The 400th Anniversary of America's Fundamental Paradox

On August 20, 1619, approximately 20 enslaved Africans arrived in Point Comfort, on the coast of Virginia, aboard an English pirate ship named The White Lion. This arrival, of people bound into servitude by virtue of their skin color, marked a defining moment in the history of the British colonies in North America—and an equally critical point in what would become the history of the United States.

The enslavement of black Africans in 1619 was the first instance in North America of what would become American slavery. Like a cancer on the body politic, slavery’s economic, social, and cultural power grew throughout the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, even as this nation’s founders were placing equality for all at the center of the American experiment. As the institution expanded, it drew millions of Americans and countless organizations into its reach; this was an institution built on the toil, the suffering, and the broader experience of enslaved men, women and children for well over two centuries.

This is the fundamental paradox of America. As a number of different scholars, past and present, have suggested, slavery lies at the heart of America as much as the democratic impulses of the country’s original documents and the men and women who struggled and sacrificed to make this nation a reality. Four hundred years after those 20 Africans were forced into slavery to be traded to Virginia colonists in exchange for goods, and 154 years after the Civil War and the 13th Amendment ended slavery in this country, Americans from all walks of life continue to live with the extraordinary consequences of this institution.   

In the coming weeks, I will share profiles of African-Americans and their allies who worked to end the institution of slavery. I will also offer some insight about the beginnings of this institution in North America.