Old Point Comfort, August 25, 1619. 400 years later location and a date that doesn’t initially conjure feelings of comfort. But it is the place where many gathered together in order to commemorate one of Virginia’s many major events for it was at Old Point Comfort that Englishmen, guilty of privateering, arrived with the infamously ambiguous “Twenty and Odd Negroes.”
I won’t retell the story, as I have covered these historical events in two episodes, which will be linked below. Instead, let me highlight some of the 400th Commemoration ceremony that took place on August 24th, 2019.
Entrance to Fort Monroe
The “Twenty and Odd” would have arrived at Fort Monroe’s great-grandfather, Fort Algernourne (aka Algernon), which was originally built in 1609.
Welcome sign on monitors outside of Fort Monroe’s grounds.
At one time slave traders plied the Chesapeake Bay. Today, the waterway known as Hampton Roads remains one of the world’s busiest ports of call as ships like these sail past Fort Monroe.
The Gazebo just outside of Fort Monroe.
Fort Monroe was commissioned in 1819 as a result of the War of 1812. It never saw battle, though it became a symbol of hope and salvation for nearby slaves 4 decades later.
Old Point Comfort Lighthouse overlooking tents at the 400th Commemoration Ceremony.
Museum, Educator, and Vendor tents readying themselves for the weekend’s events.
The Southern/Bay facing entrance into Fort Monroe with “Quareters Number 1” where President Lincoln planned an attack on nearby Norfolk in the background.
The American Flag overlooking Fort Monroe and Hampton Roads
Commemoration 2019 workers going over the day’s activities just after sunrise August 24, 2019
Fort Monroe was abuzz hours before the official ceremony began. Local police officers and volunteers steered traffic through the streets, while tour guides and National Park Service personnel polished last minute details in advance of the day’s soon-to-be-arriving spectators.
I.C. Norcom High School choir serenaded arriving attendees
Hampton Mayor Donnie Tuck welcomed guests to the 400th Commemoration
Some of the Commemoration’s distinguished guests on stage
Commemoration guests settling into place as Mayor Tuck opened the day’s festivities
Former Representative Jim Moran
Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates Kirkland Cox offering his opening remarks.
Onlookers under the tent at the 400th Commemoration Ceremony.
The US Air Force Color Guard
Hampton’s Ms. Chelsea Griffin sings the National Anthem.
Dr. Joseph Green, Pastor and Cofounder of the Antioch Assembly offering his thoughts on such a profound day.
The program unfolded with a series of short speeches by many of Virginia’s political leaders as well as officials from the rest of the country. The highlight of the day, however, had to be 11 year old Brycen Dildy’s speech that brought the crowd to its feet.
Former Governor and Senator Tim Kaine on stage
Former Governor Mark Warner
California Representative Karen Bass
Distinguished guests on stage for the 400th Commemoration Ceremony
Representative Bobby Scott
The Tent Crowd at the 400th Commemoration Ceremony
The Grounds Crowd at the 400th Commemoration Ceremony
Representative Elaine Luria
Governor Ralph Northam offers the keynote address.
L-R, Elaine Luria, Bobby Scott, Mark Warner, and Ralph Northam.
Jacquelyn E. Stone delivering poet Nikki Giovanni’s poem to the audience.
National Park Service Deputy Director Dan Smith
Fort Monroe NPS Superintendent Terry Brown being honored for his service
Larkspur Middle School’s Brycen Dildy brought the house to their feet.
Virginia State Representative and former Hampton Mayor Mamie Locke
CNN’s “Van” Jones
Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax delivered the final speech of the day.
Reverend Walter Barrett, Jr. delivering the benediction.
I.C. Norcom HS Choir performing “Lift Every Voice and Sing” to close out the ceremony
To finish the day, I took a small side adventure of my own. First I visited nearby William Tucker Cemetery. The Cemetery is name for William Tucker, one of the first African’s to be born in Virginia, and it is the final resting place for many Tucker generations.
Sign marking the entrance to the William Tucker Cemetery in Hampton, Virginia
William Tucker Cemetery
William Tucker Cemetery
I ended the day on a poignantly solemn note in visiting one of Virginia’s great freedom symbols – Emancipation Oak at Hampton University. This beautiful, captivating tree witnessed Hampton’s Africans hearing the first reading of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in 1863.
Officially no slaves were yet freed, because the famous Proclamation applied to slaves in the Confederate States, though the words certainly encouraged more enslaved blacks to make the almost 3 mile walk to nearby Fort Monroe, where they received asylum by Major General Benjamin Butler. Thus Virginia’s African story returned to her starting point as Africans once again became “Contraband of War” as they realistically were in 1619. This time, however, Old Point Comfort lived up to her name, and comfort in the midst of war came for those escaping slavery’s chains.
