial independence, and it grew steadily up to the moment it was abolished by war. In 1790 there were fewer that 700,000 slaves in the United States; in 1830 there were more than 2 million; on the eve of the Civil War, nearly 4 million.

The Civil War of 1861 brought about four years of combat and the loss of over 600,000 American lives. The Union was saved, African Americans were promised the rights of citizens and slavery was abolished.

Copywrited 2007  Brazos Valley African American Museum
If you find a broken link please contact webmaster
Site built by Robin Silva,  Bryan, Texas