BackStory; 1619: The Arrival of the First Africans in Virginia

major funding for baxter is provided by the anonymous donor the national endowment for the humanities and the robert and joseph cornell memorial foundation it is well the back story the show explains the history behind today's headlines and it airs i'm john freeman connelly jr the podcast oral historians and each week along with our colleague brian balogh weeks for a topic of american history it's been in the news at the end of august four hundred years ago something monumental had been on the shores of virginia something that would change the course of american history john rolfe a prominent planter recorded details of the event he described how in a ship called the white line arrived at point comfort a site just outside the jamestown colony rough recorded at the sheer brockwell twenty and it grows last century mark the arrival of the first africans on land that would become british

north america a couple days later another small group of africans arrived aboard the treasure another english private hearing ship crew of the treasure had stormy africans that were on board from the portuguese slaving ship the san juan bautista the africans were to first set foot america some one hundred years earlier spanish scholars but africans to lands that would later become part of the united states still there i will mark the beginning of the long tragic story of slavery in virginia in the english colonies and today on the show we explore the complicated history behind sixteen nineteen we'll travel to hampton virginia and meet a family whose roots go back to where it all began an you'll also hear from frank harris who interviewed people from all walks of life about their thoughts on the four hundredth anniversary but first we thought we'd start off with surprise surprise a little history the story of the arrival of the first africans to british north america might seem relatively simple it's sixty

nineteen and a ship arrives in the virginia colony a ship that includes people forcibly taken from west africa but hold on says the sun or nummi alexander a professor of history at norfolk state university turns out the history of these first africans arrival is anything but simple i talk more with his son about the history of sixty nineteen and started by asking her what historians have discovered about the lives of these first arrivals we know that these were people who had been furry or living in urban areas in the kingdom of no dong and it is a mad keen dumb as well as the kingdom of the congo that we would see a lot of farm understanding all of the mixture of cultures coming into being and the lives of the people lived in that region and what i mean by that is the portuguese we're of course trying to dominate the area they sent missionaries and it said that point dead and many of the

africans who are living in the kingdom of bhutan girl who were condemned as speaking peoples that they learned portuguese that they learned to read that they understood and learned about the harm religious canons of catholicism that of course aren't even though england are separated from the catholic church and korea the church of england and they still followed a lot of these ideas that you don't and slave a fellow kirsch that there's a certain order to society that is supposed to be a society of laws are met n and while their society of course was set up in in a similar kind of way they had a better understanding of these foreign people who are very different from them at least as far as they could see these first africans came from that environment they were not unaccustomed to europeans they were in the d's europeans are not foreign to them what they

had to do was to learn english but because they came from a region in which people spoke many dialects in new languages being up english and seemingly did not take a very long time at least as far as we can see it in the brief mentions of things and the record's audi's first africans who were forcefully forcibly are taken to the virginia colony they had been free and now they suddenly found themselves in chains and bondage and the debate still continues about whether or not they were enslaved to whether they were a bonded when they were in danger serves although most historians say of course they were an indentured servants because there was no contract but i've fallen the camp are a love of arguing that these people were bonded and explain what you mean by bonded right and so in

some ways to europeans who were forcefully taken and made to surf in fact their records in england the talk about english people who were kidnapped and suddenly they found themselves on a ship bound for the jamestown colony and at this time you would see in the records the mention of virginia at the virginia colony and jamestown are most on interchangeably and so these people didn't have a contract unlike indentured servants who signed a contract in exchange for their passage over for food or whatever aren't they would serve so many years and the average they say was seven years but a person who was seized and they were armed servants they were bonded servants these individuals typically did not serve a lifetime of servitude which which she was classified as anything over twenty years and so it seems that these africans

were treated more as these kinds of bonded servants although from the beginning we would see in the records that they weren't listed and referred to differently than many of the europeans who were brought in apple iphone back to that so i go into that in more detail but i i wanna say to sum up what sounds like what you just said you know i think people tend to assume there two clear categories giggly and enslaved and what you're suggesting here is it's very complex in that period and even still to this date hard to tell some of the differentiation so there's a lot of shady things there are a lot of shadings and arm and because the records are so incomplete and biting complete i mean that either there was no effort to really record a lot or overtime a lot of the records simply were destroyed or lost arm because of that we see this homogenous term servant being used to apply to everyone

