The Arrival of the First Africans in Colonial America

Isabella, English North Americas first enslaved African Woman.
Isabella was captured from the village of Ndongo in Angola during a Portuguese raid between 1618 and 1619. She was held in captivity until a ship arrived in May of 1619. Between 1617 and 1619 over 50,000 Africans were captured from the villages of Ndongo, Kabasa and the Congo. Angelo, another African women, was also one of the many men, women and children captured.

The Spanish ship San Juan Bautista began loading 350 Africans the middle of May 1619. The ship departed Luanda, the port Capital of Angola the end of May. The destination of the ship was Vera Cruz, present day Mexico. Thirty days out to sea 100 Africans had already died. The ship stopped at Jamaica and traded 24 African boys for medicine. They unload the ship so the remaining Africans can get healthy. The ship then resumes it voyage through the Middle Passage to Vera Cruz.

As they enter the Gulf of Campeche, off the coast of Mexico, they are attached by two pirate ships. The first ship, the White Lion, was an English privateer, commanded by and Englishman, Captain John Colyn Jope, from England. However, he was sailing a Dutch flag and had been given a letter of marque issued by the Protestant Dutch Prince Maurice. The marque legally allowed Capt Jope to attack any Spanish or Portuguese ship since the Dutch did not have a treaty with either Spain or Portugal. The second ship was the Treasurer, and English ship owned by the Earl of Warwick and commanded by Daniel Elfrith, sailing out of Jamestown, Virginia, with a letter of marque from the Duke of Savoy, England.

But the Duke soon changed his mind and entered into a treaty making the letter of marquee void. The Virginia Governor, Samuel Argall, knowingly had participated in piracy and had authorized the Treasurer to attack Spanish and Portuguese ships, knowing that England now had a treaty with Spain and Portugal.

The two English ships attached the Spanish ship San Juan Bautista. After rendering the San Juan Bautista unsalable, the pirates boarded the ship looking for gold and silver. They found a load of captured Africans. Neither ship was equipped to take all of the Africans so they took 60 of the healthiest Africans. Isabella was put on the White Lion and Angelo was put on the Treasurer.

Both ships raced back to Jamestown, the closest English port to Mexico. On August 25, 1619 the White Lion enters from the Chesapeake Bay and arrives at Point Comfort, and English settlement located at the mouth of the harbor, 30 nautical miles downstream from Jamestown. Isabella is aboard the White Lion.

In 1619 Point Comfort was one of many settlements composing the Virginia Colony along with Jamestown. According to the journal log of John Rolfe, the widower of Pocahontas, 20 and Odd Negars arrived at Point Comfort and they were purchased for much needed food. John Rolfe who was the commander at Point Comfort obtained Isabella and Antoney, a male African, to become his servants. Isabella becomes the first enslaved African woman in the Virginia Colony. The White Lion never sailed to Jamestown to trade Africans. All of the Africans were purchased and departed from Point Comfort to other plantations.

Three or four days later the Treasurer arrives carrying Angelo and 28 other Africans. The Settlers at Point Comfort knew that an arrest warrant had been issued for Elfrith and the crew of the Treasurer for piracy. The Settlers refused to purchase any of the Africans. Elfrith learns that new Virginia Governor George Yeardley has sent a convoy from Jamestown to arrest him. No Africans were secretly sold as the rumors have it. Elfrith immediately set sails for Bermuda where he would sell all 29 Africans to Vice Governor Miles Kendall who supported piracy.

Then Governor Samuel Butler seized Angelo and her 28 companions and took them to St. Georges, a jail. Some of the Africans were sold and others went to work for the Bermudian Colony. One of the Treasurers owners arrived in Bermuda and files a laws suit stating he was part owner of the Africans and they could not be sold without compensating him. He wins the case and was given Angelo and about a dozen other Africans. In February 1620 Angela and the other Africans board the Treasurer and head back to Jamestown before sinking in the James River. Angelo is purchased by Captain William Pierce of James Cittie County. They change her name from Angelo to Angela.

So what do we know about Isabella?
She arrives on August 25, 1619. She and Antoney are purchased by Captain William Tucker and become servants on his plantation. Isabella and Antoney are his only African servants and would remain together until they are eventually freed. Sometime in 1622 or 1623 they give birth to William who takes Captain William Tuckers last name. William is baptized in the Church of England in Jamestown on January 4, 1624. Once they gain their freedom they move to Kent County, Virginia and start their own homestead. William grows to be an adult and marries a mixed woman and Isabella becomes a grandmother.

What do we know about Angela?
She arrives at Jamestown in March 1620 and becomes a servant in the household of William Pierce.

