Northam slips up again

NORFOLK, Va. — Historians said they were “shocked” and “mystified” when Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam wrongly used the term “indentured servants” Sunday in reference to the first Africans to arrive in English North America 400 years ago.

Most historians abandoned use of the term in the 1990s after historical records left little room for doubt that the Africans were enslaved, the scholars said.

“The indentured servitude thing is really bizarre,” Davidson College professor Michael Guasco, who wrote the book “Slaves and Englishmen: Human Bondage in the Early Modern Atlantic World,” said of Northam’s use of the term on CBS’

“Face the Nation.” “He doesn’t come across as being particularly informed.”