who was not for it now it would be in the court records when someone was freed are in the arm in your will that's when you would see some of these specificity is it a modest i one time i sitting here actually because i think i am sitting here is a historian and surf were old and impressed at this level of detail all right you need to go and to uncover these and decode and then pieced together what you're talking about here is a catch up for the people listening because what an incredible process that that is still ongoing yes and that's what's exciting that's what i tell my students that this notion that history is in the past and that everything we know we are you know is untrue there's so much intrigue when you begin to really parse out in

this time period of the sixteen nineteen era you begin to dive deep into the records that we have it unfolds conspiracies it on the falls all kinds of actions and activities going on some of them known some of them may never be known you know in the hampton roads you have the beginnings of our nation and so these people who are being how forcefully brought in ah i'm from west central africa vaporize fully intact their culture their ideas their skills so you have people who are really new tobacco production and while it wouldn't be until the eighteenth century and the metal eighteenth century that the african labor as we begin to dominate over the white laborers day new tobacco production number of fair use stolen that and then you had a

mini these africans were accustomed to are riverboat trading and riverboat transportation as war the native peoples wildly english had more ocean fearing transportation because they were located on an island and so the africans our knowledge of the riverboat navigation transportation was really poured because they weren't purchased as servants to lower middle class whites the or purchases servants to be a weak in the colonies the us or the ones who would be met constructing the boats who were bringing in the goods who were exporting the goods that were made here so they are in a position of influence even though their numbers were very small dead campbell i know small numbers they had an influence beyond just how small of the number they were compared to the larger our white population and of course the

way that we interpret this time period once pocahontas dies it's almost as if all native peoples evaporate and we know that the english continued for the next hundred you're surrounded by even though they were starting to get to diminish because of warfare and disease are still surrounded by a larger much larger hostile native population now talking about something you've depicted this image a wonderful image of these people who obviously are free have their own culture their own skills are captured are brought to north america are deporting those skills in this new environment as you put it on and off into this elite population but so here's my question i understand it you and kind of along the lines of stressing their independence you prefer to call these people and free resin enslaved and i wonder if you could explain what that means i am because

virginia did not have a legalized system of slavery are you with the first slave laws in virginia would not be passed until sixteen sixty two though there were signs that slavery was emerging by the sixteen forties i prefer not to focus on the system of slavery until we would actually see it emerging ahmed it's an institution as an institution and that he has a practice because you had a number of people who weren't who were obtaining their freedom and they were obtaining their freedom is essentially a first twenty years because they had finished two years of service and you would see this britain in the documents you have for example on anthony and mary johnson whoa we're bonded on the bennett plantation in virginia on the

james river and after they served there twenty years they were all given land for the head right system our land on the eastern shore in anthony johnson prospered so much that he could have if they live far the general assembly did not change the laws are at that time they called it the house of purchases but he could become the first black free holder but the moment that he had the requirements by law the general assembly floor should say the house of burgess says matt and change the law saying that this only applies to white man which gets back to a point he made earlier about a series of laws being passed in virginia they are sitting in place a pattern that doesn't exist at the outset yes i'll for

example in sixteen sixty two same year that arm there would be a clear laws saying that all incoming africans brought into the colony would be enslaved that same year this law said that black women's children were taken after the condition of their mother while in that same law saying that for white women the children would continue to take after the status of their father because willem was a patch or a patriarchal and pat truly neil society but what america did and what virginia in particular did was it a change that law for black people only this is a way also to continually sexual exploitation that have an end to black women are with impunity so white man could force themselves on these women or have children

just have children with these women and not worry about growing the free black population instead actually growing their wealth that way here so there's a series of these laws you mentioned nearly one about the man of wealth that you need to be able to vote and it sounds like bit by bit these are caught a fine slavery yet is becoming some kind of institutionalized legalized system yes and enacting one of the most dear to the most heinous laws that were passed during this period one is sixteen sixty nine and the other and sixteen seventy two third allow the first time allow for the cool casual killing of black people by their owners in sixty seventy two the law said that if any black person our hall was in bondage are resisted arrest that they could be