All photography used on this site is owned and copyrighted by the author unless otherwise noted. The featured image is of a recreated slave cabin at the 400th Commemoration of Virginia’s First Africans.
It was my great pleasure to be invited to the Virginia General Assembly’s 400th Commemorative Session.
The Assembly is the Western Hemisphere’s first and oldest representative government. The impact that that first meeting had on Virginia, America, and the rest of the world is immense. To mark the occasion 2019 Commemoration, American Evolution put together a week long program in which Historic Jamestown, Jamestown Settlement, and the College of William and Mary took part.
Historians, businessmen, and world-leaders were invited to participate in the American Evolution Forum on the Future of Representative Democracy, which has produced fascinating discussions covering the wide variety of issues that have affected and still affect representative government today.
Some of the key speakers featured in the Forum were –
Kathy Spangler, Executive Director, 2019 Commemoration, American Evolution
Virginia Representative Kirk Cox, Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates
Virginia State Senator Tommy Norment
U.S. Senator Mark Warner
U.S. Senator Tim Kaine
U.S. Representative Elaine Goodman Luria (VA-2), U.S. Navy veteran
U.S. Representative Bobby Scott (VA-3)
U.S. Representative Rob Wittman (VA-1)
Katherine Anandi Rowe, President, William & Mary (first female president)
Carly Fiorina, American businesswoman and political figure
Robert Gates, former U.S. Secretary of Defense from 2006-2001, scholar, and intelligence analyst
David Rubenstein, Financier and philanthropist, co-founder of The Carlyle Group
Annette Gordon-Reed, American historian and law professor
Eric Cantor, Politician, lawyer, banker
Jeffrey Rosen, American academic and commentator on legal affairs
Andrea Mitchell, television journalist and commentator
Andrew Card Jr., former White House Chief of Staff from 2001-2006
Karl Rove, Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff during the George W. Bush administration
Melody Barnes, lawyer and political advisor; former chief counsel to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and of Center for American Progress
Robin Christian Howard Niblett CMG, British specialist in international relations
Larry Joseph Sabato is an American political scientist and political analyst, and Robert Kent Gooch Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia
Marc Short, Chief of Staff to Vice President Mike Pence
Sir David Natzler KCB, former Clerk of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom
I attended only the 400th Commemorative Assembly activities, which held 3 sessions.
The First Meeting took place at Historic Jamestown’s Memorial Church
Elizabeth Kostelny, CEO of Preservation Virginia, welcomed those attending the historic meeting and was followed by Virginia Senate Majority Leader Thomas Norment.
The highlight from this meeting has to have been remarks delivered by Sir David Natzler KCB, retiring Clerk of the British House of Commons of the United Kingdom. His words linked Virginia’s representative government to other historical assemblies as far back as Athens as well as his native United Kingdom.
“These events were important not only in Virginia, not only in America, but throughout the world. The idea took root that people wanted to be governed by laws of their own making.”
Sir Natzler concluded by congratulating British Parliament’s oldest child, the Virginia General Assembly on her 400th Anniversary.
Virginia Governor Ralph Northam followed Sir Natzler’s comments and spoke of the historic context and importance of Virginia’s General Assembly. He also mentioned who was not part of that First Assembly, women and newly arriving Africans. (The Jamestown Brides did not arrive until later 1620-1621 and the “20 and Odd” did not arrive until August, 1619. But followers of this podcast understand that there were a few women and Africans in Virginia pre-1619).
Following Governor Northam’s comments the first meeting adjourned. Lineage societies then placed wreaths outside of the Memorial Church’s tower before those on the Island moved to Jamestown Settlement.
Reconstructed wooden frame inside the Jamestown Memorial Church
Representative government was born near this spot in July 1619
The Jamestown Memorial Church
Historic Jamestown is an active archaeological site. Evidence can be seen of that fact all over the island, such as this exposed brick at the Memorial Church
Jamestown was the first permanent English settlment in North America.
The Memorial Church on Jamestown Island
Entrance to Historic Jamestown that take visitors over the Pitch and Tar Swamp
The many wreaths laid by lineage societies
The famous Pocahontas statue at Jamestown Island with a wreath placed by the Jamestown Society
The Second Meeting took place at Jamestown Settlement’s re-created church
A processional led the Assembly into Jamestown Settlement’s church located within the re-created James Fort.
Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, Kirkland Cox welcomed guests, and was followed by Assistant Fort Supervisor of the Jamestown Settlement Brian Beckley, who played Governor George Yeardley, the man who opened that fateful Assembly 400 years ago.
Mark Greenough, Tour Guide Supervisor and Historian at the Virginia State Capitol, succeeded Mr. Beckley by delivering an interpretation while dressed to play Speaker John Pory.
Speaker Cox followed Mr. Greenough’s period interpretation before introducing the esteemed Presidential Historian Jon Meacham. Mr. Meacham’s speech highlighted some of Virginia’s historic contributions. One such highlight, the First Thanksgiving, brought loud applause. (In fact, Graham Woodlief sat in the row just ahead of me. He was gratified by the attention, as he mentioned to me afterward).
Meacham’s sentiments included memorable statements such as, “Jamestown is a mirror of who we were and who we are.”
Further, “Dreamers and doers came here and they built, and we stand in the light of their achievement.”
Finally, “In our finest hours, America has been about life, it’s been about liberty, it’s been about the pursuit of happiness not just for some, but for all. And in that history, history rooted here in this place, lies our hope.”
Mr. Meacham said many other things that delved into today’s current political landscape, but in my personal estimation, July 30, 2019 was about the beginning of a momentous, history changing event that though perhaps did not include everyone, would build upon this original foundation to include everyone. That being the case, I purposely chose what I deemed the most important and pertinent remarks from what was a well-crafted and articulate speech.
If one would like to find Mr. Meacham’s full remarks, please visit this article by The Hill’s Judy Kutz, which also highlights some of the same comments already mentioned.
Speaker Cox brought the Assembly back to order, presided over the Mace’s presentation, conducted a roll call, and then called for a recess as the Assembly proceeded to the next venue,a tent set up for the day’s main Assembly meeting.
The recreated Church inside James Fort at the Jamestown Settlement
Inside James Fort at Jamestown Settlement
Jamestown Settlement’s famous 1607 replica fleet
Recreated indian village at Jamestown Settlement
Brian Beckley as Sir George Yeardley
Mark Greenough as Speaker John Pory
Historian Jon Meacham
The Mace
Reenactors at Jamestown Settlement’s Church
The tent audience watches proceedings
The Final Meeting took place at Jamestown Settlement’s Mall Area
The Assembly processional marched from the re-created church to the Settlement’s Mall Area, where organizers erected a tent for the day’s final meeting.
Speaker Cox brought the Assembly back to order before offering his own remarks and welcoming distinguished guests.
Illinois State Senator and President of the National Conference of State Legislatures, Toi Hutchinson followed Speaker Cox. Senator Hutchinson reflected on overcome challenges; challenges that could derail representative government if Americans are not on guard –
“I’m proud because despite the many challenges and setbacks this country has faced, America is still a place where our right to self-governance is not taken for granted, where we can challenge our government and debate our principles, and the institutions which provide for that right are held dear.”
“The institution of the legislature needs to be protected. For it is as strong and as fragile as democracy itself.” Said Senator Hutchinson before a crowd that stood in praise.
President Trump then arrived to deliver the keynote address.
Media doing their work
American Evolution and the Media await the Processional
The Processional from the Jamestown Settlement Church into the Tent
The Tent crowd awaits the day’s final session
Programs line the chairs
Illinois State Senator Toi Hutchinson addresses the Assembly
Speaker Kirkland Cox addresses the Assembly
President Trump Addresses Virginia’s General Assembly
In a historic twist on an already historic day, President Trump addressed the General Assembly. The President’s speech marked the first time that a sitting President of the United States addressed the Virginia General Assembly.
President Trump greeted those in attendance before highlighting Jamestown’s pre-1619 history. I’ll offer just a few remarks here, but if you want to see or read the entire keynote address, please, go here. Otherwise, here are a few key statements from the President’s speech.
Regarding Jamestown’s Early Years
“As we can see today on this great anniversary, it would not be the last time that God looked out for Virginia. Together, the settlers forged what would become the timeless traits of the American character. They worked hard, they had courage and abundance, and a wealth of self-reliance. They strived mightily to turn a profit, they experimented with producing silk, corn, tobacco, and the very first Virginia wines. At a prior settlement at Roanoke, there had been no survivors, none at all. But where others had typically perished, the Virginians were determined to succeed. They endured by the sweat of their labor, the aid of the Powhatan Indians, and the leadership of Captain John Smith.”
“As the years passed, ships bearing supplies and settlers from England also brought a culture and a way of life that would define the New World. It all began here. In time, dozens of brave strong women made the journey and join the colony and, in 1618, the Great Charter and other reforms established a system based on English common law. For the first time, Virginia allowed private land ownership. It created a basic judicial system. Finally, it gave the colonists essay in their own future, the right to elect representatives by popular vote.”