Many institutions and associated historians have misled and distorted the African narrative to make us believe Angela was the first documented enslaved African woman in the Virginia Colony. As our country prepares to commemorate the 400th Anniversary of the first arrival of enslaved Africans in English North America, the goal of Project 1619 is to insure we commemorate the true narrative of our ancestors.

Actual Date First Africans Arrived in English North America Revealed
In the latter part of August1619, the first ship carrying the captured 20 and odd enslaved Africans to the Virginia arrived at Point Comfort (today’s Fort Monroe) in Hampton, Virginia. From that perilous voyage, their presence has had a profound impact on the cultural manifest of America’s past and still impacts the social, economic and political disparities facing families of color today.
For many years scholars and historians have recognized August 20th as the date the first Africans landed at Point Comfort, but there has never been any documentation to substantiate that date. Where did that date come from? No one knows.

The one official document that confirms the first Africans landed at Point Comfort is a journal entry by John Rolfe, who was the widower of Pocahontas and also the Secretary of the Virginia Company. His job was to keep a daily journal and report back to England what was taking place in the colony. In August 1619 John Rolfe was at Point Comfort supervising the planting of the fall crop. On September 30, 1619 he wrote a letter back to England which states. "About the latter end of August, a Dutch man of Warr of the burden of 160 tons arrived at Point Comfort, the Commanders name was Capt. Jope. He brought not anything but 20 and odd Negroes [sic.]”

The first Africans did not arrive at Ellis Island, Plymouth Rock, or Jamestown, but arrived as captured human cargo on the high seas during the transatlantic slave trade. In August 1619, The English ship White Lion, flying a Dutch Flag, carrying the captured 20 and odd Africans arrived at Point Comfort. The first enslaved Africans who were brought to Point Comfort were not immigrants, but their landing was one of the most significant events in our future country’s history.

The first generations of enslaved Africans to Virginia were skilled farmers and artisans. Along with their culture, they also brought many ideas and innovations. It was their labor that helped build Hampton, America, and the White House, but they toiled through many generations of bondage servitude, civil unrest, and the march for civil rights, before becoming legal citizens.

For the past twenty plus years members of Project 1619 Inc. have been the catalyst to change the narrative of the arrival of the first Africans. In 2008 they created African Landing Day in the City of Hampton to commemorate the landing of the first Africans in the Virginia Colony at Point Comfort.

Many mathematicians will say the 20th is not the latter part of August. So when did they arrive? The National Endowment for Humanities was instrumental in creating a database of slave voyage records incorporating 40 years of archival research from 35,000 slave crossings through the middle passage. "Voyages: The Transatlantic Slave Trade Database" has allowed those records to be combined and collated so that the public can follow for the first time the routes of slave ships that transported 12.5 million Africans across the Atlantic from the 16th through the 19th century.

That database has revealed that the White Lion, bringing the first enslaved Africans to Point Comfort arrived on August 25, 1619. This aligns their arrival with John Rolfe’s statement, the latter part of August. Further analysis was conducted on the research by Spanish researchers, Engel Sluiter and Enriqueta Vila Vilar, and the Archivo General de Indias archives. Based on a comprehensive study of the information, Project 1619 Inc., now for the first time ever, confirms that the actual date the first Africans arrived at Point Comfort is August 25, 1619.

The privateers, White Lion and the Treasurer, each captured Africans from the Sao Joao Bautista and headed to Virginia – the closest English port. The White Lion arrived at Point Comfort on August 25th.
Among its cargo were 20 and odd Negroes. They were called Negroes because the Portuguese people referred to all people with dark skin as Negroes.

Two of the original Africans who arrived on the White Lion in 1619 were Antoney and Isabella. In January 1625, according to the Virginia census, those two Africans, Isabella, Antonio and their son William were living in present day Hampton in Capt. William Tucker’s home; who was the commander at Point Comfort, (today’s Fort Monroe). Their son William was the first documented African child born in English North America. He was baptized on January 4, 1624, but no one knows for sure when he was born.

Calvin Pearson, Project 1619 Founder said “Transatlantic slave trade, just like the systematic elimination of the Native American Indian in the United States, and the Holocaust in Germany, are human tragedies that changed the world. We can not change history or the impact that it had on past generations; but we should always recognize and learn from the perils and transgressions of mankind’s inhumanity against one another.

Traditionally African Landing Day is commemorated in August of each year. The event includes traditional African dance and song and Libation to honor the legacy for English North America’s First Africans who arrived in 1619.

Calvin Pearson, Founder
Source: http://www.project1619.org/