Like before, my topic is still race, but this time it's based in the colonial times instead of modern day. Research done by historians have proven that there were African Americans in the state of Virginia before the 1619. At least twenty African Americans were brought to Virginia on Dutch ships and were put to work as slaves. By 1640, there were at least 150 African Americans in Virginia, but by 1704, there were 10,000 slaves present. The need for more slaves didn’t arrive until "The Great Fire of 1666" when a need for more labor workers soared sky high. The status of most African Americans, however, was extremely complex because some were free, some weren't, and others had the same liberties and freedoms as white people. Around the 1660s and 1670s, there were many laws that took away a lot of rights from the African Americans, making them unequal from others. Eventual the numbers of slaves in Virginia and Maryland went from 4,000 to 12,500.