1619: Jamestown and the Forging of American Democracy

by James Horn

An extraordinary year in which American democracy and American slavery emerged hand in hand

Along the banks of the James River, Virginia, during an oppressively hot spell in the middle of summer 1619, two events occurred within a few weeks of each other that would profoundly shape the course of history. In the newly built church at Jamestown, the General Assembly--the first gathering of a representative governing body in America--came together. A few weeks later, a battered privateer entered the Chesapeake Bay carrying the first African slaves to land on mainland English America.

In 1619, historian James Horn sheds new light on the year that gave birth to the great paradox of our nation: slavery in the midst of freedom. This portentous year marked both the origin of the most important political development in American history, the rise of democracy, and the emergence of what would in time become one of the nation's greatest challenges: the corrosive legacy of racial inequality that has afflicted America since its beginning.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, Politics, Historical, The United States Of America, European History

256 pages, Hardcover

First published October 16, 2018

About the author

Colonial Williamsburg Vice President

Reviews

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent read, very informative and flowed nicely. I did set it aside for awhile but only because of other things in life cropping up, not because I was bored. The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars is perhaps my own expectation of a book titled 1619, was that there would be more on the first Africans that arrived in English America and their subsequent enslavement. I live not too far from Point Comfort, so the 400th anniversary last year really emphasized that momentous turning point in our nation's history and the harsh legacy of racism that exists today.
That being said, the book follows the first expedition, to what is now Jamestown, in 1606 through about 1705 in the epilogue. It focuses on the year 1619 when Sir Edwin Sandys made reforms that enshrined the rule of law and a representative government- the twin pillars of democracy with the unfortunate arrival of Africans to Virginia's shores who were promptly bought & enslaved. Sandys never envisioned the colony as one with slaves. He wanted an inclusive and diverse commonwealth.
Thus a paradox " Slavery in the midst of Freedom".
Jamestown's legacy is certainly the seeds of democracy in this country, but also the socio-economic inequality for both the Native American and African-American populations seen today.
An aside, always when I read history I think of the determination & resilience of those that came before us as they survived under the harshest of circumstances. Many not only survived but thrived. Gives me hope.

[Kristy · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 Stars

1619 is rich in detail, although sometimes dry. Sentences tended to run a little long, but I appreciated the excerpts and direct quotes the author used.

Focusing largely on the Virginia Company and the years surrounding 1619, this book looks at social and economic issues strongly intertwined with religion (namely Christianity). Many subjects are examined, including the colonists interaction with natives, slavery, their relationship with the Bristish crown, and more. In the end Horn shows how it relates to and influenced modern day America.

1619 is well-written and (from what I can tell) thoroughly researched. Would recommend to any history buff.

[Jason Williams · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you rate a work of history like this strictly in terms of how informative is it, then this is more like a 3.5 or 4-star book, as it is informative, though in a repetitive and general kind of way, with a careful omission here and there.

I'm a little more critical than that, though. Truly I have never read a historical analysis where the evidence and details were so remote from, and in some cases contradictory to, the thesis provided. Honestly, there's far too much detail in the book that bears no relevance to the book's purpose or argument. (There's a crucial difference between "evidence" and "details.") And yet, Horn barely mentions important details like Bacon's rebellion in 1676 or the chartering of the Royal African Company in 1662. I suppose, being the president of the Jamestown Whatever Society, it was incumbent on Horn to strike while the 400-year-anniversary iron was hot. But the other problem is that most of the evidence provided stands in stark contrast to his silly "democracy started in 1619" argument.

Like many historians, Horn asks too much of the past. To look back at this moment of 17th century English people looking to make enormous profits and transplant English society abroad, and then to expect them to attempt any sort of democratic government, is pretty absurd. Again, Horn joins many historians, especially public/pop historians, in this teleological tradition; the assumption is that, since we today are Americans, and since everything about America is "representative" and "democratic" (hogwash, of course), and since Virginia was the first colony with the first governing body in what would randomly become the USA more than 150 years later, then we today must be able to connect those dots to say that that governing body was "democratic" or "representative" or whatever. It's a type of fiction based on a prostitution of facts and causality.

Here I'll try to address the two key elements of Horn's intention: explore the ironies and paradoxes of a single year wherein the first "representative" governing body was established and the first Africans arrived in Virginia.

