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Evidence dates back to 15th Century that indicates that African travelers visited South America, Central America, and what is now known as Mexico. Gold was what the explorers sought over colonialism.

Esteban left his mark during his 1502 exploration.

While Spain established settlements in Florida the majority of settlements were on the eastern seaboard where settlers arrived from England. Over time thirteen separate colonies were established, populated, and governed.

Daily life in Colonial America had to be filled with a sense of excitement. Droves upon droves of people traveled to the New World in hopes of finding better lives for themselves, and their families. The dependence one had for another did not create an environment of prejudices. What mattered was what neighbors were willing to help you clear your land, plant your crops, and help build your barn. People of all colors lived within hailing distance from one another as their children romped about a pristine land blessed with fresh water, clean air, and a great hope for the future.

Black history lines are badly blurred during the colonial era, but, for one with tenacity, the trail remains traceable. There were more than just a handful of free people of color. Many of these blacks actually came from England while others arrived from African nations. There are some names, deeds, and court decrees that document many black indentured servants that became free men once their contract period of servitude ended. Did other blacks migrate from points south? The Portuguese and Spanish transported millions of Africans across the Atlantic to labor on plantations, mine, and as craftsmen. Records also indicate that many of these slaves escaped and were never recaptured. Where did they flee to? It is unlikely that escaped slaves could secure a vessel to sail back to their African homelands. Speculations expand the range of the imagination, but the consistent message is that blacks populated the New World from day one.

Slanted History would have us believe the settlers only represented those of European heritage thus laying a claim of ownership, but thinking people no longer accept canned history. Native nations ranged from what is now Maine to New Mexico and from Georgia to Oregon. As exploration expanded many of these natives welcomed their visitors until their real intentions were realized. Slavery may have been introduced to the colonies in Jamestown in 1619, but black people were amongst the settlers that watched these poor retches being unloaded. 

Some favorites from the Colonial Era are:

Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784) was a great American poet. She was brought to Boston on a slave ship named Phillis, and purchased by a family named Wheatley. She was about eight years old and ignorant to the ways of this new world.

The Wheatleys taught Phillis to read and write. It appears the girl was a natural student. She took to learning as a duck takes to water. She studied geography, history, and Latin. At the age of fourteen she began to write poems, and over the years she created an impressive collection that drew the attention of her masters. John Wheatley was a wealthy merchant tailor, and his wife convinced him that Phillis poems should be published, and shared. But, when John's intentions became known he was heavily criticized by his neighbors. How could a slave be published? The thought was considered without merit, but eighteen (18) white men were formed into a panel to determine if Phillis had the intelligence her owner's claimed she had. After their inquisition in 1772 it was decided that she did not have the intellect of a poet. The white men were not impressed.

In 1773 the Wheatley's sent Phillis to England with her work. There "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral'', was published. Phillis was a deeply religious person. some of her poems expressed her satisfaction at becoming a Christian in American society. She also wrote about more worldly issues, as in "To the Right Honorable William, Earl of Dartmouth" (1773). In this poem she contrasted her status as a slave with the demand of the American Colonies for independence.

Phillis returned to the American Colonies where she was freed by John Wheatley. She married a free black man, John Peters and slipped into obscurity.

Lucy Terry was another example of intellect that went mostly ignored. y Terry, a slave in Massachusetts who was also educated by her owner, wrote the first poem to be published by a black American: "Bar's Fight" (1746). The poem describes the victims and survivors of a Native American raid against settlers. It was followed by Jupiter Hammon’s biblically inspired, hymn like verse, "An Evening Thought; Salvation by Christ, with Penitential Cries" (1760).

 
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Prince Hall, in 1787, organized the African Masonic Lodge in Boston, and lodges of Prince Hall Masons were soon found in Philadelphia, New York City, and throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

From the beginning of the nineteenth century a number of Philadelphia free people of color supported themselves as professional musicians. Best known of them was Francis ("Frank") Johnson, born in 1792, whose band and dance orchestra were considered the premier Philadelphia performing groups in these genres. In 1837 his band toured England, the first American band to do so. The music of the Philadelphia free blacks was the first African American music to be published as the work of individual musicians.

However, for most blacks, their charge was to tend to the children of their owners, or laboring in their fields. .

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