Family of First Enslaved Africans in America Marks 400 Years-- Part 2

The men and women who came from what is now Angola in Africa arrived on two ships and were traded for food and supplies from the English colonists in Virginia.  The landing is considered a pivotal moment in American history, setting the stage for a system of race-based slavery that continues to haunt the nation.

Many of the first Africans in America are known only by their first names.  That included Anthony and Isabella, who became servants for a Captain William Tucker.

They had a son named William Tucker who many believe was the first documented African child born in English-occupied North America.

"We're still here," Wanda Tucker shouted in her family's shaded cemetery, which included many worn gravestones, as well as white crosses where ground penetrating radar had recently found unmarked graves.

The Africans were just 12 years after the founding of Jamestown, England's first permanent colony, and weeks after the first English-style legislature was convened there.