killed with impunity it kind of set in motion what some legal experts are have called a i'm a muscle memory it kind of says that in motion a lot a national way olive regarding blacks before the law and when it came to law enforcement and critical our muscle memory such a wonderful way of putting it putting it because obviously because one of the underlying assumptions there is it we're talking about force reyes it's an area and the threat of force that yes that's a great phrase and it does not require any conscious thought that right it is just the natural reaction because it's so embedded in the culture you've given us isn't really wonderfully human complex she did in some ways but i'm morpheus are nebulous image of

the complexities of life or white and black and every other shade of person in this time period that again as we said the outset i think it is so important to get people passed easy assumptions that they might bring to understanding this period for modern times so related to that i understand you're involved with the public events that are going to be commemorating the four hundredth anniversary of the arrival of africans to jamestown so given everything that we've talked about here what do you want people to come away with in learning about that history i want people to know that our history our narrative is not written in stone that arm much of what we've grown up learning is incorrect in terms of these early years it was a neat and it certainly wasn't cleaned up the faith that

we presented in terms of our national narrative but most importantly i want people to know that these were human beings they weren't things they were objects they had hopes and dreams and their hopes and dreams actually helped even transform the chorus that the virginia colony was on our after sixteen nineteen on the virginia colony was never going to be what it started out and sixteen ios seven or even in sixteen sixteen when john are off our show the colony that they could produce tobacco and that was a moneymaking crop for them there from sixty nine team moving forward we would see africa is helping to define the concepts of freedom and liberty and equality that went beyond arm the the normal understanding that that english people europeans in general had about that bedded only related to them that only they could be christians and these africans we're not

complacent with their fight for that and their fight actually helped to evolve a very expansive understanding that has become our national moniker of freedom liberty and equality so years ago frank harris began interviewing people around the country about the four hundredth anniversary of the first africans to arrive in british north america yes i'm too simple but important questions how should the four hundredth be observed if you had a

chance or would you say to those first africans the response he got inspired him to write a poem called they came across the water precious black cargo here's an exam they came across the water precious cargo in the dungeon below nameless homeless and remembered unknown african to african dust to dust reed and lust forgotten adage the first passage village slaughter the beginning of the heart among the dozens of interviews he conducted frank says that was one response in particular that stood out to him when i was in mississippi i met this guy and i asked him about the four hundred and he ended that interview by saying they have a tough time come across the waters and those words stuck with me they have a

tough time come across the waters was aptly described the many things that africans had gone to do on the way here and then i read the book by zora neale hurston called the last black cargo army which she talks about this is this interview she did back in the thirties with the person who was said to be the last enslaved african brought to america becoming the book really touched me because it talked about the expenses of these african as he left africa and he was old enough to remember what happened and they described what happened to him in his village those things can inspire me to write this poll are but for me it describes really big challenge that the descendants of enslaved africans have experience in this country from day one from africa and that was still experiencing today right and you've been traveling around asking people

you personally what do they think about the four hundred how it should be observed if at all what motivates you to take on this project as a way of maybe accessing people's everyday thoughts about the anniversary i love history i've always had a commitment to to the interests of black people in this country my parents who have gotten civil rights they were from mississippi and i love talking to people that think everybody has a story in is interesting because i'll walk up to strangers as well as people walk up to strangers it's really interesting you would think that maybe they may now to talk to you but oftentimes people will open up and tell you their stories and tell you new datsun feelings so when i asked people cause of all most people workin emily still

are on a way out of this event that was the first thing i would save him and some speeches event given some talks who have given our say the four hundred foot what does it mean to you and no one it may be the reason we now people will know but no one knew what the four hundredth was and i kind of expected that but when i tell it really strike statement and sometimes the responses that people give aboud is a it's very powerful i mean they lived it it forced them and when i asked the other question like math just now how should this even be observed how last him if you had the opportunity what would you say the first insulin that's the worst aaron i've had people like paulson gaskin and ken try to really think about what do you what they might say there was a sense though of the kinds of responses that you got him to do that and other questions why

eric a hug and their dad is a former member of a black panther party and she said to the thing that was striking she said first of all i don't know i may not know your name but you're forever in my heart and she also said that it is my sacred duty to honor you will have for the rest of my life one gentleman i interviewed in harlem last fall and there was actually i interviewed him he was from oklahoma he and his wife were visiting harlem then the words that he said were i'm sorry and the way he said it was and this was a black man who says i'm sorry you know that's when he was a deal then there's a long pause and i said about it said for what you had to go to do and i'm sorry that we have

