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Triangle Area Groups To Observe Anniversary Of 400th Year Since First Enslaved Africans’ Arrival

Phyllis Coley @phyllis_coley

Durham, NC – Triangle Area Asanteman Kuo (TAAK), a Ghanaian association, in conjunction with the John Chavis Historical Society (JCHS), NC Museum of History, NC African American Heritage Commission, African Diaspora Coalition NC, NCCU Archives and History Center, Hayti Heritage Center, and Ujima, will observe the anniversary of 400 years since first enslaved Africans landed in Jamestown VA. This landing marked the beginning of the diaspora and of African American history. The remembrance Gala dinner will be held on Oct 5th at the Sheraton Imperial Hotel (4800 Emperor Blvd., Durham). CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS

The evening will honor the ancestors by embracing the past, celebrate perseverance, resiliency, and contributions, and our future aspirations. The tribute is globally aligned with Ghana’s 2019 Year of Return proclamation and the U.S. Congress Proclamation for Year of Commemoration of African American History.

The Jubilee will kick-off at 6:00 pm with an exhibition and display of memorabilia, cultural vendors and cocktails with the program starting at 7:00 pm. The historic commemoration event will also feature culinary offerings (American & African), religious and cultural performances, an interactive panel discussion, music, and dancing. The exciting program will be complemented by raffle prizes.

Triangle areaThe night’s featured panelists include Triangle area and N.C. notable historians, clergy, curator, and legislators to include:

  • Jaki Shelton Green, NC Poet Laureate
  • NC Senator Floyd McKissick
  • Earl Ijames, Curator
  • Honorable Kojoa Yankah, Historian/Author
  • Karla FC Holloway, B. Duke Professor Emerita of English and Law at Duke University
  • Dr. John Mendez, Activist, Pastor – Emmanuel Baptist Church (Winston-Salem)

The National Park Service website explains that the landing of these first enslaved Africans in English-occupied North America was in late August 1619, now believed to be August 25. They were not on a Dutch ship as originally recorded, but rather the White Lion, an English privateer ship sailing under Dutch authority. The White Lion had captured its human cargo from the Spanish slave ship São João Bautista or San Juan Bautista during a battle in the Gulf of Mexico. Before returning to Europe, the White Lion stopped in Virginia for rations.

Those “20 and odd” were not originally intended for the English colonies; they were bound for the Caribbean and South America in the Spanish colonies where slavery was already established. The Spanish had previously brought enslaved Africans to other parts of the Americas and what became the southern and southwestern part of the United States.

Triangle area
James City County, VA. Historical Marker at the location that first enslaved Africans arrived in U.S.

The landing of the first enslaved Africans was a significant event in our country’s history, but it is still widely unknown. With their 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.

“The event will help increase awareness, knowledge, the appreciation of heritage and would also encourage North Carolinians to travel and explore Ghana-US history, heritage locations in Africa and North Carolina,” said Dr. Helen Othow, President The John Chavis Historical Society, a Triangle-area organization based in Oxford, NC.

For tickets, CLICK HERE.  No tickets will be sold at the door.

For more information, contact Kwame Yeboah at 919-676-0842 or Owusu Takyi at 919-630-9252; or email taakonline@yahoo.com