Achieving independence as the United States of America was a lengthy and unlikely struggle for the 13 original colonies ... its first permanent colony in Jamestown, Virginia.

1619: A Dutch ship brings the first permanent African settlers to Jamestown. Africans soon are put to work on tobacco plantations. 1663: A Virginia court decides that a child born to a slave ...

They were also hoping to take advantage of natural resources," says historian James Horn, author of A Land As God Made It: Jamestown and ... to Spanish New World colonies to serve as slaves ...