August 2019 is the 400-year-marker for the first documented slaves who walked on English American soil.
But non-English accounts of enslaved Africans who were brought before 1619 aren’t without merit. Historical surveyors continue to discuss and assert earlier enslavement indicators.
According to the U.S. Census, before the Civil War began in 1860, there were 4 million slaves in America.
And based on the accepted 1619 documented data, the transatlantic slave trade began with 20 or more Africans. John Rolfe, an English colonist, wrote that the captain of the White Lion, a Dutch pirate ship, brought “20 and odd Negroes.”
The word “odd” may refer to an unknown number, to the appearance of the slaves, or both.
The story about the slaves began when the White Lion, one of two English warships, attacked a Portuguese slave vessel. The Portuguese ship carried hundreds of slaves in cramped quarters. Many of them died because there wasn’t enough room for all of them to live. The slaves were captives from Angola, in the West Coast of Africa. The destination of the bursting slave ship was the coast of Mexico.
After the battle, the White Lion’s pirates pillaged the Spanish ship. Finding no gold aboard the vessel, their booty was human cargo. The ship landed on the coast of what later became Virginia. There the slaves were traded for victuals or food.
So, approximately 157 years before the 13 colonies formed the United States of America, African slaves arrived in English North America.
Oddly, many of the discoveries about the first English-colony slaves were pieced together about 20 years ago. Thanks to Spain for sharing their slave data and archives with researchers. But local census figures were also helpful in revealing priceless information.
The 1624 Virginia Census records two slaves named Antoney and Isabell, who were among the first traded slaves.
William Tucker, their baby, was the first person of African descent born in one of the 13 British colonies. He was born near what would become Jamestown Virginia. Tucker was the first documented African baby baptized in English North America.
Baby William Tucker was the first African American.
Recorded as Antoney Negro, Isabell Negro, and William Tucker, these three are the first African family recorded in the colony.
Were the Africans recorded in the 1624-1625 Virginia Census slaves or indentured servants? Some say the latter because the terms for enslavement weren’t yet laid out.
What were the terms of their indenture? What was the exchange? Debt period? When would they be free? If freed, how would they return to their homeland?
History must record, the good, bad, and ugly about America’s past.
Are there any living descendants of William Tucker, the first African American?
Tucker’s master was Captain William Tucker.
And today, a little less than 400 years after Tucker’s birth, Verrandall S.Tucker says her family has documentation of being the descendants of William Tucker.
The family of Verrandall Tucker discovered 104 unmarked graves on their property. The cemetery is near what was then Captain Tucker’s plantation in Hampton, Virginia. The Tuckers believe those who rest beneath the soil are family of their ancestor, William Tucker.
That’s remarkable!
With so many severed roots, today’s African Americans continue to search behind what was called the “Door of No Return” for traces of their African heritage.
Through African Ancestry, my family recently learned that we share maternal genetic ancestry with Hausa and Fulani people in Nigeria.
What’s the significance of 400 years after the first slave arrived in the English colonies?
I can’t trace my heritage to any of the 20 odd slaves. But I’m a descendant of slaves. Slavery was an atrocity that dehumanized and killed multitudes of Africans.
But the atrocity of slavery contributed to the birthing and building of a nation, the United States of America.
America is the home of African Americans, the descendants of slaves.
Today, there are more than 47 million of African-American citizens in the United States.