On this day, April 5, in 1621

The Mayflower left the Plymouth colony where it had landed one year earlier, in order to return to England. The English had begun the colonization of North America in the 1580’s by building small colonies along the Atlantic coast, including the successful Jamestown Settlement that was founded in 1607. Because the agricultural economies of these early colonies demanded large labor forces, white settlers first used enslaved Native Americans and European Indentured servants. Over time, the labor of enslaved Africans proved to be the most economical and the development of chattel slavery began.