Regarding the Arrival of the First Africans
“As we mark the first representative legislature at Jamestown, our nation also reflects upon an anniversary from that same summer four centuries ago. In August 1619, the first enslaved Africans in the English colonies arrived in Virginia. It was the beginning of a barbaric trade in human lives. Today, and honor, we remember every sacred soul who suffered the horrors of slavery and the anguish of bondage. More than 150 years later, at America’s founding, our Declaration of Independence recognized the immortal truth that all men are created equal.”
“In the face of grave oppression and grave injustice, African-Americans have built, strengthened, inspired, uplifted, protected, defended, and sustained our nation from its very earliest days.”
Regarding the First Assembly’s Impact
“In the decades that followed that first legislative assembly, the Democratic tradition established here late deep roots all across Virginia. It spread up and down the Atlantic coast. One fact was quickly established for all time, in America, we are not ruled from afar, Americans govern ourselves. And so help us, God, we always will.”
“Self-government in Virginia did not just give us estate we love, in a very true sense, it gave us the country we love, the United States of America.”
“From the first legislative assembly down to today America has been the story of citizens who take ownership of their future and their control of their destiny. That is what self-rule is all about. Every day Americans coming together to take action, to build, to create, to seize opportunities. To pursue the common good and to never stop striving for greatness.”
“But among all of our America’s towering achievements none exceeds the triumph that we are here to celebrate today. Our nation’s priceless culture of freedom, independence, equality, justice and self-determination under God.”
“That culture is the source of who we are it is our prized inheritance it is our proudest legacy. It is among the greatest human accomplishments in the history of the world what you have done is the greatest accomplishment in the history of the world. And I congratulate you. It started right here.”
President Trump delivers keynote Address to the Virginia Assembly
President Trump delivers keynote Address to the Virginia Assembly
Delegate Ibrahim Sami
President Trump delivers keynote Address to the Virginia Assembly
Fixing the Presidential Seal in preparation of President Trump’s arrival
President Trump delivers keynote Address to the Virginia Assembly
President Trump delivers keynote Address to the Virginia Assembly
President Trump delivers keynote Address to the Virginia Assembly
Concluding Remarks
President Trump’s arrival sparked a little controversy. There were those who did not welcome his attendance, and they expressed as much.
The great thing, as part of Virginia’s 1619 foundational legacy, is that such opposition is tolerated. Before that time, even in Virginia, such opposition would at least earn prison, torture, and usually death. 1619’s Assembly laid the framework from which liberty has evolved. Perhaps the demonstration was misplaced during such a historic occasion, but that still does not take away from the fact that one has the freedom to conscientiously object.
Individual liberty continues to grow today as it faces new challenges. The inheritors of such a legacy must continue to champion that individual liberty on a local, personal level. That is the sentiment upon which Virginia and later the United States was built. That sentiment began 400 years ago on a hot, often disease plagued island, and we still celebrate that event today.
The 400th Commemorative Session Virginia General Assembly Seal
All photography used on this site is owned and copyrighted by the author unless otherwise noted. The Featured Image is of the Virginia House of Delegates Sergent at Arms John L. Pearson, Jr. carrying the Mace into the Tent.
1619 was a pivotal year in Virginia for many reasons, but author K.I. Knight says that one key issue that did not begin in 1619 was slavery. The “Twenty and odd” did arrive in August 1619, but according to Ms. Knight’s meticulous research the “Twenty” were in fact 14 at first, and many of those 14 went on to help save the colony after the 1622 uprising before securing land of their own. Some of them, like Anthony Johnson, even owned slaves themselves.
For sure, slavery seems to have been around the Virginia landscape in some form by the 1640s, but it wasn’t the institution that it became by the 18th and 19th centuries. Kathryn puts together an astounding narrative weaving extant court and genealogical records together to prove that the immoral institution evolved over time, before it became legally organized by the late 1690s and early 1700s. Exact beginning dates are hard to pin down, largely due to lost records. Regardless, the foundations for American slavery were being set during the 17th Century, and this episode discusses those foundations as they occurred in Virginia.
All photography used on this site is owned and copyrighted by the author. The Featured Image is of author Kathryn Hall Knight at Fort Monroe.
**Special thanks to Terry Brown at Fort Monroe, who graciously lent his office to Kathryn and me for this interview. If you haven’t heard my interview with Terry, please, find that here.
Freedom and Salvation was found at Fort Monroe for many former slaves.
