February is From Africa to Virginia Month

“From Africa to Virginia” is the theme of interpretive programs throughout February at Jamestown Settlement history museum.  It is a month long focus on the culture of the first known Africans in Virginia and the experience of Africans in colonial America.

During February the theme “From Africa to Virginia” is reflected in a printed family guide of Jamestown Settlement’s expansive gallery exhibits and in daily guided tours of the museum’s outdoor living-history areas.

The galleries chronicle the nation’s 17th-century beginnings in Virginia in the context of its Powhatan Indian, English and African cultures.  The parent culture of Africans brought to Virginia in 1619 is portrayed in a diorama that includes a full-scale dwelling and artifacts from the Ambundu culture of Angola.  A dramatic multimedia presentation describes African encounters with Europeans, the impact on African culture, and the development of the transatlantic slave trade.

Other exhibits tell about Virginia’s tobacco-cultivation economy and its relationship to the evolution of slavery in the colony.  A structure re-created from an archaeological site depicts a late-17th-century slave quarter alongside a planter’s house and Indian cabin, also based on Virginia archaeological sites.  Decorative objects of ivory and metal made by west central African craftspeople, and archaeologically found objects made or used by enslaved people in Virginia can be seen in the gallery exhibits.

Daily outdoor tours of Jamestown Settlement’s re-created Powhatan Indian village, 1607 English ships and 1610-14 colonial fort, compare fishing, hunting, construction and metalworking skills of Africans in Angola with technology used in 17th-century Virginia.  During the tours, participants will be invited to participate in role play that illuminates the circumstances of the 1619 arrival in Virginia of 20-some Africans who had been captured by English privateers from a Portuguese ship en route from Angola to Mexico.

Jamestown Settlement is operated by the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, a Virginia state agency that also administers the Yorktown Victory Center, where visitors will be invited throughout February to learn about the lives of African Americans during the American Revolution period.  The theme will be a focus of guided tours of the museum’s re-created Continental Army encampment and 1780s farm.  Indoors, the Witnesses to Revolution Gallery and “The Legacy of Yorktown: Virginia Beckons” exhibition address the impact of the Revolution on African Americans.