not done enough in this country we meaning black people and i had one of my colleagues at southern professors to vaughn conner david sims asked them all we what you imagine we would be vented talks about how the first africans would have no way of knowing what the future would bring all if they can envision themselves ever being free i'm so quick question was why we work you would imagine we would be different responses and all of them were were touching wood movie and it really really does serve to capture the complexity of the black presence in the americas more generally right which i have to imagine but there are number of people who feel a personal connection to the history of african slaves who certainly feel a connection to

the events of sixteen nineteen and who feel that in marking that event there is in fact much to celebrate in terms of the arrival of black people to the place where their citizenship or be recognized to the point where they were able to put their families back together to build institutions and the like does alone way that people have come since that period and at the same time i have to imagine that your understanding in your discussion with others about the four hundred was a very solemn occasion when that we could necessarily be called the celebration but maybe something else to get any sense of people appreciating that difference in your conversations with and there were times when i always use the word observance allen says celebrate because then that this was something that some of the people interviewed said it how do you celebrate yeah and systems being enslaved there's a number of different ways to look at this one person said to me send it i use it

at the hogans can doing at the time i interviewed her it was aretha franklin's funeral and that the fact that aretha franklin died people are not celebrating her dying to celebrating her living in the same way you're not celebrating enslavement is celebrating those who persevered those who endured there was this another lady in in mississippi didn't choose a mayor at the time was inside in mississippi then she said we should celebrate and she said were not celebrating inflame was celebrating the fact that we that we survived we are strong people and we built this country and withdraw a whole lot to do so so in light of the people that you spoke with your own personal engagement with a lot of these issues and themes of the journalism industry living in this country what you think is the best way to observe the four hundredth anniversary and

and how does your own sense of meaning kramer shape i think a politician be observed you know i've thought about that and i don't know if it is a one best way to observe it but personally for me what i'm going to do come in and made an area then we have a collision so on a sunday morning it is a call for people to talk about that the us park system as is one thing they're encouraging people to those on sunday and twenty fifth of august to toll a bale in honor of the four four minutes in honor of the four hundred or so on the go to the ocean and that would be the man i want a tall a bailout may say a few words and bring a few people with me that will be pardon my honor my observations of the of the four hundred and then i may do some good things in between now and then but for me that's

one of things i'm doing is it is again china just get to work down in china people get people to recognize that this even true so that we don't let this time pass without some type of some type of observance of those who came before us in to help build this country it's so hard you are

do as far as first families go in american history there are plenty of famous ones that show are often pocahontas jon abigail and john quincy adams which you've probably never heard of the tucker family from hampton virginia the arrival of the first africans mean something special for them that's because they've been able to trace their lineage back to william tucker the first african american born on british north american soil and sixteen twenty four he was a child isabelle antonio two of the first africans to arrive in sixteen nineteen thats our producer melissa does monday traveled to him to get to chat with some members of the talk of excellence of it is these events census says less that

two acre plot there's an air force base nearby and planes go by constantly the plots surrounded by homes walking onto it is easy to think you're strolling into someone's backyard was actually a sacred sight for the tug of family we're standing on the grounds of what was once called the roll call it the graveyard man it has been in the tucker family for years that's vincent tucker he's the president of the william tucker sixteen twenty four society we purchased it in at ninety six was a beautiful two acre establishment and we didn't radar x ray radar scale of several years ago that discovered onion and six and more grades up and theres a layer that we we have to complete and then there are those standing grace there were hi i'm here way before that time and that also consists of our family members and

ten others from the neighborhood vinson says the family still doing research to find out exactly how far the cemetery dates back but they have some ideas and we do know that bloomberg apple which is about a quarter mile from here is where kept away and tucker plantation was and dissent and so when tucker were where they are this i happened to be the only cemetery within that area so we believe that possibly go back forty years he did a lot of land in this community and we were thinking and now the research they hope to prove that the senator was indeed part of the plantation visit was joined by some of his cousins parental tucker and walter jones melissa asked them if there's a chance willie and tucker's remains lie in the family plot we don't know we don't know

