UNVEILED - The Twenty & Odd: Documenting the First Africans in England's America 1619-1625 and Beyond

By K. I. Knight

2019 PHILLIS WHEATLEY LITERARY AWARD WINNER - SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF THE US MIDDLE PASSAGE

2019 Florida Authors & Publishers President's Book Awards Winner - BEST NON-FICTION (Gold), BEST REFERENCE/RESEARCH - (Silver)

2020 Independent Publisher Book Awards Winner - BEST REFERENCE (Silver)

• Language: English
• Publisher: First Freedom Publishing LLC
• Release date: May 18, 2019
• ISBN: 9781733807746

Book preview

UNVEILED

The Twenty & Odd

Documenting the First Africans in

England’s America, 1619–1625 and Beyond

First Freedom Publishing, LLC

Florida

ISBN 978-1-7338077-0-8

ISBN 978-1-7338077-4-6 (e-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019903454

Copyright © 2019 by K. I. Knight

All rights reserved by the copyright holder. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author.

www.firstfreedompublishing.com

Book Design by Pro Production Graphic Services

Jacket Design by SJulien.com

Printed in the United States of America

First Edition

This book is dedicated to the descendants

of the first Africans to arrive in the

English settlement of Virginia in 1619/1620

Contents

Acknowledgments

Preface

1 Massacre on the Kingdom of Ndongo

2 From the Port of Luanda

3 A Light in Bermuda’s Darkness

4 Political Wrangling

5 The Slaver: The San Juan Bautista

6 Two English Corsairs

7 Identifying Those Involved

8 Dissecting the Original Count

9 The Native Uprising of 1622

10 The Africans

11 Slavery vs. Servitude

Chronology of the Arrival of the First Documented Africans

Afterword

Appendix A: Governors of Virginia, 1610–1645

Appendix B: Creation of Colonial Counties

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

Acknowledgments

This book would not have been possible without the unwavering love and support of my husband, Thomas Knight, who over the last thirteen years allowed me to dedicate thousands of hours to research—at times a muse, but ultimately, a catalyst in the quest for the truth about the first Africans who arrived in 1619 and 1620, one of them his ancestor.

I am grateful for those who have guided me along the way: whether a fellow descendant, author, historian, genealogist, librarian, community organizer, or truth seeker, your appearance during this journey was pertinent. From sparking the smallest of clues to triggering the largest of realizations, all of you were necessary to put the pieces of the puzzle back together. The truth is a story buried deep, veiled under turmoil and deceit with the many variable parts assembled four hundred years ago to hoodwink the councils and courts and allow a powerful earl to retain his head.

On my production team, I want to thank:

To my editor extraordinaire, Bob Land (www.boblandedits.blogspot.com); my superb graphic designer, Rosanne Schloss (www.proproductiongs.com); the late artist, Richard C. Moore (www.ship-paintings.com), and Sharon Julien (www.sjulien.com), my national award–winning cover artist—a huge thank-you. Without you all, this very important history wouldn’t be seen with such bright light.

And last, but certainly not least, to the descendants of the twenty and odd—I hope and pray a new light of truth will shine down upon us all, allowing the first Africans of 1619–1620 to take their true place in history.

Preface

For four hundred years the first Africans brought to the young English settlement of Virginia in 1619 have remained somewhat of a mystery. A scandalous event, and their entanglement in the ensuing cover-up, shrouded the first Africans—robbing them of their place in history. We now know that the plot to whitewash the event was a grander scheme than previously realized. In today’s society, with the World Wide Web connecting historical archives around the globe, a new look at the Africans’ footsteps reveals their true circumstances. We can now piece together the puzzle revealing who they were and the lives they led.

This work does not reexplore the highly documented work of historians Linda Heywood and John Thornton, which fully describes the circumstances surrounding the Portuguese war on the ancient western kingdoms of Africa in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This work concentrates on detailing the path the first Africans traveled from their homeland in Africa and how they lived, thrived, loved, and died, along with the vital contributions they made to the survival of the small settlement of Virginia, which eventually became the first English colony in North America. The truth about the first Africans will no longer be shrouded under a narrative controlled by and riven with the deadly sins of power, greed, and envy.

