There are several 1619 projects, beyond the slavery narrative most recently highlighted. And they speak to an America of both sin and redemption, as I was reminded on a recent village to Jamestown, Virginia, America’s first English surviving settlement.
The 1619 Project published by The New York Times in 2019 described the arrival of the first slaves at Jamestown Colony as America’s “true founding.” It strove to reinterpret many of America’s great events, such as the America Revolution, as motivated by or at least corrupted by slavery.
Twenty slaves did indeed arrive at Jamestown in 1619, originally transported by Portuguese from Angola and captured by English privateers operating under a Dutch flag. Their arrival tragically launched 230 years of slavery in America, only halted by the Civil War and 700,000 dead, followed by a century of legal segregation and more years of racial animosity/
But there were other momentous events at Jamestown in 1619…
