‘FROM AFRICA TO VIRGINIA’ IS THEME OF TOURS, EXHIBITS AT JAMESTOWN SETTLEMENT DURING FEBRUARY

January 23, 2008 

 WILLIAMSBURG, Va.--The history of Africans in 17th-century Virginia will be a focus of tours and interpretive programs during the month of February at Jamestown Settlement, a history museum operated by the state’s Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation.

 The theme “From Africa to Virginia” is reflected in daily guided tours of the museum’s expansive exhibition galleries and outdoor living-history areas and in a printed family gallery guide.

Visitors can choose to participate on one of the gallery tours, offered at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m., or tour the exhibits on their own, using the printed guide to enhance the experience.  The galleries chronicle the nation’s 17th-century beginnings in Virginia in the context of its Powhatan Indian, English and African cultures.  Exhibits include a diorama portraying a dwelling in Angola, homeland of the first known Africans in Virginia.  A dramatic multimedia presentation describes African encounters with Europeans, the impact on African culture, and the development of the transatlantic slave trade. 

Other exhibits tell about Virginia’s tobacco-cultivation economy and its relationship to the evolution of slavery in the colony.  A structure re-created from an archaeological site depicts a late-17th-century slave quarter alongside a planter’s house and Indian cabin, also based on Virginia archaeological sites.  Artifacts from the Ambundu culture of Angola, decorative objects of ivory and metal made by west central African craftspeople, and archaeologically found objects made or used by enslaved people in Virginia can be seen in the gallery exhibits.

Guided tours of Jamestown Settlement’s outdoor exhibit areas – re-created Powhatan Indian village and colonial fort, replicas of the three ships that brought America’s first permanent English colonists to Virginia in 1607, and riverfront discovery area – begin every hour from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily during the first half of the month and at 11 a.m. and 1 and 3 p.m. after February 15. 

At the riverfront area, visitors learn about 17th-century travel, commerce and cultural exchange, reflecting Powhatan Indian, European and African traditions.  February tour narratives will compare boatbuilding, fishing and metalworking skills of Africans in Angola to technology used in 17th-century Virginia.  Tour participants will be invited to participate in role play that illuminates the circumstances of the 1619 arrival in Virginia of 20-some Africans from the kingdom of Ndongo in Angola. 

Visitors can learn more about African culture in Jamestown Settlement’s “The World of 1607” special exhibition, which portrays Jamestown in a global context and explores aspects of the intellectual and cultural life of peoples around the globe at the beginning of the modern era.  A section titled “Sub-Saharan African Kingdoms” provides a look at the cultures and products of Atlantic Africa during the early period of contact with Europeans.

Jamestown Settlement is located at State Route 31 and the Colonial Parkway next to Historic Jamestowne, administered by APVA Preservation Virginia and the National Park Service, and is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily.  Admission is $13.50 for adults and $6.25 for ages 6 through 12.  A combination ticket with the Yorktown Victory Center, a museum of the American Revolution, is $19.25 for adults, $9.25 for ages 6 through 12.  Victory Center exhibits explore the impact of the Revolution on African Americans and their role in creation of a distinctly American society.

Virginia residents with proof of residency qualify for a 50 percent discount off general admission to Jamestown Settlement and the Yorktown Victory Center on Saturdays and Sundays in February and on Monday, February 18. 

For more information, call (888) 593-4682 toll-free or (757) 253-4838.

Learn more about the first Africans in 17th-century Virginia with online resources from the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation.