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Two Angolans in the Depths of Somerset

Manchester Papers, page 252, London, England – PRO.  Courtesy Author – Benjamin Woolley, Savage Kingdom, The True Story of Jamestown.

Two Angolans were not specifically named in the Manchester Papers, filed in the Public Records Offices in London.  The evidence is an accumulation.  The naming of the “White Lyon (Lion) was not coincidental.  These Angolans were pirated from the San Juan Bautista in the summer of 1619.  As you follow, it will be determined, the two Angolans were Margaret Cornish and John Gowen/Graweere.

 

Manchester Papers – Rich Letters  1621

Three other Angolans, pirated from the San Juan Bautista, would also visit England via the English ship, James, from Bermuda.  They landed at the Port of Southampton where they were taken to Leez (Leighs) Priory, Robert Rich II, Earl of Warwick’s estate.   Their names were – Anthony, Mary, and John Pedro.

 

 

Today in History August 25, 1619

cover1Almost four-hundred years ago today “twenty and odd” Africans arrive at Old Pointe Comfort, in Hampton, Virginia. They are the first Africans to arrive in what will become English-North America.
The “twenty and odd” Africans were captives, sold as slaves, during the Portuguese invasion of the Kingdom of Ndongo, in Angola Africa. Sold to the Spanish-Portuguese Captain Acuna some three-hundred captives are placed aboard the San Juan Bautista and shipped seven-thousand miles away to their doom in the silver mines of Mexico. But, before the slaver can reach it’s destination the ship is pirated by two English corsairs and fate is set in motion by the Calvinist Reverend turned Privateer, Captain John Jope. Their new destination becomes a small English settlement which will eventually become known as America. Until recent years the identity of the Captain was simply known as a Dutch Captain, who brought “twenty and odd” Africans to the shores of Virginia. Now, after intense research we know who they were, their fate which brought them to America and the cover-up that took place surrounding their arrival.