Jamestown Settlement’s permanent exhibition galleries feature one of the most varied collections of objects relating to the nation’s beginnings in 17th-century Virginia, including more than 500 objects representative of the Powhatan Indian, European and West Central African cultures.

Period artifacts, immersive films and interactive exhibits share historical accounts of the first recorded West Central Africans to Virginia in 1619, their homeland in Ndongo (Angola), life in the Virginia colony, development of the transatlantic slave trade and the evolution of a new African American culture.

The dramatic multimedia presentation, “From Africa to Virginia,” chronicles West Central African encounters with Europeans, the impact this had on African culture, and the development of the transatlantic slave trade. Discover the story of Angelo, one of the first West Central African women mentioned by name in the historical record noted in the 1625 “Muster of the Inhabitants of Virginia.”

From the first shots fired at the Boston Massacre to the final victory at Yorktown and points in between, exhibits and films explore the contributions of both well-known and little-known participants in the Revolutionary War.

Among the iconic artifacts on exhibit is a circa-1733 portrait of Ayuba Suleiman Diallo by William Hoare (shown at right), one of the two earliest known portraits done from life of an African who had been enslaved in the 13 British colonies that became the United States of America. View a first edition of the Phillis Wheatley 1773 volume, “Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral,” the first book to be published by a woman of African descent. Visitors can learn about diverse Americans – Patriots and Loyalists, women, and enslaved and free African Americans, including Benjamin Banneker, a free African American who became famous in the 1790s as a scientist and writer. An interactive exhibit shares accounts of James Lafayette, an enslaved African American from New Kent County, Va., who successfully spied on the British for the American forces.

Shown every 30 minutes in the museum theater, “Liberty Fever” features the stories of five people who lived during the American Revolution, including Billy Flora, an African American hero of the Battle of Great Bridge in 1775.

Along the museum’s Grand Corridor, visitors can see representations of a coat worn by formerly enslaved people who joined the British 33rd Regiment of Foot and a hat from the American army’s 1st Rhode Island Regiment, which for a time during the Revolution included several companies of African American soldiers.

Video Resources

• James Lafayette: Slave Spy
• Liberty Fever
• West Central African Blacksmithing

Essays

• African Americans and the American Revolution
• Phillis Wheatley
• The Angolan Connection and Slavery in Virginia
• The Rise of Slavery in Virginia
• What was life like for enslaved people on farms in colonial Virginia?