regulation well we don't we don't know for sure there's no concrete evidence of that we have not dominant although the white crosses are chasing away there were unmarked graves that we uncover winter ground penetrating radar this is walter sixties part of the cemetery unification can be possible graves so we don't know we haven't done is that is to say you know what would be the oldest remains this out here if they could be determined but as martyrs and said id id it is so rich as ben good old we were proud to land in trouble a lot of this history and delivered a shirt with the country one area historians they came out a couple years ago was able to share that africans

are women were birds that made medicaid markers and one thing that they did was they planted a seed for training at the location of the arm where someone was murdered and you as you can say this amateur is that it with trees everywhere not to mention was that have fallen over and have uncovered different kinds what it's clear that one of those discoveries turn out to be quite extraordinary so right now we're walking to the edge of the cemetery where there were markers and you can see there's a lot of cross is among lot of intentions where the arm and mock raids that we were at a john coltrane song as i mentioned i was so the trees that were planted where there was all africans are physically end as you can see the one with the cross

their represents an urgent that i was clearing because the birth canal don't write down in the clear so nervous to make it easier to clean and what we uncovered was the remains of a scroll on right on top of that meltdown malls are so this believe that deep roots in the trees that it came out or pushed out puts the body till the top and after finding that we took it all to richmond and headed evaluated to see the age of the agent and a half ethnic background and it turned out to be an african american female proximity sixty years so i am a week we dedicated this earlier and then we bury the remains there so that we felt that we had the ceremony out here and now

several dignitaries came and over that are armored what we would be warm in and respected that to mark the four hundredth anniversary of the tigers are holding a ceremony at the family plot which is now protected from future development for them this anniversary is deeply personal it's also garnered the family international attention the chance to tell people about their family and their family's place in american history this episode of just the senate this of the earth is this is we're re jane sixteen eighteen and o this is the cemetery that's closest to captain william perkins property that we know and we show i did this senator is also now the resting place for all of our ancestors so we need to understand they risked their

own through contributions maybe i'm sure that sunbeam in the cost abuse and the building america sweat sweat and blood and tears we're all feeling the columns that were getting started and then over the years so what we've done this of the birthplaces of the beginning and the contribution to start it right here and that that's significant because with the arrival of the sixteen at my baby don't have technology so a lot of bass in their labor and that they put into it a even with the dept think implies says the house how the art of the noise she'll have you with ink into event caused a lot of the rape victims in a lot of these resources that we use on a

daily basis today and a lot of it really has not be recognized like it should've been but it all started from the arrivals thistle farm a gay way to let people know that this piece of history is a very significant piece of his piece of history the news we recognize and the truth needs to be told zammit it wasn't recognized is very important and it's never been compensated and that's something that should be considered on for you know who's going to help tell the story help fund detailed a story who's gonna look even further towards reparations and other times to support and left us there were two areas where we can stand even groucho and this is american history that we lead to tension to know is this not above us is american

history they need to know there wasn't talked about in school and is now which is nice to be a dream for was what told they need two more campuses want this piece of history because as the beginning of the route or i may just thousand of the king can sell fly that basis so as as well as the stories a share and as we continue to do research and to our family there are a lot of branches to history and sold to hear different stories what happened to our family bits and pieces mason real as judges that's how we all know the descendants are for all one family or one branch to another soul to talk about those sources you also are sometimes if it will bring tears three i's because it's not just a store that you read in the book is your family this that we endured over the

years so of slavery and polls were furry and the labor that was put into building america it is this is a lot more there than chains and you know treated as savages and things of that nature is just the half so although they close to my mind when i think about those you know mrs barrett not only did inspire us to push through and clean and do it it's radiant to do all research bruce inspiring all african americans to look at their own fruits in paris and found out the connections that they are and how much is true they can and go that was walter jones backstory producer messages brown has a good job protecting one of the most historic site in america

terry is the superintendent at fort monroe national monument norfolk virginia it's a site that includes old point comfort where historians believe the first africans set foot in british north america us terry porter wrote just historical saucer breathtaking oh my beautiful immediately didn't main gates of what monroe it looks and feels like a military and its fascinating applebee's or military buildings as you drive down the main road this is beautiful trees he's created marital status they hold dear as you drive down the road it seemed plenty of ships going mine has a beautiful scene and they actually are times when a walk around the four taken aback more or less by diffusion is amazing terry stays busy a former oil giving tours of thousands of people who visit the site each year for chile i was a look at up with him recently and ask what it was like to interview so many people to such an important space i started by asking terry tell me about the story to fort

monroe and what he tells visitors about the site's significance one thing you know is so easy to come to caucus so beautiful like us federal you can come to this for you can ensure that that the military was here four hundred and ninety years we have these historic buildings on the beach and you have nowhere more white house that the bats ate too but when you scratch the surface and look at the history of american indians were fishermen could knowing in the chesapeake almost fifteen thousand years ago and it's just you can make international mind just on the story along and then you have the early columnist writing captain john smith and christopher newport the first africans we have the largest stone fortress america and it was built in part by mostly people this is just a beautiful a piece a resource that we have here and then you know in eighteen sixty one meeting sixty one we have this amazing story i sometimes get pushed aside because we've

been focused on six to nineteen but then at sixty one virginia you know start the war virginia season union and i'm not even a week into activity during indies remain leslie mann a rod that the gay support monroe frank baker james thomson and sheppard mallory and they asked for asylum and would you why this is so important is because about a week before they arrived we know that several in sleepy borat or return to the confederates the confederacy building fortifications course towards it then in may twenty fourth sometime in that timeframe to stream ensure but the gate as for asylum and general butler who had just arrived a sort of a little torn in lincoln side uses trauma find a place to put in any plans at you as if foreman wrote and she thinks the decision to keep these gentlemen and to make a long story

short while before we know it there are people showing up the next day by monday almost a hundred people showing up october welcome thousands and mean eventually ten thousand plus ms lee people will make their way to fort monroe and over time they were calling freedoms for jesus was all right and you have all these country cranking out literally on the parade ground here point comfort this is an amazing story and that will lead to many different policy changes and ultimately the emancipation proclamation those are two powerful stories on the same really quite small piece of territory how do you bring this together care they have to tell those stories every day i have you really done again the arc of history is important to me is not only you know you come here like a show use artifacts or the footprints of afghans being in the space and the artful part of this you know being in this position of artfully tell people

that they we hear that do and that they were relevant and to convince people that this is important especially when you have too many things you can show them what i try to convey to folks is that it's not just an african american story is really an american store and we need to merge all these stories into one unless not be afraid to have these conversations about slavery and racism i mean my office is the former home or robert e lee and i think he's important talk about jefferson davis was imprisoned here and all these stories are really cocky and like to tell people for monroe is truly american it has class isn't as racism as you name it all is all insiders low double bolt that we have here and to talk about with the cherry in two thousand eleven former president barak obama made a national monument valley some portion of those four

and now you are the superintendent of the national monument as you say in bodies image of american history is your job mr shepardson correct they're so lovely question and oftentimes and oftentimes are not asked that question yes it is emotional attachment i mean considering then when a demo dna recently take me back to camera there's really fascinating to know and cameron cameron owns or when i try to gaze every day there are times i get really choked up because i know what happened in the space and he is a huge responsibility i want the community to be proud of what i'm doing and i think you know i know that slavery was less harsh was painful and has a lot of mixed emotions get into gangs and the team itself so you know i tried until everybody the

islamist group was all up because i am so close to and i struggle with it sometimes but i know that as long as i'm in this uniform and i know that as long as i love this great country and no one better at know the constitution doesnt say that were perfect union this isn't order to form a more perfect union and i think that the main that we all need to because sometimes the emmys a it brings in the ugly parts of our history with the country being only two hundred and thirty years old and goading them are african have ashtrays out in the country so we're we're literally just learning how to be a country and i think we all just need to figure this thing out there

national guard unit in norfolk virginia our own own moon or are gone wrong terry i've been working together to help commemorate the arrival of the first africans in what becomes british north america and weaker to add for monroe and it's been very interesting to see what this looks like up close and the anxiety and the struggle of nomenclature the debates over where the first african people first arrived

