Orange County / Madison County

Historical marker location:

9164 S James Madison Hwy, Orange, Virginia

( Marker is at the intersection of South James Madison Highway (U.S. 15) and Little Skyline Drive (County Route 674), on the right when traveling south on South James Madison Highway.)

Marker installed: 2002

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.