Understanding Our History
How do we begin to understand our true history? The answers lay somewhere within our most troubled past. From America’s birth, much of our history was shrouded by lies and deceit and told and re-told by those in control with the power to meld a falsity to benefit their cause.
How do I know this? After countless hours of research, the physical documents tell a much different story than previously known to the masses and continues to be told today.
February is Black History Month!
In honor of Black History Month, we will be examining the false or previously shrouded FACTS about America’s earliest Africans who arrived in 1619.
Where were they from?
From the Atlantic Ocean, narrow coastal cliffs ascend over four thousand feet to a vast plateau extending into the central region of Western Africa, wherein 1619 the Bantu-speaking Kingdom of Ndongo was located, 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. In early 1619, the Portuguese contracted with the Imbangala, an African contraband tribe of mercenaries – reportedly cannibals, to raid the Ndongo Capital of Kabasa. Regardless of status, the Imbangala bound and beat their captives, and force-marched them to the Port of Luanda where they were sold as slaves.
Important Note: Because it was an “international market,” we CAN’T assume ALL of these earliest Africans were from the Kingdom of Ndongo. Merchants from the northern Kingdoms of Kongo and Loango were also in the market selling their goods. For example, an African found in the earliest census records is Anthony, who took the last name, Longo. No doubt an acknowledgment of his homeland.
Thirty-six ships left the Port of Luanda in the Spring/Summer of 1619 with full underbellies of enslaved African captives. Of these thirty-six ships, only six sailed to the Spanish Port of Veracruz, New Spain, modern-day Mexico. Of these six ships, only one would report piracy, the captain of the San Juan Bautista.
When the San Juan Bautista left Luanda with a full underbelly, Don Manuel Mendez de Acuna had captained the Spanish ship for less than a year. With 350 bound Africans and an ample crew, the Spanish galleon was heavily burdened. The galleon type was not built to carry human cargo, and the quarters were unusually tight. Within no time, much of the Bautista’s enslaved were ravaged by the harsh conditions of the journey. Inevitably, filth and dysentery took hold, and sickness soon threatened the San Juan Bautista’s entire haul. After sailing nearly fifty-six hundred miles and with the loss of one-third of his cargo, Captain Mendez de Acuna decided he could sail no further. He made port in Jamaica for medicine and enough supplies to sustain his withered cargo to their destination. The treatment and provisions didn’t come cheap as the Spanish captain exchanged twenty-four African boys in trade before setting sail on the final leg of his journey – an additional thirteen hundred miles to the Spanish port of Veracruz, New Spain.