The first argument is fairly easy to dispel. As suggested above, I outright reject the teleological tradition on which many national histories (not just American) are based. Jamestown was, plain and simple, a for-profit venture with no intention of establishing a democratic or representative government. In fact, every shred of evidence that Horn provides clearly shows this; he specifically states that, for the next 150 years, economic and political power continued to be consolidated in the hands of the few wealthy planters and in plain disregard for common laborers, servants and slaves. Horn's entire argument is based on the notion that Sandys, whose political origins were rooted in the House of Commons, had some gripes with monarchism and believed he could found a parliamentarian government in Virginia. To whatever extent Sandys's political differences with King James even mattered here, the point is moot considering two basic points: (1) nobody else involved in the founding and operation of the House of Burgesses shared Sandys's so-called "democratic" premonitions, and (2) Horn uses the term "representative" extremely loosely and selectively. Whenever he discusses the Burgesses' representative capacity, he uses terms like "settlers" or "people." The fact is, however, that the Burgesses were specifically hand-picked by the wealthy plantation owners and no one else, and the Burgesses were there to represent the planters' and Company's interests exclusively. The terms "colony," "plantation" and "company" were all interchangeable, and the Burgesses were little more than a public front to the private interests of Company shareholders and wealthy planters. Sandys's "headright" system, wittingly or not, only exacerbated both the exorbitant death rate among servants and the consolidation of economic and political power among planters. The Burgesses, planters and Company men were all influential in London and had a direct role in getting laws passed in that parliament that permitted them to force orphans, debtors, the unemployed, and other unfortunate English people onto ships headed for Virginia, none of whom would ever be represented in the House of Burgesses. Not to mention the exploitation of the Irish. The Virginia Assembly was merely a transplanted English institution, giving private planters and shareholders a concerted and legitimized public voice.

Nor does Horn properly distinguish between colonial PR and actual daily life in Jamestown. He mentions some of the PR pieces, like Thomas Harriot's Briefe and True Report, but in other moments he treats what were merely advertisements for Virginia as accurate description of Virginia. Yes, many English intellectuals tried to spread word of the many subsistence and cash crops that could be grown in Virginia. But in actual life, particularly around 1619, it was almost entirely tobacco because that's what was making the land-owners, the company, and the crown all of the money. The laboring class hardly had a thing to eat that wasn't stolen from the natives or from each other, and Sandys had to try to compel by law the planters to grow edible foods, with mixed results at best. (The price of tobacco was on the verge of decline due to an oversaturated market, which eventually became more of an incentive to grow more diverse crops than "feeding the workers" seemed to be.)

Now for slavery. Here Horn actually impressed me insofar as he was willing to draw our attention to an existing historiographical debate: can we really call it "slavery" already in 1619 or shortly thereafter? I tend to think that there are different reasons to say "yes" or "no" to that question, and I think Horn says "yes" for the wrong reasons. Again in rather teleological fashion, Horn's assumption, like many historians, is that African = slave. In that vein, Horn does a decent job explaining why we should accept that Africans in Virginia were always slaves, because they were targeted increasingly by VA Assembly laws and because they were always essentially bought and sold. Left out of that argument, however, is the fact that many, many English and Irish men, women and children were also bought and sold in Virginia during this time. In fact, there's a decent book, titled White Cargo, that details much of this, plus primary source records. VA Assembly laws targeted servants and tenants, whose contracts would restart if they were caught breaking a law (such laws included swearing, drinking, and even stealing boats and oars). Between the criminal code and the life expectancy (for some periods an 80% death rate), extremely rare was the servant who lived to see the end of his contract and reap the rewards in the form of a plot of his own land. It wasn't until the Company's and then planters' efforts to compel would-be servants to go to Virginia met resistance in England that we start to see a concerted effort to bring Africans into Virginia between 1640-1660 (plus a civil war in England). And for much of this time, the differences between a "servant" and a "slave" in Virginia were nominal at best, and only later were increasingly racialized through deliberate economic and political efforts. It wasn't until around 1670 that we see a law concerning "intestate" goods specifically used the term "negro" and "slave" interchangeably. In short, if we want to assume that, in order to be slaves, they must also be Africans, then there's something to Horn's argument. But if we're willing to strip the term "slave" of it's uniquely American historical baggage and not use later concepts of race as a teleological prism, then I think Horn's argument is a waste of time.

Some historians, in line with Ira Berlin, like to argue that 17th century Virginia was a "society with slaves" rather than a "slave society." This, too, strikes me as a hair-splitting argument based on the assumption that they must be Africans to be considered slaves. And even then, it's an odd argument, one not worth making by my standards.

Going back to my point that this colony was always, from it's initial charter onward, a for-profit venture, I think it is worthwhile to strip this context down to it's most motivated players who had the most agency and purpose. As historian Andrew Fitzmaurice details nicely in Humanism in America, these early modern "explorers" drew from a tension between "public good" and "private gain," and concepts like "commonwealth" were instrumental in licensing these pirates and privateers to pursue their own wealth at will, as long as they had "the crown" in tow. We literally have state-sponsored piracy in this case, with knighted figures like Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Francis Drake doing the crown's bidding. So rather than wondering at what point Virginia shifted from being a "society with slaves" to a "slave society," or if it's fair to consider the first handful of Africans in Virginia to be slaves, it's more worthwhile to think about slavery as an economic issue and to think about what problem it was meant to solve. And I don't see any way around the fact that this is a matter of supply and demand. Black or white, African or Irish or English, the Company and wealthy planters had a labor demand, and they found ways to meet it through their representatives in both London and in Virginia's House of Burgesses. Perpetual servitude and slavery were the results. To call all of that the result of a "democratic" or "representative" government is silly. Up until around 1670-1680, my take is that we have both white slaves and black servants, white servants and black slaves, and all were made so in an English class system that was uniquely revised in a new, polyglot North American environment through an undemocratic parliamentarian body -- the House of Burgesses -- that was essentially a continuation of its class-based progenitor in London.

