On August 20, 1619, some   “20 and odd” African  captives arrived In The United States aboard a Dutch “man of war” named White Lion as indentured servants, landing  at Old Point Comfort in Jamestown Colony, Virginia. They would be the first blacks to be forcibly settled as involuntary laborers in what would become the United States.

John Rolfe who served as secretary and recorder general of Virginia (1614–1619) and as a member of the governor's Council (1614–1622) provides us with an eyewitness account of this first group. “About the last of August [1619] came a Dutch man of Warre that sold us twenty negars.” John Rolfe was one of the early English settlers of North America. He is credited with the first successful cultivation of tobacco as an export crop in the Colony of Virginia and is known as the husband of Pocahontas (m. 1614–1617) "the most deare and wel-beloved" daughter of  Powhatan, the powerful chief of the Algonquian Indians in the Tidewater region of Virginia. He used Slaves along with indentured whites to do the heavy labor required to plant, weed, and harvest the tobacco. The shift from indentured servitude to slavery in the labor system was the reason tobacco thrived in Virginia.

Among the most controversial issues confronting the delegates to the Constitutional Convention, August 1787, was that of slavery. '(Our) peculiar institution' was a euphemism for slavery and the economic ramifications of it in the American South. The meaning of 'peculiar' in this expression is something distinctive to or characteristic of a particular place or people. For slaves, "peculiar institution" meant a life of incessant toil, brutal punishment, and the constant fear that their families would be destroyed by sale. Slavery made America one of the most powerful countries in the world.

We must remember and not forget these days and our history for our sakes and for our children’s. Part of God's purpose in requiring the children of Israel to remember the Passover was to inspire questions from future young generations, for their instruction Ex. 13:3 And Moses said unto the people, Remember this day, in which ye came out from Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by strength of hand the LORD brought you out from this place: there shall no leavened bread be eaten.