1619: Jamestown and the Forging of American Democracy

The essential history of the extraordinary year in which American democracy and American slavery emerged hand in hand in Virginia

“If anyone today knows colonial Virginia, it is James Horn.” —Wall Street Journal

Along the banks of the James River, during an oppressively hot spell in the middle of summer 1619, two events occurred within a month of one another that would profoundly shape the course of history. At the end of July, the General Assembly—the first representative governing body in ...