Finally, though, I'd like to take up Horn's thesis and presuppose that his argument about "representative government" in Jamestown is in fact true and accurate, that we today are indebted to the likes of Sandys and the original House of Burgesses for planting the seed of "representation" in America. I don't think you'd have to twist many arms these days to get people to admit that "representative" government in America today is, like in 1619, controlled by powerful private interests who have steadily consolidated economic and political power at the expense of common, individual voters. Just look at a group like ALEC, for example. You could point to many instances wherein, much like colonial Virginia and like the early modern era of Humanists in general, we continue to operate under an arbitrary and arguably feckless or non-existent distinction between public good and private gain, and yet we continue to heed the words of those who say "representative" without being clear as to who, in fact, is being represented.

But Horn is right about one thing for sure. New England gets too much attention, and Virginia not enough, in the way US History is taught.

[Arminius · Rating 3 out of 5]

In 1619 the arrival of Europeans arrived in Jamestown, Virginia of the new America. There were already Powhatan Native Americans living here which had helped but also been attacked by and who had attacked them. The chief crop for Virginia at the time was tobacco. The settlement was run by the Company under the auspices of the English King. It was soon learned that they could buy slaves to run big plantations. However most of the slaves who came in big ships had perished do to disease, hunger and thirst. Although the slaves just kept coming.

After an Powhatan attack that killed 30 English Settlers the King dissolved the Company, blaming them for not protecting its citizens.

Afterwards the Jamestown Virginia settlement had produced a self governing systems. Their system had created it's own representative government to protect lives, liberties and properties. The author points out that the colonies of the United States had employed this system for over a century before the American Revolution had started.

And, of course, the American Revolution was fought over taxation without representation.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fascinating little book! I especially liked reading about Sir Edwin Sandys and the prescient idea for an egalitarian, slave-free society envisioned by the Virginia Company. It’s pretty amazing that such a progressive idea so ahead of its time could go so horribly wrong for so long.

It was also interesting to compare and contrast the trading-post oriented settling of Canada and NY by the Dutch with the prosperity of the British settlers in US — and the resulting prominence of the British model, perhaps as a result.

I additionally found it to be a much more evenhanded view of the Jamestown colony than the museum at Jamestown, which leaves one with the impression that “settlers = bad mean people” and “Powhatans = innocent peaceniks slaughtered by meany-pants colonists”.

The last quarter of the book started to unravel for me a bit. Particularly here the narration was not always chronological, which is confusing to a reader such as myself who was not already familiar with the material. Additionally, after spending so much time at the beginning of the book learning about Sir Edwin Sandys, I would have loved to have learned what became of him after the dissolution of the Company without having to Google it =\

Overall though, I thought it was an excellent and thoughtful work on the history of the Jamestown settlement, and the political climate which brought it to fruition and then destroyed it in a King’s fit of pique.

I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

[John O · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyable and digestible history that does very well in telling the story of the founding of Virginia and how it’s origins helped introduce two long-lasting features of American history: the Indian wars and the slave trade. Equal parts history and political theory, it does both well through contemporary accounts and relating Virginia’s founding to both its English and European past and its American future.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enter Sir Edwin Sandys, the Virginia Company’s architect of the commonwealth idea of governance and democracy’s twin pillars of rule of law and representative assembly. He had grand plans of uniting the Powhatans and settlers into a Christian utopia of sorts where native Americans would willingly see the light of Christianity, adopt a new religion while learning to live in harmony with the encroaching settlers. The reality was less than ideal. The Powatans rebelled in 1622 and nearly wiped out the colony. Slaves were brought to the colony in September of 1619, irrevocably changing the idea of gov’t by consent of the people. Eventually, the wealthy plantation owners controlled the strings of the colony’s government, passing stultifying legislation that institutionalized slavery in this country, dooming them to generations of grinding servitude. Yet, ironically, we have Sir Sandys to thank for the representative republic we live in today, born from the imperfect ideals of a struggling colony of ages past.

[Lesley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a comprehensive look at a single year in American history that highlights a dichotomy that still thrives today. The birth of self government and the birth of American slavery. The gain of freedom for the powerful and the manipulations of those in power to strip freedom from others for their own gain. Yeah, not much has changed.

