White Lion (privateer)

A 1901 illustration of the landing of the first Africans in Virginia. The White Lion is seen anchored in the background.

The White Lion was an English privateer operating under a Dutch letter of marque which brought the first Africans to the English colony of Virginia in 1619, a year before the arrival of the Mayflower in New England.[1] Though the African captives were sold as indentured servants, the event is regarded as the start of African slavery in the colonial history of the United States.[2]

The first enslaved Africans in the current boundaries of the United States landed in 1526 in the expedition of Spanish explorer Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón on the South Carolina and Georgia coasts.[3][4][5] Some escaped and are thought to have joined Native Americans, if they survived.[3][6] In 1527, Estevanico, an enslaved Moor, participated in the Spanish Narváez expedition.[7][8][9] Enslaved Africans were also part of the Spanish expedition to Florida in 1539 with Hernando de Soto, and the 1565 founding of St. Augustine, Florida.[5][6]

The Africans on the White Lion were probably among the thousands who had been captured in 1618-1619 by a slave raiding force primarily consisting of African raiders, under nominal Portuguese leadership, who were at war[10][11] with the Kingdom of Ndongo. These particular enslaved Africans were taken on the Portuguese slave ship São João Bautista from Luanda, Angola, capital of the Portuguese settlements in Angola.[11]

The White Lion, along with another privateer, the Treasurer, commanded by Daniel Elfrith, intercepted the São João Bautista on its way to modern-day Veracruz on the Gulf coast of New Spain (present-day Mexico).[1] The two ships captured and divided part of the Portuguese ship's African captives, under the aegis of Dutch letters of marque from Maurice, Prince of Orange.[1] White Lion captain John Colyn Jope sailed for the Virginia colony to sell the African captives, first landing in Point Comfort, in modern-day Hampton Roads.[1]

As John Rolfe, secretary of the colony of Virginia, wrote to Virginia Company of London treasurer Edwin Sandys:

About the latter end of August, a Dutch man of Warr of the burden of a 160 tunnes arrived at Point-Comfort, the Comandors name Capt Jope, his Pilott for the West Indies one Mr Marmaduke an Englishman. They mett with the Treasurer in the West Indyes, and determined to hold consort shipp hetherward, but in their passage lost one the other. He brought not any thing but 20. and odd Negroes, which the Governor and Cape Marchant bought for victualls (whereof he was in greate need as he pretended) at the best and easyest rates they could.[12]

After being sold off the White Lion, two of the indentured servants,[13] Isabella and Anthony, married and had a child in 1624. William Tucker, named after a Virginian planter, was the first recorded person of African ancestry born in English America.[14]

  1. ^ a b c d McCartney, Martha (8 October 2019). "Virginia's First Africans". Encyclopedia Virginia. Retrieved 24 February 2020.
  2. ^ Fanto Deetz, Dr. Kelley (13 August 2019). "400 years ago, enslaved Africans first arrived in Virginia". National Geographic. Archived from the original on December 21, 2019. Retrieved 24 February 2020.
  3. ^ a b Cameron, Guy, and Stephen Vermette; Vermette, Stephen (2012). "The Role of Extreme Cold in the Failure of the San Miguel de Gualdape Colony". The Georgia Historical Quarterly. 96 (3): 291–307. ISSN 0016-8297. JSTOR 23622193.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  4. ^ Parker, Susan (2019-08-24). "'1619 Project' ignores fact that slaves were present in Florida decades before". St. Augustine Record. Retrieved 2019-12-06.
  5. ^ a b Francis, J. Michael, Gary Mormino and Rachel Sanderson (2019-08-29). "Slavery took hold in Florida under the Spanish in the 'forgotten century' of 1492-1619". Tampa Bay Times. Retrieved 2019-12-06.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  6. ^ a b Torres-Spelliscy, Ciara (2019-08-23). "Perspective - Everyone is talking about 1619. But that's not actually when slavery in America started". Washington Post. Retrieved 2019-12-06.
  7. ^ Maura, Juan Francisco (2002). "Nuevas interpretaciones sobre las aventuras de Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Esteban de Dorantes, y Fray Marcos de Niza". Revista de Estudios Hispánicos. 29 (1–2): 129–154.
  8. ^ Lauber, Almon Wheeler (1913). "Enslavement by the Indians Themselves, Chapter 1 in Indian Slavery in Colonial Times Within the Present Limits of the United States". Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law. 53 (3). Columbia University: 25–48.
  9. ^ Gallay, Alan (2009). "Introduction: Indian Slavery in Historical Context". In Gallay, Alan (ed.). Indian Slavery in Colonial America. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. pp. 1–32. Retrieved March 8, 2017.
  10. ^ Painter, Nell Irvin. (2006). Creating Black Americans: African-American history and its meanings, 1619 to the present. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 23–24. ISBN 0-19-513755-8. OCLC 57722517.
  11. ^ a b Thornton, John (July 1998). "The African Experience of the "20. and Odd Negroes" Arriving in Virginia in 1619". The William and Mary Quarterly. 3rd. 55 (3): 421–434. doi:10.2307/2674531. JSTOR 2674531.
  12. ^ Kingsbury, Susan Myra, ed. (1933). The Records of the Virginia Company of London, Volume 3. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office. p. 243.
  13. ^ Evan Wade (16 April 2014). "WILLIAM TUCKER (1624- ?)". blackpast.org.
  14. ^ Bennett, Lerone Jr. (1962). Before the Mayflower: A History of the Negro in America, 1619-1962 (2017 ed.). BN Publishing. p. 30. ISBN 978-1-68411-534-1.