First Baptist Church Bermuda Hundred

S-100

First Baptist Church Bermuda Hundred traces its origins to 1850 and was formally organized ca. 1866. The Rev. Curtis W. Harris, a Civil Rights leader, became pastor here in 1959. The church stands on the former central marketplace of Bermuda Hundred, which became one of Virginia’s official ports in 1691. Transatlantic slave ships brought thousands of enslaved Africans here to be sold. When demand for labor surged in the newly settled southern Piedmont after about 1750, this became one of Virginia’s largest slave auction sites. Most enslaved Africans who disembarked here, including many children, were marched to tobacco plantations in the interior, where planters profited from their labor.

Department of Historic Resources, 2025

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

“A History of the First Baptist Church Bermuda Hundred,” typescript, n.d. “Prehistoric through Historic Archaeological Resources and Architectural Resources at Bermuda Hundred,” Multiple Property Documentation Form (2006). Philip D. Morgan and Michael L. Nichols, “Slaves in Piedmont Virginia, 1720-1790,” William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 46, no. 2 (April 1989). Slave Voyages Consortium, Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database: https://www.slavevoyages.org/voyage/database Virginia Gazette, 10 July 1762, 16 Aug., 6 Sept. 1770 (and other advertisements, 1762-1772). David Richardson, ed., Bristol, Africa, and the Eighteenth-Century Slave Trade to America, vol. 3 (Bristol Record Society, 1991). Joseph Miller, “The Transatlantic Slave Trade and the Middle Passage,” Encyclopedia Virginia, Virginia Humanities (7 Dec. 2020). To Be Sold: Virginia and the American Slave Trade: https://www.virginiamemory.com/online-exhibitions/exhibits/show/to-be-sold Emily Salmon, “Bermuda Hundred during the Colonial Period,” Encyclopedia Virginia, Virginia Humanities (7 Dec. 2020).