I love traveling all over Virginia. Finding off the beaten path locations, eating at local dives, learning poignant stories combine to make each trip memorable. Sometimes, however, I don’t have to travel to experience all that Virginia has to offer. Sometimes it’s in my back yard. That’s the case with Fort Monroe.
Fort Monroe’s story spans more than 400 years, even longer if one includes what we know of the native Kecoughtan tribe. The original Jamestown colonists first met the Kecoughtans in Spring 1607 before the colonists sailed up river to establish Jamestown. The colonists came back, established friendly relations, and over time built a series of lookout posts that endured through some hardest struggles that the colonists suffered.
That colonial outpost became the port of entry for one of America’s great peoples. In 1619 “20 and odd negroes” from Angola arrived signaling the beginning of a new era in Virginia and America’s history. That history hasn’t always been laudable as those original settlers built new lives and saw their progeny forced into slavery by as early as the 1640s. Those slaves and their stories have left a deep imprint not only on Virginia’s historical landscape, but on her physical makeup as well.
Point Comfort and her early fortifications developed into more permanent bastions in the early 19th century, largely aided by slave labor. After the British marauded the Chesapeake Bay region and burned Washington DC during the War of 1812, the sorely embarrassed government undertook a series of forts built to ensure such an invasion would never happen again. Fort Monroe was the keystone in that military wall.
Old Point Comfort Lighthouse at night
The best military engineers of the day, including Robert E. Lee, descended upon Hampton to build the stone structure, as well as her sister fort known then as Fort Calhoun, but now known as Fort Wool, just off of Point Comfort’s coast.
These engineers were so successful that when the Civil War exploded onto history’s pages the Union maintained control of Fort Monroe, and never endured a serious threat to losing control of the strategic location.
Because the Union kept control they could use the fort as a starting point of major campaign thrusts toward Richmond. But the fort was also used for something else. Area slaves viewed Fort Monroe as potential salvation. Freedom.
On one May 1861 night three slaves tested their fate. They got into a skiff near Sewell’s Point, Norfolk, and rowed across the dangerous Hampton Roads waterway to reach Fort Monroe.
The Fort’s commanding officer, Benjamin Butler, had just been installed a day earlier, and now he had a decision to make. Butler was a lawyer from Massachusetts. He knew full well the law stating that runaway slaves were to be returned to their masters under the Fugitive Slave Law, but in a history changing decision, Butler decided to keep the runaway slaves as “contrabands of war.”
Word of Butler’s decision spread, and many more slaves poured into “Freedom’s Fortress” throughout the war.
After the Civil War ended, the region’s blacks largely remained. They started schools, notably built upon Mary Peake’s pioneering work, some of which was done in Fort Monroe before her 1862 death.
The American Missionary Association brought black and white leaders together in 1868 to formalize education by starting the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, today’s Hampton University. Their mission was to teach and train freed black slaves, which attracted attention far and wide, perhaps most famously, Booker T. Washington.
Because of new opportunities, America’s black history, beginning in 1619, could now be seen as beginning anew in the 1860s, and it still centered at Point Comfort. The shining monument to that storied history is Fort Monroe, “Freedom’s Fortress.”
1619 was the beginning of Black History in English North America. That history began here at Point Comfort.
Lee’s Quarters, as seen from Fort Monroe’s South Wall
Lee’s Quarters
Fort Monroe’s Southeastern wall and moat
Gun emplacements atop Fort Monroe
Quarter’s #1, where Lincoln stayed while visiting Fort Monroe
The “Lincoln” gun
Entrance to Fort Monroe’s Casemate Museum
Casemate Museum at Fort Monroe
Harriet Tubman honored at Fort Monroe
Edgar Allan Poe at Fort Monroe
Inside Fort Monroe’s Casemate Museum
Jefferson Davis Park
The Jefferson Davis Exhibit at Fort Monroe’s Casemate Museum
Jefferson Davis Jail Cell at Fort Monroe
Inside Jefferson Davis Jail Cell at Fort Monroe
Examples of the types of shells used at Fort Monroe
A recreated watering hole at Fort Monroe’s Casemate Museum
A cargo ship passes Fort Monroe and her outer defenses at Hampton Roads
Couples enjoying the boardwalk outside of Fort Monroe’s walls
All photography used on this site is owned and copyrighted by the author. The featured image is of Fort Monroe as seen from the North Sallyport.
Music used for this episode – Louis Armstrong and the Mills Brothers,”Carry Me Back to Old Virginia” available on iTunes, and “Egmont Overture” by Ludwig von Beethoven, performed by the Chicago Symphony.
Virginia History Podcast 