The 1526 slave rebellion at Ayllon Colony, established by Spanish colonizers at the mouth of the Big Pee Dee River (now South Carolina), is often ignored, but it is part of U.S. history.

The self-emancipated Africans remained, while the colonizers left. Their descendants met Menendez in St. Augustine in 1565. Free Black men were the first non-indigenous residents of this country.

Enslaved African men were taken to Western Massachusetts in 1617 by Dutch colonizers, then abandoned. One survivor, Amircho, was found in Eastern Massachusetts in 1633. English colonizers did not arrive until 1620.

Jan Rodrigues, a Black man, became the first non-indigenous resident of Manhattan in 1613, long before the Dutch West India Company established the New Netherlands in 1624.

Remember these men, who were here first. The image of brave White people who established settlements, then brought in enslaved Africans, only continues centuries of ignorance.