old point comfort versus jamestown it's so interesting to see how complicated it is even in commemoration i'm just wondering what looks like a little more distance part of what's interesting about it is directly related to a dissident which is when you don't think very deeply the commemoration of anything seems there's taking already it's like it's something that publicly were going to announce in and do something and you know we say something official but in this case you don't have to dig very far to get at all these complexities about what is being commemorated what kind of collaboration is appropriate what kinds of beginnings and endings are we talking about who are we including you know i mean it's i believe there is now as of the last few days i'm a debate between historians about this very issue about is that slavery before slavery prostitution allies do we call it that or not call it that what is that mean were these people with a slave or were they on as cassandra a newbie alexander says unfreeze at a better way of putting it

so it's amazing that it's it's not very far beneath the surface historically speaking which i suppose makes perfect sense because it's not very far beneath the surface of the united states as a nation as a whole the question of race and where it fits and how we grapple with it in america's history right yeah i mean it feels that the volume is going to really be raised on this particular commemoration because of that number four hundred and then what that number means relative to the age of the nation itself which you know really is a humbling thing to consider and that the institution of slavery even as an ill defined set of practices that this is largely without a name in north america in terms of being an institution that that still receive the establishment of the united states and therefore it connects directly to the debate as to whether or not slavery is you know part of the country's dna to use one the ways of this problem is framed in so much my son's the leases that a lot of what

is creating concern or that raises apprehensions about what to do with this particular anniversary has to do with what it means about america and if we are in fact he younger as a nation then slavery itself and we have to acknowledge there's some kind of indebtedness to the country's own greatness of prominence or complexities has in this institution yet i think that they're jerks position is made even clearer by the simultaneous celebration as opposed to commemoration of the permanent representative democracy is in collier a syntax and so that whole struggle between who are we really is played out on the theater it what you all think about that mean does it is or something lost or by having these commemorations can a woven together or is it a useful reminder well i think it's important to always we had to go to the extent you can pit was experiences

across the colorado twentieth century formulation right i mean that if you have people who were imagining freedom in the colony of virginia right which is a very famous one that we all know a lover anymore against american slavery american freedom that you know virginia becomes a really important birthplace for both the flow most asian of the sleeve institution and for these ideas about democracy coming from jefferson and others and so you can in and some we disentangle not even just love the ideas of the attraction to geography of america's founding from the of the slavery democracy couple of this is also something that's imbedded even more in and what a contemporary debate now about the country and its identity which is to say you know it's important to mark the arrival of slavery as an institution in the british colonies but if we were denied that theres of a spanish my beer ian version of slavery in the americas awful century before we even get to what happens in virginia sixteen nineteen and then she also changes what we are as a

country where there were in fact a nation with both spanish roots and with english root and i also went into the race a very touchy proposition for a lot of people in you know in commemorations it obviously be like firsts commemorations are about the first or whatever but what what you're suggesting in a big what's interesting and significant here is that really what's more accurate and meaningful is that take it take away the first and what ultimately becomes the united states has as part of this the longer narrative the longer and more tangled story which really is in a sense the way history is a tall very often and should be told more often right right and that's the thing that i think for a lot of people makes the sixteen nineteen moment such a bittersweet one which is to say that this in many ways is kind of a the kurds of maritime accidents right that ship gets raided its cargo gets kind of moved out of the normal traffic of la slavery at the time

and yet from that moment you then have this larger saga about you know the united states in its own you know centuries long struggle with you know capitalism and with racism and with his own sense of democracy and identity and that too is a powerful thing right that that at this moment that easily could not have happened and becoming law starter for a whole host of generational struggles and frankly the country's still very much grappling with and i wonder if instead of that too is as a lesson to think about around this anniversary which is simply to say that there are a lot of people who want to do hand wringing and kind of gnashing their teeth about say election cycles are what feel like aberrations and the normal sweep of a kind of progressive nation but i wonder if the lessons of sixteen nineteen are also having a certain kind of respect perspective about what the unforeseen consequences can be of you know countries that are still trying to do as we are figuring out that in some ways the question of

democracy right this could be a precedent where you can keep the conversation going on one that is lovely for the episode where i asked fischer questions about history you'll find the staff that story really insular personal backstory we're also on facebook and twitter and fx special thanks this week to the johns hopkins studios in baltimore the antechamber candid back stories produced at the support provided by justin robert wood johns hopkins university ryan calo is a professor of history at university and

is this professor of the humanities and president emeritus of richmond john freeman is a professor of history and american studies at yale university and called atoms associate professor of history at johns hopkins university it