Fact: North America was inhabited before the Europeans arrived.  This continent was not some barren land just waiting for some enterprising people to come along and make it a great nation. Archeological and genetic evidence show that Indigenous people have been here at least 23,000 years and as long as 30,000 years. ¹

But that didn’t stop the Europeans from “discovering” America and moving in to take over the land. The French settled in what is now Quebec. The Dutch settled in what is now New York. The British settled along what is now the East coast. Their initial attempts at settlement were not very successful because they were ill-equipped to do the hard labor for colony building.

Jamestown, the initial British colony, was settled in a low-lying marshy peninsula (i.e. a swamp). The people became sick and started dying. In addition to being situated in a swamp, the colonists brought diseases with them (typhoid, dysentery) that were allowed to spread because they did not understand basic hygiene and used water contaminated with human waste and seawater. The colonist also had insufficient food to survive the winter because not enough work had been done to clear land, plant and harvest crops needed to provide food. The first colonists to arrive included 105 men: 40 soldiers, 35 “gentlemen,” and various artisans and laborers. The “gentlemen” resisted working like laborers and by the time the second wave of colonists arrived only 35 of the original 105 had survived. This survival was due in large part to the generosity of the Indigenous people, who supplied the colonists with food. ²

Many of the colonists did not have the skills and knowledge to help a new, unsettled colony grow and prosper. They were unable to feed themselves, they died from disease, unsanitary conditions, and malnutrition. Until 1619 when The White Lion, an English privateer ship sailing under Dutch authority ³, arrived in the colony carrying 20-30 enslaved Africans who were sold to the British colonists at Jamestown. The Africans had been forcibly taken from Angola by the Portuguese, then were stolen by English pirates, and sold to the colonists.

“With their [the enslaved Africans] arrival in Virginia in 1619, slavery expanded into English-occupied North America. Although the Africans arrived in bondage, they brought useful skills that the early English colonists needed to survive. They were skilled farmers, herders, blacksmiths, and artisans. Along with their skills, they brought their own culture, language, and beliefs that shaped innovations in food production and crop cultivation and contributed to American cultural traditions. Despite the skills, innovations, and creativity they brought to this new land, they would undergo generations of hardship and turmoil. Those first “20 and odd” Africans who landed at Point Comfort marked the beginning of 246 years–almost two and a half centuries–of slavery in the United States.³”

What we see as the United States of America today is a direct result of the ingenuity, innovation, and hard labor that started with the “20 and odd” enslaved Africans brought to these shores in 1619. Without them, this country would not be the America we see today. It is time we tell the truth about the founding of our country and stop operating from the revisionist history that so many seem determined to propagate. The true foundation of our nation has been misrepresented and overlaid with lies, misdirection, and blatant hypocrisy. We can only move forward and be a nation where “all men are created equal” when we acknowledge our past, admit that wrong has been done, and go abut making it right.

1. National Park Service (2023, March 6). Archeology This Month: Native American Heritage. https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/archeology-this-month-native-american-heritage

2. Library of Congress. U.S. History Primary Source Timeline. The English Establish a Foothold at Jamestown, 1606-1610. https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/united-states-history-primary-source-timeline/colonial-settlement-1600-1763/english-at-jamestown-1606-1610

3. National Park Service (2020, September 30). 400 Years of African American History. https://www.nps.gov/subjects/africanamericanheritage/400-years