Depends on one’s definition of 'technically’ AFAICT:
The first slaves brought to Virginia *were *indentured servants.
So are you saying the first slaves brought to Virginia weren’t really slaves, but rather indentured servants who could expect to be freed at the end of their term?
Or are you saying they were called indentured servants, but were in fact slaves?
I’m genuinely unclear on your meaning.
At least some of the blacks originally brought to Virginia as “indentured servants” eventually did earn their freedom; see for example Anthony Johnson. Others seem to have been in a murkier status; Johnson himself owned the contract for John Casor and was not obligated to release him at the end of term. There’s actually a fair amount of debate among historians about the transition from indentured servitude to slavery for Africans in Virginia Colony, and it’s not altogether clear what the correct answer is.
I understand that we say that its murky. But I thought it was fairly well established that the first blacks in Virginia (the “20 and odd Negroes”) were capture from a Portuguese slave ship and brought to Virginia. How could there be a term of indenture under those circumstances?
Because of the laws on the books at the time. Slavery didn’t get enshrined into law in Virginia until around 1640.
The legal institution of slavery, the framework of laws setting the rules for holding people in servitude for life, didn’t exist yet in Virginia. However, there was an existing system for buying and selling indenture contracts, so it is at least plausible to see a situation where the rules of indenture were applied to these strangers who arrived by other means. For example, “I have to pay $X per year for a contract for this English or Scottish immigrant; I have to pay $X * Y for this African person, so we’ll consider that to be Y years’ term of service for him to work off what I paid for his labor.”
The Africans had been baptized as Christians when they were under Portuguese control, and in those days, the English couldn’t bring themselves to enslave baptized Christians.
Allegedly.
The honorable governor of Virginia has demonstrated the perfect response to these sort of things. Wait a week or two and the media will have moved on.
Perhaps that is working out for him. It seems most of the prior aftermath was rocky and handled clumsily by him. It got to the point half the time I’d see a headline about him, I’d have to make sure it wasn’t coming from The Onion.
Isn’t he going to get sick of his every move being under a microscope at some point?
Isn’t that a standard part of the tour for all visitors, regardless of race?
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Investigation says they can’t determine if he is in the picture in blackface