Blacks in Virginia: A Note on the First Decade

A MID the historiographical wrangling that has in recent years focused on the origins of American slavery and race prejudice, at least one item of agreement has held firm: almost nothing is known about the status of blacks in America until i630 or later.' Unhappily for our attempts to understand the emergence of Negro servitude, information on the early years remains frustratingly sparse. However, the evidence for the i62os is not so lacking or as unrevealing as has long been supposed. Two principal sources and a smattering of lesser items tell much about how white Virginians viewed blacks during the first decade of African importation. What the sources reveal is not a solution to the slavery v. servitude puzzle; they do not make clear how many of the Africans in Virginia were being held in permanent bondage nor what effect conversion to Christianity may have had on the Negro's status. The sources do, however, shed some light on these matters. They also show with disturbing clarity that the black men and women brought to Virginia from i6i9 to i629 held from the outset a singularly debased status in the eyes of white Virginians. If not subjected to permanent and