... produced here?

Mm.

So one of the reasons that they're interested in Barbados is because at that point it isn't claimed by another European territory, so that means it's kind of up for grabs in a way.

Um, and the first settlement is established a couple of years later in 1627 in Holetown.

And they know that Barbados is densely forested, so they're thinking, you know, "There's gonna be lots of timber that we can use." Um, they expect that they'll be able to grow tropical crops.

Um, and significantly, even when they arrive in 1625, this small group already bring with them enslaved Africans, so captives that they've taken from a Spanish prize vessel, um, at the Cape, well off the Cape Verde Islands in the, um, Atlantic Ocean.

So slavery is, is kind of part of this, this colony from the very beginning.

Talk to us about the details there.

Historian Misha Ewan recounts the fascinating early history of the Virginia Company and its initial investors.

The Virginia Company is a joint stock company, and it's trying to garner interest in lots of different ways.

They're trying to seek interest and investment and patronage.

There are very proactive ways that people are involved.

But I think under Understanding that participation in the colonial project to also include people who do it in maybe more fleeting or passive ways.

But I also think about these fleeting examples of the women, for example, who provided lodging and food and washed the clothes of colonists in the weeks and days leading up to their departures and supplied foodstuffs for the ships.

And I think through that lens, we get a sense this requires the buy-in and the support of a much broader public.

May he continue to bless America.