[Teri · Rating 4 out of 5]

The inhabitants of Jamestown experienced a pivotal time in 1619 that put America on a trajectory toward independence and a democratic society. Two key events occurred that year. First, a representative government was formed and convened. The first founders of representative government in America under the British Crown included:

~ Edwin Sandys
~ Earl of Southampton, I believe this is technically Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton
~ John Ferrar
~ Nicholas Ferrar
~ Sir William Berkeley
~ Lord Cavendish, aka William Cavendish, 1st Earl of Devonshire
~ Sir John Danvers

These were also key to establishing and maintaining the Virginia Company of London that promoted emigration and colonization to North America, parceled out land, and established early politics.

The second event was the landing of what was possibly the first slave ship to North America. To be careful here, this was not necessarily the first group of enslaved Africans who were brought to North America, but it was possibly the first chartered ship for that purpose.

Horn sets the events of 1619 into the frame of early American history after the establishment of Jamestown and continues beyond to detail the relationship of the English settlers with the indigenous Powhatan tribes. The English promoted and worked toward Christianizing Powhatans. Although the indigenous people under the leadership of Opechancanough and other high-ranking Powhatans appeared to fall under the whims of the English, rebellion eventually broke out, leading to death and destruction for both peoples.

This is an excellent resource for early American political and racial history.

[Margaret Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

To extend and enlarge the revelations from archeological discoveries of Jamestown, Virginia, over the past several decades, James Horn seems to have studied every document recorded and saved from the persons who influenced its establishment, either by living there or by directing its organization from England. In this book he shares the facts with us.

The importance of the year 1619 was its noteworthy confluence of two rather opposite “beginnings:” 1) the “first gathering of a representative governing body anywhere in the Americas, the General Assembly,” and 2) a few weeks later the arrival of approximately twenty Angolans traded as commodities for food supplies by two pirate ships to several landholders.

The first chapter details the consternation of those who tried to direct the experimental colony from afar, only to fail to achieve order by tight Company control and martial law. To incentivize the settlers to become productive workers, the idea of private property rights (i.e., individual land ownership) was first offered. And a colonial Council was appointed to advise the governors and be judges in disputes, their duties to be “in accordance to our laws and customs here in England.” Progressing from there, they established for the colony a General Court and a General Assembly, whose members would be elected by respected jurisdictions already in place and by then spread along both sides of the James River. The author cites specific business taken up by the Assembly members, their arguments, and their resolutions.

The second chapter explains the origins of the slave-trading ships, first from Angola by the Portuguese, in cooperation with African chiefs, to South and Central America, evolving to English pirate-ship cargo delivered to Virginia. Some of the earliest Angolan arrivals to Virginia were personally named in the records, and their stories are told.

The next two chapters get a little muddled sometimes, but the irony comes through. The General Assembly designed to respect and protect the interests of the “common people” eventually made laws to establish a labor system of slavery. The custom, mimicking that of the Spanish and Portuguese in the Southern American hemisphere, began slowly, but grew into a general economic dependency. There seems some irony even in the word “forging” in the book’s subtitle. Aside from the enslavement of African “imports”—and their progeny—the Virginia colonists gradually took control of the entire landscape previously occupied by the native tribes. After the clearly coordinated day-long attack by Powhatans on March 22, 1622, resulting in the murders of approximately 350 English men, women, and children, the surviving English gave up “converting the natives to Anglican Christianity” and generally treated them as enemies to be subsumed. So the Virginia experiment certainly did not begin as a fair democracy or republic. But with the General Assembly, it set a prospective standard.

As in any era of history, there were good and bad characters, humanity being what it is. But, as James Horn points out, that first 1619 General Assembly as a “people’s representative body,” flawed as it came to be, was variously duplicated in each of England’s subsequent North American colonies. Based originally upon England’s own parliamentary governance experiment, Americans carried the principle farther than just as a counterweight to a king. By the time the American Revolution was won almost two centuries later, the legislative practices from all of the colonies had had enough rehearsal in debate and resolving disagreements, that the citizens could use their experiences to compose a remarkable Constitution for a much, much larger population than ever previously imagined could live peaceably together under a Rule of Law. The Virginia Company set the stage in Jamestown. That is his thesis.

[K · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read a fair amount of history for a general audience, and some of those books are noted for their readability. I sort of take that for granted because history is interesting, and it's not surprising that a history book would be interesting as well.

But then I read something like "1619," and I appreciate the skills of a David McCullough or other such writer. This book isn't bad by any means, but it's flat and plain. The challenge of actually forging a new society in Virginia in the first decades of the 17th century is lost in a bland tale. This could be exciting stuff -- how a succession of men of society (lords and lower) tried to simultaneously carve out towns in the wilderness, set up farming and manufacturing operations, work with and then battle Indians, enforce strict Anglican Christianity, beat back disease and hunger, and send back enough surplus so that their backers in England could make money.

