INTRODUCTION OF AFRICAN SLAVERY.
It was the policy of King James to increase the population of the
colony as rapidly as possible, and with that end in view, despite the
protests of the London Company, he sent over one hundred "idle and
dissolute" persons who were in custody for various misdemeanors, and
were only transported to escape a worse fate at home. They were sold
out as servants to the planters, who endured their presence only because
of the profits derived from their labor, and the increased assistance thus
secured in carrying into effect the various industrial enterprises then
projected by the colonists.
This beginning created a desire on the part of the planters to employ
other labor than their own, and unfortunately the opportunity to gratify
that desire came only too soon. It was in the month of August, 1619,
that an event occurred which was destined to stamp its impress upon
the pages of American history; an event so far-reaching in its effects
that no prophetic eye could foretell what they were to be. No one
thought that an institution was then taking root which in the distant
future would involve the American States in civil war and almost wreck
society itself. This event was none other than the introduction of African
slavery. A Dutch vessel sailed up the James river and sold twenty
Africans as slaves to the colonists. The world knows the result.
