First Baptist Church Bermuda Hundred

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.