This book mentions each of these things, but barely. It's more about the vision of society, as handed down through documents written by the leaders and the replies they received from England. And while should be fascinating as well, we get the point in a few pages, and don't need it repeated a dozen times. That vision is in a document that the author calls the first constitution in America, and one that gives relatively strong rights to individuals, such as property and the vote of burgesses who can represent their interests in a Parliament with the governor and the managers of the Virginia Company. This idea that people in America could have self-governance, and that everyone (in the sense of being white and male) can have a say in the government resonated all the way through to the Revolutionary War.

The book promises to interweave the story of the first enslaved Africans, who arrived in Virginia in the exact same year that the new governance structure was set up. And the irony and tragedy of how the Africans were treated differed so violently from how the white men set up governance for themselves. As the author notes, this is the dissonance that plagued America for centuries.

It's an important and interesting juxtaposition. But it's not explored well in this book, which gives a few well-worn notes about those first Africans and others who arrived in the next 20 or 30 years. There's a little speculation that indentured whites and Africans lived, worked, and played side by side for a few decades, but the author doesn't explore this idea -- perhaps because it's hard to document, or perhaps because he didn't feel it was important. But that type of thing is hugely interesting to the average reader, I think.

The best part of the book for me is the change in conduct towards the Powhatan Indians, which went from trading and attempting to convert them to Anglicanism to endless warfare. This came after a raid by the Powhatans in 1622 killed about 350 settlers, or about 1/4th of those living there at the time. This is tragic, of course, and the author makes the point that the Powhatans made their raids as revenge for the taking of their land, ruination of the cultural artifacts, murders, and so on. They viewed the settlers as invaders -- which they were -- and they had every right to try to repel them.

So, this book is a useful addition to anyone's reading on the early colonial period. There's nothing wrong with it. There just isn't much detail in the book that really explains the discussions that led to the creation of the innovative governance scheme, how it was imposed, nor its impact. There's some discussion, but not enough for me.

[Gaele · Rating 4 out of 5]

AudioBook Review:
Stars: Overall: 4 Narration 4 Story 4

Focused on the Jamestown colony established by the Virginia company along the banks of the James River, the tale here examines the first gathering of a group of citizens: landowners in good standing with the company and the colony, and their first steps to a representative governing body, all while the worst choice in those early days are heading to the shore in the form of a privateer taken by pirates and carrying the first slaves from Africa to the Americas. And this is actually why I grabbed this title – the moments when greed and profit overrode compassion, honor, morality and sense, and to see just why (or how) such a thing could happen. Jamestown is a quickly forgotten chapter in American History, and most only know it for the failures – not that the colony actually survived and thrived for near on 100 years, the first English settlement on what would become US Soil.

Horn carefully presents the political and social dynamics, all intricately woven with commercial and financial interests, contrasting the model created here with the British influence with the Canadian model of a more trading-post style, or the Dutch settlements of New York, as the model here in Jamestown quickly outpaced the others in terms of success and wealth, and set a precedent that would reverberate for years to come in the America South, incorporating the tendency that humans have to look at those who are ‘different’ as something to be feared, dismissed or subjugated, as they are not ‘as worthy’ as those who come from the ‘discoverers and settlers’ of the lands. But, there were reasons, not all of them directly related to the “goodness’ or ‘evilness’ of the people in charge, but were responsible for things going horribly wrong nonetheless, if serving to provide a loose framework for the America we live in today. Mixing in a fairly easy-to-understand style with the occasional run on sentence, or moments and questions left unanswered after a focus on one particular person or moment or another, this isn’t a solidly “I have the answers” now book, but a gateway into a better understanding of a chapter in history that is often misunderstood.

Narration for this story is provided by Dan Woren, and his voice clearly presents the information and moves listeners through the text without muddling up the works. There is a ton of information provided here, some opinions and plenty of moments that were real ‘I never knew” moments, all holding interest and furthering questions for more digging into points made or situations unearthed. While the book is fairly chronological, it starts to unravel a bit in the last quarter or so, which did require a bit more attention as the material was unfamiliar to me, but when I finished it the pieces mostly fell together, with only the lingering questions about what became of Sandys and some thinking on the lasting echoes of the choices made then that still are relevant to today’s climate.

I received an AudioBook copy of the title from Hachette Audio for purpose of honest review. I was not compensated for this review: all conclusions are my own responsibility.

Review first appeared at I am, Indeed

[Ray Campbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1619 by James Horn, we have a careful and detailed history of the Jamestown Colony in the 17th century. We begin in 1619 with the first "slaves" being purchased. We then backtrack and cover the early years of interaction with Native-Americans, the land and Spain. Horn has obviously done his research. When he gets back to 1619 it is with an emphasis on the governmental reforms that put the colony on a path to representative democracy. This is confusing because he begins the book with a strong thesis that the first slaves arrived in 1619, but spends most of the book on how, while the Massachusetts Bay Colony gets all the credit, Virginia was equally the birthplace of democracy in North America.

