THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 11, 1994 TAG: 9408110545
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Marc Tibbs
LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
It's a dubious distinction held by the Old Dominion - being the first of the 13 Colonies to open its shores to slavery.
But two Virginia communities vie for the honor of being ``the home of slavery.''
Jamestown has traditionally been the site associated with the birthplace of American slavery. But Hampton officials also tout Old Point Comfort, now Fort Monroe, as the original place where about 20 Africans disembarked from a Dutch man-of-war. The Dutch captain traded the captured Africans for supplies with none other than Virginia's governor, Sir George Yeardley, and Virginia Company official Abraham Piersey.
The Africans became ``indentured servants,'' but it was only a matter of time before they were considered the precursors to chattel slavery.
Jamestown officials, while they don't dispute the Hampton story, still cling to the town's distinction as the place that put the ``American'' in African-American.
A week from Friday, both locales will begin their commemorative celebrations of the 375th anniversary of that fateful landing. ``The Arrival, Jamestown 1619: From African to African American'' is the Jamestown commemorative. It will include a symbolic ship landing, complete with a ``welcome'' by drummers on the banks of the James River.
In Hampton, ``Unwilling Immigrants: Pilgrimage to Virginia'' is a national bus tour that begins in San Diego and culminates with a three-day visit to Old Point Comfort.
The Rev. James Hargett, of the Christian Fellowship Church, will commemorate the landing with a 5 a.m. prayer service Aug. 20 and a wreath-laying ceremony Aug. 21 at the grave of Mary S. Peake, a black educator.
But commemorating the beginnings of slavery is risky business. Granted, the 375th anniversary of that first landing ought to be noted, but what the landing represents can't be summed up with wreath-laying and jaded civic pride.
American slavery became one of the worst forms of servitude the world has ever seen, and with the current state of race relations, it's evident that its scars still remain.
The ancestors of the enslaved and those of the slave masters fight psychological battles daily in cities and towns across the country.
A commemoration of the Jamestown arrival may well be in order, but somewhere in the midst of the hoopla ought to be an acknowledgment that not all of America's immigrants arrived ashore with hope and songs in their hearts.
Some never arrived at all.
A historian once wrote that ``there is a railroad of bones'' beneath the sea routes of the slave ships. Sharks routinely followed the vessels because they knew they'd be fed as thousands of Africans were thrown overboard due to sickness, death or their refusal to cooperate with their captors.
Their bones were never laid to rest in America's haste to eradicate slavery from its consciousness.
Before we start paying homage to the landing, we need to come to grips with the stories of those who didn't make it. by CNB