The first enslaved Africans were brought to what became the United States in August 1619, when about twenty Africans were unloaded at Point Comfort in the English colony of Virginia, near Jamestown.

Quick Scoop: Key Dates

  • Before 1619: Africans had already been forcibly taken to parts of the Americas (for example, to Spanish colonies in the Caribbean and South America) starting in the early 1500s.
  • 1526 (Spanish attempt): A Spanish expedition brought enslaved Africans to a short‑lived colony called San Miguel de Gualdape, likely in present‑day South Carolina or Georgia, in 1526, but that settlement failed and did not last.
  • 1619 (commonly cited “beginning”): Around “20 and odd” enslaved Africans arrived at Point Comfort (now in Hampton, Virginia) in late August 1619, carried by the privateer White Lion. They were traded to English colonists for supplies.
  • 1600s expansion: Through the mid‑ to late‑1600s, colonies like Virginia, Maryland, New York, and others began writing laws that turned African bondage into a hereditary, race‑based system of slavery.

So, if you’re asking “when were slaves brought to America?” in the sense of the land that became the United States, historians usually point to August 1619 in Virginia as the landmark date, while also noting that enslaved Africans were forced into other parts of the Americas a century earlier under Spanish rule.

In other words: 1619 is the famous turning point in English North America, but the trafficking of enslaved Africans into the broader Americas had already been happening since the early 1500s.

TL;DR:

  • First known enslaved Africans in a failed Spanish North American colony: 1526.
  • Widely recognized start of African slavery in English North America (future U.S.): August 1619, Virginia.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.