After hundreds of pages of detailed history, wars with Native-Americans and revolution in Great Britain, we return to 1619 with a new hypothesis. I had read in a book by Lerone Bennett, Jr. back in the 70s about how the first African-Americans arrived as indentured servants and ultimately free people in 1619. After initially referring to the Africans who arrived in 1619 as slaves, Horn backpeddes. Apparently there was no legal structure for slavery in Virginia in 1619 and the people the Virginians took from the Portuguese in 1619 could not have been slaves. In fact, Horn explains that within the time typically allowed for indentured servants to satisfy their contracts, dozens of Africans are counted in the colonial census as free land owners. Thus, I am confused.

Last year there was a podcast, series and movement called 1619 based on the idea that the first "slaves" arrived in what would become the United States in 1619. Apparently, there is no historical basis for this since slavery does not exist in Virginia for the better part of the next 100 years AND there is no record of the first Africans becoming anything but free. Now, please don't misidentify me. I am seriously supportive of the African-American/Black community, but the truth is the truth. I think this is a terrific history of early Virginia. However, the author titled it hoping to sell books. Slavery did not exist in Virginia in 1619 and Horn explains that if you read the whole book.

I've always taught Lerone Bennett, Jr.'s essay "Before the Mayflower" as a point of pride. The idea that there were free Africans in Virginia before the Mayflower challenges the stereotype that Africans were slaves first in America and somehow evolved or earned or where given opportunity - NO! Africans were born free and came here as victims of kidnap, worked and claimed the fruits of their labor as free citizens. If white folks can claim to be descendants of the "original settlers who crossed the Atlantic on the Mayflower", it is a point of honor that there were free Virginians of African descent before the Mayflower. Good book, but based on Horn's own research, I stand by Bennett and his assertion that noone has the right to claim legitimacy owing to having arrived in a savage land and been among its first settlers. We all arrived here by chance and have made our contributions despite our circumstances. To all the Daughters of the American Revolution and descendants of the Mayflower, there were free Africans in Virginia in 1619, before any of y'all.

[John Findlay · Rating 4 out of 5]

For me, this book rates 4 stars for educational value and 3 stars for readability. I knew little about the Jamestown settlement that began in 1607. Like many other Americans, I was taught far more about the Pilgrims arrival in New England in 1620. So it was refreshing and interesting to learn about the Virginia Company and their efforts to build a sustainable commonwealth on the James River in Virginia. The paradox of establishing a form of self-rule at roughly the same time as African slaves were first brought to America was striking, just as it was when Thomas Jefferson wrote noble words about "liberty and justice for all" when he meant nothing of the kind. I found it interesting to see the discussion of whether African slaves were really more true slaves than the poor whites brought from England to serve as indentured servants who had little chance of achieving freedom before they died. But the author felt that there was a distinct difference, and I agree. The discussion about the rights of kings to rule, and how that was countermanded by the power of Parliament was also interesting. Of course, it was a few decades after 1619 when Charles I was put to death for abusing the power of the monarchy. The Jamestown settlement began as a Virginia Company investment, but the king revoked its charter and it became a government-run enterprise. As seems to happen everywhere, power became concentrated in a small population of wealthy land and property (including slaves) owners, as it remained even after the American Revolution and the advent of the US Constitution. Four of the first five Presidents were wealthy Virginia landowners who also owned slaves. Another sad part of the book is the treatment of the Native Americans. Originally, the Virginia Company sought to compel them to accept Protestantism, even as settlers were taking their land and forcing them to move from their villages. When the Native Americans fought back with a massacre of settlers, the revenge war essentially wiped out all but small numbers. Of course, this process was repeated scores of times across America. So this book is a good educational primer for those who want to learn more about the settlement of Virginia, the advent of slavery in North America, and the first attempts at a representative government.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been running a discussion group at the library around the New York Times Magazine special 1619 Edition but I realized that I didn't know much about Jamestown.

SO I picked this up.

Its a good overview of the history of the Company/Colony. Horn breaks down the history into themes - each chapter is a exploration of the various threads that wove the settlement together. While he does not get into the direct capitalism of the whole project, he does explore the following:

The failure of the original project which Horn blames on disorganization and over-reach and unprepared settlers for the harsh conditions. The great reforms that Sandys attempted to bring to the organization of the colony. The first slaves have their own chapter, in which, Horn spends much of the time debunking other historians' claims that the Angolans brought in 1619 were not "slaves" in the same way as post-colonial Slaves were. Horn proves they were immediately treated as property in ways that were different to the indentured whites.

The Commonwealth idea's origins and importation to Jamestown. As the Utopian idea spread across England and Europe, there were those in Jamestown who saw the perfect opportunity to attempt some gradual trials at bringing the idea to life. Horn sees these as Corporate experiments in religious, territory, and property precursors of Democracy.

