First Africans Landed at Point Comfort

First Africans Landed at Point Comfort

I read the editorial by Mr. Butler in the Daily Press on Saturday June 2, 2007. I was disappointed that the article was not accurate. The first Africans did not arrive at Jamestown. The interpretation by early historians has been refuted and the 20 and odd Negroes actually landed in Hampton at Point Comfort, today's Fort Monroe. Mr. Butler evidently is still using old information. Articles on Fort Monroe, submitted by members of the CFMNP should reflect current and up to date information.

1. Many historians for the past twenty five years or so have published documentation based on new archives that prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the first 20 and odd Negroes arrived at Point Comfort. Documentation proves that the slave ship never traveled to Jamestown. Historian Engel Sluiter has documented that Angolans captured in the 1618-20 Portuguese campaign were loaded aboard a ship in Luanda on the African coast. Portuguese law required all African slaves to be baptized and made Christian before their arrival in America. The slaves boarded the slave merchant Sao Joao Bautista in 1619 and departed for Brazil or ports of the Spanish Indies when it encountered the ship Treasurer and the ship White Lion in the West Indies. The Treasurer and the White Lion each captured cargo from the Sao Joao Bautista. The White Lion arrived at Old Point Comfort (today's Fort Monroe) in the later part of August 1619. Among its cargo was 20 and odd Negroes. John Rolfe, widowed husband of Pocahontas, wrote in a letter that he personally saw the arrival of the ship and the unloading of the slaves at Point Comfort. John Colyn Jope, who was the captain of the White Lion who brought the first Africans to Virginia at Point Comfort, wrote in his memoirs that he unloaded the 20 and odd Negroes at Point Comfort and some were later traded to Governor George Yeardley and Cape Merchant for food. This became the official first landing of African slaves in the new world. Governor Yeardley purchased seven slaves and they were later transported to Jamestown by a smaller boat. The White Lion never sailed to Jamestown to unload slaves. Some of the original slaves have been unaccounted for, but it is known that Gov. Yeardley only purchased seven of them. The capture of cargo from other ships was called piracy, which was against the law in 1619. Gov. Yeardley was in consort with the ship Treasurer to pirate other ships, and there was no way that he would allow a slave ship to travel to Jamestown because that would be an indictment on him.

2. The city of Hampton for many years has promoted in their brochures and publications that the first Africans arrived in Hampton at Point Comfort.

3. In 1994 the Virginia Department of Historic Resources researched Hampton's claim and discovered that the first Africans did indeed arrive in Hampton. They granted Hampton the right to erect a highway historical marker at Fort Monroe proclaiming that to be the official landing site of the first Africans. So to Mr. Butler, the first Africans did not stop by, they landed.

4. On May 24, 2007, Fort Monroe with the city of Hampton as sponsor, erected that highway marker as part of the Fort Monroe Anniversary Celebration.

5. In January 1625, according to the Virginia census, three Africans, Isabella, Antonio and their son William, were living in Kecoughtan (today's Hampton) in Capt. William Tucker's home, who was the commander at Fort Monroe, and 20 other Africans, either slaves or indentured servants resided in other communities. It has been documented that William, the son of Isabella and Antonio, was the first African American child born in America.

6. Hampton and Fort Monroe is where the first slaves landed, where the first African American child was born, and eventually where slaves were freed at Freedom's Fortress. Fort Monroe's history needs to be preserved and told accurately.

7. Jeannie Zeidler, Mayor of Williamsburg, coordinator of the Jamestown 400th celebration, and former director of the Hampton University Museum, has even admitted that the first Africans arrived at Point Comfort and she has documented that in a book on Hampton's history.

I can e-mail you the documentation by Engel Sluiter if you so desire.

Calvin Pearson
31 Suburban Parkway
Hampton, VA 23661
757-380-1319