Slave Africans from Angola in southwestern Africa were taken captive in 1619 and brought across the Atlantic Ocean by Portuguese slave ship So Joo Bautista. Slaves in Mexico often brought their entire families with them from their home countries in Africa, including the Ndongo and Kongo kingdoms. Following the deaths of over half of the hostages, the vessel was captured by two English pirate ships and taken to Point Comfort, a port near Jamestown, the capital of the English colony of Virginia, which had been created 12 years prior by the Virginia Company of London.
John Rolfe, a colonist, wrote to Sir Edwin Sandys of the Virginia Company in 1619 to report that a "Dutch man of war" had visited the colony and brought "nothing save 20 and odd Negroes," whom the governor and cape merchant had purchased for victuals. It's possible that many of the local Africans were enslaved and forced to labor on the tobacco crops.
However, racism did exist, and forced labor was frequent in the Mediterranean commerce between Africa and Europe that lasted for centuries. The 15th-century trans-Atlantic slave trade institutionalized a system of slavery that was racialized, based on trade routes, and passed down down the generations.
Slaves were not seen as people but as things that could be bought, sold, and exploited for financial advantage. Even though free and enslaved African Americans had arrived in North America as early as the 1500s, the sale of the "20 and odd" individuals established the stage for what would eventually lead to slavery in the United States.
The African slave population included people from many different countries and cultures. Although they took nothing material with them, they did carry with them their moral ideals, intellectual curiosity, creative ability, cultural customs, religious knowledge, and memories of loved ones and communities. In designing their new home, they looked to their past experiences for inspiration, blending modern and traditional elements.