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BackStory

291: 1619: The Arrival of the First Africans in Virginia

BackStory

BackStory

History, Education

4.72.9K Ratings

🗓️ 23 August 2019

⏱️ 60 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This month marks the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first Africans to land on what would become British North America. It wasn’t the first time Africans set foot in what became the United States - they’d arrived some 100 years earlier with Spanish colonists. But 1619 looms large in American history because it marks the beginning of slavery’s development in the Virginia colony and later the entire nation.

Image: "Landing Negroes at Jamestown from Dutch man-of-war, 1619," illustration in Harper's Weekly Magazine, January 1901. Source: Library of Congress

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Terribly sorry to interrupt, but there is something rather important that's dropped.

0:04.0

The Duchess of York, along with her close friend Sarah Thompson, has launched a podcast

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called T-Talks with the Duchess and Sarah.

0:10.8

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0:14.6

Two, inspirational and sophisticated women.

0:19.3

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0:20.4

We always end on a high.

0:22.4

Bring you a weekly podcast to brighten up your days, no end.

0:26.0

Build the tea.

0:26.8

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0:27.7

Subscribe to T-Talks with the Duchess and Sarah that Apple podcasts, Spotify,

0:32.8

or wherever you're listening to this.

0:34.3

I can't believe you asked me that on the first podcast.

0:58.4

Welcome to Backstory, the show that explains the history behind today's headlines.

1:05.8

I'm Ed Ayers.

1:06.6

I'm Joanne Freeman.

1:07.6

And I'm Nathan Carnley.

1:09.5

If you're new to the podcast, we're all historians.

1:12.1

And each week, along with our colleague Brian Ballot, we explore a topic of American history

1:16.9

that's been in the news.

1:18.4

At the end of August, 400 years ago, something monumental happened on the shores of Virginia,

1:24.6

something that would change the course of American history.

...

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