The vast array of participants involved in facilitating their arrival, whether aware or not, demonstrated a worldly command of their actions, each a special cog in the wheel of the global evolution of North America. An enmeshed international trail, touching the regions of Japan, Spain, Portugal, Angola, Jamaica, Mexico, and England, all led to the small settlement of Virginia. In the first fifteen years of the struggling English settlement’s existence, thousands of immigrants from England lived and died in Virginia’s harsh conditions. When the Africans arrived at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay at Point Comfort in August 1619, their vision of Virginia must have been nothing short of pure panic. From their international iron-trading kingdom in Africa they found themselves in the depths of Virginia’s untamed wilds.

The Africans’ arrival was a twist of fate that brought down upon the Virginia Company (the Company) an intense round of criminal accusations and political wrangling. Yet if the Africans hadn’t arrived, the struggling settlement of Virginia may have been a total failure. Fortunately for Virginia, with the Africans came their knowledge. From their homeland they spoke several languages, including European ones, and knew how to barter and trade, raise livestock, and grow crops—tobacco as well as essential foods necessary to maintain some type of existence, which ultimately allowed Virginia to mature from a starving settlement into a somewhat manageable venture. Their influence on the English plantation was undeniable, and the Africans became indispensable.

In 1618 Virginia had become a known pirates’ haven, where the raw, primitive conditions forced the starving settlers to become accepting of any and all plunder or substance brought to the shores of the James River. Remarkably, the power behind the settlement’s continual pirating progression was Robert Rich, who would inherit the Warwick earldom from his father. Rich’s vast inheritance would make him the most influential investor in the New World, with deep pockets and a fleet of ships that rivaled the king of England’s. The Rich ships were commonly leased for Company matters, with a continual triangular route from England to Bermuda to Virginia and back.

In addition to his extensive fleet, Warwick co-owned the Treasurer, a man-of-war, with Samuel Argall, which they commonly used as a privateer in the Indies. In 1617 Argall had been left in control of Virginia when Honorary Governor West returned to England. Under Argall’s governorship of Virginia, the privateering ventures of the Treasurer thrived. Argall was an ample partner to Warwick, commonly turning his head as the Treasurer came and went, preying upon the Spanish Catholics who traveled through the Indies in their galleons.

In late 1618 in London, Edwin Sandys was elected as treasurer of the Virginia Company, and George Yeardley became the newest governor of Virginia. Neither had any idea what they were stepping into. Before sailing for Virginia and officially taking his seat in Virginia as governor, Yeardley was knighted by King James I. Simultaneously, Edwin Sandys received the record books from the Company’s previous treasurer, Sir Thomas Smythe. Unbeknownst to most, the Company was drowning in a tide of debt. Sandys, an investor and a politician who sat in the House of Commons, was determined to change the Company’s trajectory. With Sandys delving deep into the Company’s enterprise, Warwick’s pirating activities took center stage. Sandys felt that Warwick’s bootlegging activities while under King James’s treaty of peace with Spain were simply too dangerous for the Virginia Company’s viability. The piracy had to stop.

To the detriment of his own future, Sandys pressed heavily on the powerful Earl of Warwick to halt his risky side venture. Sandys’s demands fell on deaf ears until Warwick and his associates overplayed their hand and a great scandal erupted. Sandys moved to check Warwick, and an unlikely game of pursuit ensued.

The move divided the investors of the Virginia Company into two factions: one with the Earl of Warwick and one against.

In the spring of 1618 the Neptune sailed from England carrying Thomas West to Virginia. West was the twelfth Baron De La Warr, who had served as an earlier governor in Virginia, as well as being a business partner of the Earl of Warwick’s. West was returning to the Virginia governorship and carried the Privy Council’s orders for the acting governor, Samuel Argall, to return to England for questioning of alleged illegalities.

