What happens when your self concept is rooted in lies? When the truth is revealed, how long does it take to accept the truth? Is freedom from the the lie immediate or does it take ages to unravel the ties binding the lie to your reality? How do you destroy systems supporting the lie? What will it take to create new systems to repair the damage? These were my questions after learning that Africans who arrived in the Jamestown Colony of Virginia in 1619 were not what I thought.
The first Africans in Jamestown, Virginia most likely had a status equal to Europeans who chose to trade their freedom for the promise of land ownership in Virginia. Many Europeans entered into indentured agreements. Their freedom was based on who held ownership of their indentured contract. Like these Europeans, early Africans would provide labor for the gentry for a specified time. At the end of this time, they were promised land and freedom from forced servitude. Both Europeans and Africans comprised the labor class of Jamestown. Many of these Africans shared the status of indentured servant with European unfree laborers. In 1619, hundreds of Africans were taken from Angola in West Central Africa. Fifty of them were stolen by Dutch and English raiders from a Spanish slave ship. About twenty of them were carried to Jamestown, Virginia and became currency in a business transaction. These Dutch traders, who had been raiding Spanish vessels along the Atlantic Coast and Caribbean, were low on supplies. They stopped along the coast near Jamestown. Fate would have it that Jamestown’s survival depended on laborers to establish the settlement. Jamestown colonists had supplies but needed laborers. These Angolans could provide labor. A trade was negotiated between the colonists and marauders resulting in Africans living in Jamestown. Historians believe that some of these Africans were literate and many were most likely Christian. Angola became a Christian nation in 1491 through Spanish missionaries. For several decades these Africans labored alongside European indentured servants. Over time their lives intertwined. The labor class grew through new arrivals and births - European, African, and mulatto. Anthony Johnson, an Angolan, arrived in Jamestown around 1621. He served as an indentured farmer on a tobacco plantation. He married an African woman named Mary who lived on the same plantation. Sometime after 1635 they both earned their freedom by purchasing their indentured contracts and land. By the 1650’s Anthony and Mary owned 250 acres and indentured servants of their own. Anthony Johnson is an example of black wealth in America. He attempted to manipulate an established system to obtain and maintain wealth. There are lessons to be learned from Anthony Johnson’s experience and the extent to which greed can transform systems. My next post will begin to reveal the untold story of the roots of racial slavery in America.
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AuthorRamona Dallum Lindsey is an artist, speaker and curious citizen who finds strength in the wisdom of her elders. Archives
February 2019
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