WASHINGTON, D.C., USA — Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in North America.
While it was crucial in creating the country now known as the United States of America, it also was the launching pad for centuries of racial oppression.
The year was 1607 and the English were making a second attempt to start a successful colony in the “New World.”
John Smith and other settlers landed in modern day Virginia and founded Jamestown on May 14.
It wasn't an easy start. The colony almost didn’t get off the ground.
The marshes of the peninsula were a breeding ground for mosquitoes. The area was horrible for planting and forced the early colonists into a famine.
As the colony struggled to survive, settlers discovered tobacco. This would be the fertile crop that saved the colony.
However, tobacco crops required large amounts of cheap labor and indentured servants didn’t provide a steady enough work force.
Several years after the founding of Jamestown, the colonists introduced one of the worst human atrocities ever conceived into the New World: slavery.