On August 25, 1619, the privateer vessel White Lion landed at Point Comfort, now Hampton Roads, Virginia, just outside Jamestown. The ship and its partner, the Treasurer, had encountered and raided the San Juan Bautista in the mid-Atlantic, a Portuguese craft transporting some 200 enslaved Africans as part of its freight, carrying off some 60 for sale in the West Indies.
But the two privateers became separated at sea, and the White Lion with its 20-odd captured slaves made port in Virginia, and there traded their human cargo for badly needed food and supplies. This was the origin of African slavery in the land which would become the United States (some indigenous tribes had practiced slavery with captured enemies for centuries), thus establishing one of the country’s Original Sins (the other being genocide of the native population).
No one knows for certain the time of the landing (even the date has been in some dispute until recently, following research by astrologer Vernon Robinson with local historians), but a solar chart for the day is very revealing of the hundreds of years of slavery which would ensue, and its “ripples through time “ (as Robinson describes it) which continue to reverberate.
The Sun at 1 Virgo conjoins both asteroid White at 0 Virgo and Brown at 8 Virgo, in a T-Square with the Moon at 8 Pisces and asteroid Virginia with Bruna at 6 and 8 Sagittarius. With asteroid Leona exactly semisextile the Sun from 1 Libra, this puts the focus of the day on the White Lion (White and Leona, Spanish for “lioness”) and its cargo of brown (Brown and Bruna, Portuguese for “Brown One”) people (Moon), landing at Jamestown (Virginia). Also squaring the Moon (though too far wide of the Sun to form a Grand Cross) is asteroid Maron at 12 Gemini, French for “brown”, further identifying the race of those enslaved.
Also with Leona at 1 Libra is asteroid Hampton (for Hampton Roads, the modern name of the landing site) at 29 Virgo, asteroid America at 3 Libra, and Neptune, co-ruler of slavery (with Saturn; Neptune rules the incarceration aspect of slavery, while Saturn rules its restrictive, harsh, enforced labor aspects), at 7 Libra. This stellium squares asteroid Africa at 6 Cancer, representing the continent of origin of the slaves, which itself conjoins the South Node at 13 Cancer, the precise degree of the Sun of the future United Sates of America, seeding this act as a negative karmic force for the nation-to-be. Hampton also exactly squares asteroid Black at 29 Gemini, linking African slaves for the first time with the American colonies.
Portugal was the originator of these people’s enslavement, and asteroid Portugal at 18 Gemini conjoins Saturn at 21 Gemini. These form a Grand Cross with an opposition to asteroid Schwartz (German for “black”) at 16 Sagittarius and squares to Mercury (commerce) at 14 Virgo with asteroid Baptistina at 12 Virgo, and asteroid San Juan at 21 Pisces, which together establishes the name (also Mercury) of the Portuguese (Portugal) slave ship (Saturn) San Juan Bautista (“Saint John the Baptist” in English – San Juan/Baptistina) carrying its trade cargo (Mercury) of negroes (Schwartz) intended for sale in New Spain.
The specific region of Africa where these individuals were captured is estimated to be modern-day Angola; asteroid Angola at 0 Aquarius is sesquiquadrate Portugal, and opposed Venus at 5 Leo (which is semisquare Portugal), signifying the economic value (Venus) of these natives (Angola) to their captors (Portugal). Saturn/Portugal is also in a Grand Trine with asteroid Nemesis at 22 Libra and Negron at 13 Aquarius, identifying the Portuguese (Portugal) as the source of ruin or undoing (Nemesis) for their black captives (Negron, Spanish for “black”). Neptune and Venus are also at the base of a Yod with the Moon at its apex, opposing asteroid Brown, a pattern which speaks to a karmic entanglement involving the use of dark-skinned people (Brown, Moon) transported across the sea (Neptune) as an economic commodity (Venus) via the institution of slavery (Neptune also).
According to astrologer Vernon Robinson, the chart continues to resonate to key moments in the history of slavery in the US, the Civil Rights movement, and the charts of activists and agitators, both pro and con.
The recent death of George Floyd on 25 May 2020, which sparked anti-racism and anti-police brutality demonstrations across the globe, shows Mars at 8 Pisces exact with the White Lion landing’s Moon, Venus at 18 Gemini exact with its Portugal, and the Ascendant at 14 Sagittarius exactly squared its Mercury.
The White Lion landing chart shows a potential for healing, with centaur Chiron at 28 Aquarius in an out-of-sign opposition to the White/Sun/Brown stellium in early Virgo, perhaps affording an opportunity to heal (Chiron) the seemingly incurable wound (also Chiron) between the races (White, Brown) by bringing awareness and conscious focus (both Sun) to the issues that still plague us today, 401 years after slavery began in America.
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