I found the following reference to that information but not the source: Slavery Historians now know that small numbers of Africans lived in Virginia before 1619, the year a Dutch ship sold some twenty blacks to the colonists, but it wasn't until the 1680s that black slavery became the dominant labor system on plantations there. As late as 1640, there were probably only 150 blacks in Virginia, and in 1650, only 300. It was in the middle of a rather long article at this site: http://womenhistory.blogspot.com/2008/06/american-colonies-virginia.html roy johnson