African American Food: To The Civil War: Africans Come to America

It is possible that these first Virginia “Negroes” were indentured like the British undesirables, criminals, captured foreign soldiers, prostitutes, debtors, “ne’er-do-wells,” kidnapped children, poor children put into service by their parents, gypsies, would-be farmers, unemployed soldiers, “restless souls,” and adventurers who were in servitude for a contractual period before becoming free to advance in the colonies. But Virginia documents make clear that within two generations most “Africans” were in permanent slavery.