Slave Voices

Slaves were initially shipped from Africa to Portugal, and Portugese possessions, in the 15th century. By the time America’s first slaves were brought to the English colony at Jamestown, in 1619, slavery had become big business. Initially, however, those African captives were really more like indentured servants instead of slaves.

As the colonies tried to wrest their freedom from Great Britain, plantation owners in the South bought and sold Africans. A drawing by Jacob Lawrence, in 1776, depicts the reality of slavery during the American Revolutionary War. The title of the work? "The cruelty of the planters toward the slaves drove the slaves to revolt, 1776."