Horn spends a chapter talking about the atrocities of the Powhatan War as a backdrop for propaganda and political wrangling back in England. While recruitment of new settlers took on an urgency, the dangerous nature of such endeavor, also, took on a new meaning. Meanwhile, religious persecution lead to strange bedfellows (Pilgrims and the Corporation).

Overall, Horn centers his narrative around Sandys. Using his biography and contributions as the prime mover of Horn's take on Jamestown. While I knew nothing of Sandys, nor the other players, it did seem to service Horn's argument well.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Initially it was a little hard for me to get into this book because it’s much more of a scholarly work than I thought it would be. It’s not so much an exploration of the events of year 1619 in Jamestown as it is a political history of the government established by the Virginia Company. The year 1619 is more of a “marker” year, as the book actually covers the entire life of the colony’s charter period. That said, are lots of interesting footnotes that sent me down many Google rabbit trails, leading me to add a few new books to my “want to read” list.

It’s absolutely ironic in a very sad way that, in 1619, just as the government of the colony was beginning to evolve into the democratic republic the country would become some 250 years hence, captive Africans arrived on the shores of the colony, only to be excluded completely from the freedoms of the very same form of government. The last chapter of the book ties these associated events together very satisfactorily.

One of the things I found most interesting was the evidence the author provides that the supports the fact that the revocation of the Virginia Company’s charter had much more to do with England’s political relations with Spain than it did with anything inherently amiss in the colony. It made a lot of sense and isn’t something I’d read about before.

Interesting stuff. I actually read thru all the notes again at the end of the book and wow...lots of highlights. Glad I read this one.

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most people think of 1776 when they think of the first pivotal year in US history, but one could argue that 1619 was even more significant. I’ve been to Jamestown before, several times though it’s been at least a decade since I was there last, but there’s only so much you can glisten from a self guided tour walking tour in 90° heat. This is where the fort was, this was a typical home, here was the church, blah blah blah. Horn spends a lot of time discussing some of the important men from the settlement along with their political philosophies. The account of the first General Assembly meeting was very interesting. That’s where the gold was in this book.

The book is short and held my attention for the most part. It might have been a little rambly and repetitive in the middle, or maybe it was just my tired mom brain that made it seem that way. Regardless, it was a great read that I would recommend for any early US history buff. A list for further reading would have been appreciated but I’m not lacking for reading material so I’ll live.

Finally I want to add: I appreciated the way slavery was bluntly treated, particularly in the epilogue where Horn shows how the negative affects of the first slaves are still echoing today. One can certainly focus on the spark of our democracy at this time, but one should not forget the men and women on whose literal backs it was built.

[JOHN McLane · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great introduction to a lot of aspects of the founding of the English colonies in North America. It covers the context of what drove the formulation of ideas in governance and commerce. It includes the start of slavery in the colonies and how laws evolved in the first 100 years to make slavery and racism such institutional and cultural factors in the history of our country. It also provides some insights to the evolutionary thinking about government going on in England in the late 1500s and early 1600s. Interestingly, I read the second half of this book while vacationing in France. Just walking around and visiting with local business and people, it appeared there was a different perspective or attitude about diversity, government, etc in general - not saying better, just different. It made some issues covered in the book all the more significant or impactful when looking at American history. Any college level American history course that starts only with events leading up to the Revolutionary War does the student citizen a serious injustice.

[Rob1992 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is like reading a textbook. It’s not written in an exciting or even interesting way. That being said, I don’t know if I’ve ever read a book that makes a better case for an underrated part of history.

I am a history buff and did not, until after reading this, truly understand or appreciate the role of early colonial systems in the eventual American experiment. This book expertly lays out how America was a product of chance and circumstances created by people with no intention of eventually forging a nation and bringing democracy to the world. This book also shows the dark side of American history, how indentured servitude and the jealousy of the non-aristocracy of England created a system dependent upon servants and wealth, then, again by accident, a new kind of servant was introduced that would eventually swallow southern American politics leading to the American Civil War and reverberate in American politics even today.

[Eric Carlson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't read much history as I have a difficult time getting into a mindset that welcomes it, but after visiting Jamestown this summer and being offered an opportunity to borrow this book shortly thereafter I decided to pick it up.

I was pleasantly surprised by the read. Mr. Horn does a great job of bringing the history to life, but I believe that visiting Jamestown (and Yorktown and Williamsburg) made a difference in my ability to relate to what I was reading.

The aspects of the beginning of slavery are also documented here and did not take away from the story as the details were subtle enough to be digestible without overwhelming. Given that the importance of these beginnings was not lost and the consequences 400 years later are still being debated so the history is important.

I appreciated this one.

