Slavery in the Colonial Caribbean
This month marks the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved people in the English Caribbean.
On 4 August 1626 three ships dropped anchor in the road off the leeward coast of St Christopher (St Kitts) in the Caribbean. A hundred English settlers rowed ashore, come to make their fortunes in England’s first colony in the Caribbean, established two years before by Thomas Warner, a captain in James I’s guard. The settlers were joined by 60 people from West Africa, who, unlike their white counterparts, were not passengers but cargo: the first enslaved people in the English Caribbean.
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