Fort Blackwater

Historical marker location:

Rocky Mount, Virginia

( Marker is on Virgil H. Goode Hwy. (U.S. 220) south of Virginia Route 635, on the right when traveling south.)

Marker installed: 1961

The first slave ship to arrive in the American colonies landed in Virginia in 1619. Virginia became a center of the transatlantic slave trade, and by 1860, Virginia had the largest population of enslaved people in the United States.