; Thomas Ezekiel Miller, Member of Congress from 1890 to 1891; George Washington Murray (SC–01), Member of Congress from 1893 to 1895 and 1896 to 1897; and George Henry White (NC–02), Member of Congress from 1897 to 1901; Whereas, on August 20, 1619, the first 20 enslaved Africans were brought to what is now Fort Monroe, then Point Comfort, in Hampton, Virginia against their will; Whereas African tribal chiefs captured, enslaved, and sold captives to transatlantic slave traders; Whereas, over the period of the Atlantic slave trade, from approximately 1526 to 1867, millions of humans were abducted and shipped from Africa, and 10,700,000 arrived in the Americas as personal property; Whereas the majority of enslaved Africans brought to British North America arrived between 1720 and 1780; Whereas about 6 percent of African captives were sent directly to British North America; Whereas, by 1825, the population of the United States included about one quarter of the people of African descent in what has been called the New World; Whereas the Middle Passage from West Africa to the West Indies was dangerous and horrific for enslaved people; Whereas the Middle Passage carried mothers, fathers, children, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, and people from all walks of life to slavery in the Americas; Whereas, although the sexes were separated, men, women, and children were kept naked, packed close together, and the men were chained for long periods; Whereas, according to some historians, about 12 percent of the enslaved people who embarked did not survive the voyage; Whereas sharks followed the slave ships to feed on bodies of slaves thrown overboard; Whereas enslaved people suffered a variety of miserable and often fatal maladies due to the Atlantic slave trade and to inhumane living and working conditions; Whereas infant and child mortality rates were twice as high among slave children as among Southern White children