Attention sought for black pioneers
Early slaves credited for saving starving colonists
WASHINGTON — The first Africans to arrive in North America were so little noted by history that many are known today by only their first names: Antony and Isabella, Angelo, Frances and Peter.
Almost 400 years ago, they were kidnapped and sailed across the ocean aboard three slave ships — the San Juan Bautista, the White
Lion and the Treasurer — and then sold into bondage in Virginia.
Now their descendants, along with historians and genealogists, seek recognition for 20-some Africans they describe as critical to the survival of Jamestown, England’s first successful settlement in North America.
“We need to reclaim our history. We need to tell our story,” said Calvin Pearson, head of Project
1619, named for the year those first Africans landed near what became Hampton, Virginia.
A few historical markers and records mention these early slaves, but there has been scant research on their lives.
Before they arrived, Jamestown was starving.
“Basically all of those people were right off of the streets in England,” said Kathryn Knight, who in May will release a book titled “Unveiled - The Twenty & Odd: Documenting the First Africans in England’s America 1619-1625 and Beyond.”
Those colonists “didn’t know anything about survival in Virginia,” Knight said. The Africans “saved them by being able to produce crops, by being able to manage the livestock. They kept them alive.”
The slaves’ arrival marked the beginning of the region’s fractured relationship with blacks. More than two centuries later, Virginia became the Confederate capital, and in the last week its governor has been pressured to resign for appearing in a racist photo.
The new arrivals were Catholic and many spoke multiple languages, according to Ric Murphy, an author and descendant of one of the Angolan captives.
They came from a royal city and “were quite informed and educated, and several of them, based upon what they did in the latter part of their years, clearly were leaders in the community in one form or the other,” he said. “Many of them became landowners, which is quite different from the false narrative of what an enslaved person was.”