[Craig Pearson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. Very detailed book of the time period leading up to, during and immediately after the year 1619 and the colony of Jamestown, Virginia. The narrative did at times bog down with hard details that tended to confuse this reader. The rule of law that was prevelent in England was heavily modified for use in the company ran colony of Virginia. The various names of company leaders, investors, and colonists tend to run together. The maps used are accurate enough but they show only dots of the various settlements, cities, and plantations.

[Gunnar Esiason · Rating 4 out of 5]

Horn’s thesis is a compelling one; The representative government experiment in the Jamestown colony was intended to be for the common good - the common wealth of the colonists and Native Americans. Instead, it led to conflict between settlers and native, which created a hostile culture inflamed by inequality and racism following the introduction of the slave trade. 1619 is a good read and tells an important history of the beginning of American democracy alongside the start of the very worst parts of American history.

[SeaShore · Rating 3 out of 5]

First and foremost I am taking note that this book is about how governance or the beginnings of democracy started, where, the first governing assemblies were organized. This book is not about who were the first peoples to arrive on The Virginia Coast.

On October 17, 2018, James Horn delivered the J. Harvie Wilkinson, Jr. Lecture, “1619: Jamestown and the Forging of American Democracy.”
He used slides of excavations and archaeology and even DNA research and wrote the History of the events on 1619. He presented the events that lead up to 1619 using groundbreaking archaeology to present the Histories of the first assembly set-ups, the Angela Site (she was one of the first Africans to arrive at Jamestown) and the Pocahontas Indians who were already inhabiting the Region.
He describes two events that occurred within a month of each other along the banks of the James River, Virginia, during an oppressively hot spell in the middle of summer 1619.

What led up to the reforms, he laid out are, the first Powathan war 1609 to 1614
and Lawes Divine , Morall and Martiall --Martial Law (1609 to 1618).
The great reforms of 1619 comprised:
--Private Property
--Rule of Law
--Self-Government
--Commonwealth
--Work for all/Free Trade
The author introduces us to Sir Edwin Sandys, Governor of Virginia Company, 1619. Sir Edwin was the son of a Puritan and was able to receive a first class education-an intellectual of the day. -English/European but when James I ascended to the Throne, Sir Edwin became the leader of the opposition. He knew the Colony would collapse if Reforms were not in place. He attracted a large population of the English people to make this happen in order to create a viable colony. Migration strategies were horrendous by ship across the Atlantic. Virginia he says could be another Bermuda (a Bermuda model, or a Broachian type with English settlers). The Virginia Company instead used a different model. A different set up which would require Rule Of Law, and be based on English Law, changed accordingly to suit the circumstances that confronted settlers. Assemblies were set up each with their own governing ruler creating the Common-wealth in the Virginia Company and henceforth an attempt to set up Industries for work.

Later, he presents Angela's story, Angela is one of many captured Africans from Angola and west Africa and brought to the coast of Virginia. This part is very confusing. Hopefully someone does a revision and update.

The highlight for me is understanding the assemblies and creation of governing bodies with leaders representing the people.

[Felicia Mitchell · Rating 5 out of 5]

After I watched the PBS series Jamestown, I decided to supplement this interesting albeit soap-operish show with further reading. I know I have a good bit of reading to complete to understand more, but I started with Horn's book, an overview that integrates primary research well to share some of the foundations of early days in the Commonwealth of Virginia, days initiating a complicated chapter in the history of colonization. I am interesting in early days for perspective and also for context to help me, perhaps, understand some of today's issues better.

[David Ellena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Would have gone 3.5. There were some amazing details in the book. But there was not as much as I thought there would be about the actual governing and how that developed. There were some tremendous details about the evolution of slavery and its implications, but I think there could have been more development on the subject of democracy and how it evolved from this beginning. But still a solid historical read.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really wanted to read more about this subject after visiting Jamestown and seeing the archaeology that is still ongoing on the site. I appreciated how the author acknowledged and delved into some of the difficult realities of the time, such as the coinciding of slavery in the settlement occurring at the same time as democracy. And he wrote about the different ways the native people and settlers looked at their agreements based on their cultures. so fascinating!

[Patrick Macke · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short book that tells of two occurrences that happened in Jamestown in 1619: the first slaves arrive in America and our democratic experiment begins (through the establishment of a representative government and the concept of private property) ... the book flounders a bit from its midpoint on ... but the reason to read is the slavery origin story it tells

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well researched and documented. Author juxtaposes modern democratic thinking against the feudal traditions of old Europe. He combines this with events at Jamestown to describe where our republic originated. Enjoyed the book.

[Brooke · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. A solid history of the Virginia Company and its settlements - specifically Jamestown - in what is now Virginia. I personally found the social history bits much more interesting than the sections about British and colonial politics.

[Richard · Rating 1 out of 5]

Book of misleading accounts purposely handpicked to create controversy. Skip in favor of books based on documents, images and artifacts that provide firsthand testimony or direct evidence concerning Jamestown.