Following the Neptune’s departure to Virginia, Warwick ordered the Treasurer to sail ahead and warn his partner, Samuel Argall, of the coming orders. En route, the Treasurer met the Neptune, and Elfrith, the Treasurer’s captain, came aboard. After sharing food and drink, the two ships parted and sailed on to Virginia, unalarmed. The Treasurer arrived just days before the Neptune and seemingly advised Argall of Lord De La Warr’s pending arrival.

When the Neptune arrived in Virginia, Lord De La Warr was found dead, and his pilot, Edward Brewster, was making accusations against the Treasurer’s men. Upon confirming Lord De La Warr’s orders from England, an angry Governor Argall ordered the Treasurer to be refit with the contents and crew of the Neptune. After its refitting and under the cover of a fishing venture, Argall gave his Treasurer orders to sail to the Indies in search of loot to plunder. At the same time, Argall sailed for Bermuda, where Rich’s allies helped Argall in constructing a story to support Warwick’s. Undoubtedly, if Argall were to go down for pirating, Warwick would have been at risk too. Once Argall had his story straight, he sailed to England to face the council.

Then, in the latter part of August 1619, with the arrival of an English privateer carrying a Dutch marque, the first Africans were brought to the shores of Point Comfort. The ship’s captain, John Jope, told a story of a Spanish piracy and named the Treasurer as his accomplice. A few days later, the captain’s story quickly became undeniable when the Treasurer sailed into Point Comfort with a full underbelly of Africans. The powers that be must have been on high alert. Just weeks earlier, the most recently elected governor, George Yeardley, had received an order from Sandys for the detention of Warwick’s Treasurer.

Without question, the Africans would have further complicated Warwick’s and Argall’s legal issues. An English ship pirating a Spanish galleon was no small matter.

1

Massacre on the Kingdom of Ndongo

From the Atlantic Ocean, narrow coastal cliffs ascend over four thousand feet to a vast plateau extending into the central region of Western Africa, where in 1619 the Bantu-speaking Kingdom of Ndongo was located, in modern-day Angola. Across the immense highlands were small livestock-producing villages, and to the eastern interior the Ndongo Kingdom capital of Kabasa—a grand city of artisans, bustling with merchants from near and far selling their commodities in Kabasa’s international market, which rivaled the silk and spice markets of the Far East. The Crown’s residence, however, was reportedly in or near the thatched-roof city of Pungo nestled at the foot of the Pedras Negras—known as the black rocks of Pungo. ¹ Remaining today, the mystical rock formations stand 350 feet high above the African savannah and provided the Crown’s guard additional protection as well as a viewing platform to protect against raids and intrusion, an uncommon safeguard. ² Late in the fifteenth century King Alfonzo I of Ndongo had allowed the Portuguese Jesuits to enter his kingdom and educate his people in the ways of Catholicism, and the kingdom became Catholic. Over one hundred years later, in the early seventeenth century, their Catholic given names offer proof. ³

The Kingdom of Ndongo had endured drastic change. The new leadership was young and inexperienced, making the time ripe for a swift capture by the ever-looming Portuguese Army. Crowned only two years earlier in 1617, the young king Ngola Mbandi hadn’t acquired the support of the local sobas (rulers) and was in the sights of the recently appointed Portuguese governor, Manuel Mendez de Vasconcelos. After the annual rains rescinded in early 1619 the Portuguese governor decided the time was right. The governor contracted with the Imbangala to raid the region, enslave the citizens, and seize the kingdom.⁴ History would prove King Ngola Mbandi of the Ndongo Kingdom to be an easy target.

The Imbangala, an African contraband tribe of mercenaries—reportedly cannibals—were feared throughout the land. With jagged teeth that could rip human flesh from the bone, their bodies covered in oils and painted in ash, their visual impact was staggering.⁵ When the Imbangala struck the Kingdom