SIX FEET UNDER

Archeologists May Have Found One of First U.S. Slave Owners

Jamestown grave could be that of Sir George Yeardley.

Archaeologists in Jamestown, Virginia, believe they may have found the remains of Sir George Yeardley—the leader of the first representative government assembly in England’s American colony, and one of the first U.S. slaveholders. The remains were found Sunday in Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in the United States. Though he’s little-known, Yeardley’s story is gaining more attention because next summer marks the 400th anniversary of the Virginia General Assembly he convened—as well as the 400th anniversary of the arrival on U.S. soil of the first enslaved Africans, some of whom he is believed to have purchased. As The Washington Post reports: “He represents two of the chief veins in American history—representative government and slavery, which took root in the same summer, in the same place, in the person of the same man.” Jamestown experts will attempt to determine the skeleton’s identity using DNA from the teeth.