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“Unveiled – The Twenty & Odd” released!

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On May 18th, 2019 “Unveiled – The Twenty & Odd” was released! This research has left the world scratching its head, wondering where the current narrative regarding the first Africans came from.

“Unveiled – The Twenty & Odd” corrects the narrative surrounding their landing, their numbers, and the events which affected their status.
For instance, did you know the first Africans held indentures?
In 1635, Anthony, an African servant was free from his indenture and noted in a later court recording by his former master who stated…    he was free “by a certen wrytinge under my owne hand.”

Anthony wasn’t the only African to have his freedom acknowledged in the court records. From 1635-1640, many of the first Africans are released from indenture and have become headrights. Eventually, they own land and establish farms and trades which many of the Europeans became dependent upon.

Hope you’re ready… “Unveiled – The Twenty & Odd” brings a new understanding regarding the first Africans who landed in the English settlement of Virginia 400 years ago. 1619-2019.

Our DNA has Memory

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In the beginning, I didn’t understand where the desire came. I just knew it was there.  The desire quickly became a passion and consequently an addiction.

Nine years ago, looking for my husband’s ancestors, I came across a woman whose allure was irresistible. As a genealogist, I find many significant people with vital stories throughout history.  Why was this one so overwhelmingly important?

Her name was Margaret Cornish.  She was one of the first Africans to arrive in the English settlement of Virginia in 1619.  The desire to understand where she came from and how she found herself in an English settlement became intoxicating.  Every hour of every day filled with questions overwhelming my senses.  My husband’s 9th generation great-grandmother had captured my mind like she was captured by the marauders of her kingdom almost four-hundred years ago.  Some 20,000 + hours of research turned into a series of novels with the first book winning a national gold medal.  But, the grandest surprise was yet to come.

As my own 97-year-old grandmother’s health began to fail, and with her tireless urging, I collected her DNA.  Then in June of 2014 her spirit passed into the land of our ancestors and I said goodbye to a woman of unwavering faith.  Simultaneously, I received her DNA results and the explanation of my addiction quickly became crystal clear.  Margaret Cornish wasn’t only my husband’s ancestor, but mine as well.  With tears of joy streaming down my face I began to understand. The addiction I felt was a scream from within myself.  A memory from within my own DNA begging to be heard.  Finally, I understood my fate was deep within my own DNA.  A story of an ancestor begging to be told.

Join my journey as I take you down the path of Margaret Cornish’s life, one of FATE & FREEDOM.

1619 Genealogy – Descendants of the first “Twenty and Odd”

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In August 2019,  the New York Times published the 1619 Project, establishing their views on 1619. 1619Genealogy was not consulted or involved in their production and does not support or endorse their opinions.  1619Genealogy only relies upon primary documents and recordings to recreate and tell the story of the first Africans to arrive in English America in 1619-1625.

As it was in 1619, it is today.  A political storm continues to shroud the true story.

The legal and political storm surrounding the African cargo pirated from the underbelly of the San Juan Bautista by two English corsairs in 1619 lends to King James establishing America’s first colony.

JOIN THE JOURNEY as 1619 GENEALOGY names the first “twenty and odd” Africans to arrive in the small English settlement of Virginia.

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Today in History August 25, 1619

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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.

Fate & Freedom

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Discovering Margaret…..

Twenty and Odd Africans arrive in Virginia in 1619.  Most of their names are unknown, or quite possibly they were concealed.  The less known about the incident would be best.  The names we have are from the ‘List of the Living’ compiled after the Indian massacre of 1622.  They were Angela, Anthony, Isabel, Frances, Peter, Anthony, and Margaret.  The others were identified as only male or female as much about the whole incident would be camouflaged to protect the few involved.

Documents show that the Africans arrived at Old Pointe Comfort, Virginia in the later part of August, 1619.   The Captain, a former Calvinist Reverend turned Privateer, reported his only cargo as being “Twenty and Odd” Africans he took (pirated) from a floundering vessel off the coast of Vera Cruz, Mexico.  Under the watchful eye of the crown the incident is quietly reported.   John Pory, the Virginia Company’s newly appointed Secretary, writes in a letter to Sir Dudley Carleton dated September 30, 1619,

The San Juan Bautista's battle against the two English corsairs, the Treasurer and the White Lion.

The San Juan Bautista’s battle against the two English corsairs, the Treasurer and the White Lion.

“Having mett with so fitt a messenger as this man of Warre of Flushing.”   The letter goes on to tell of the arrival of some “twenty and odd” Africans brought by a Dutch Captain.

Was Pory disguising the ship to protect its captain and crew? Probably not.

Oddly, the letter was sent to Sir Dudley Carleton via messenger, Marmaduke Reynor, the English pilot of the White Lion.  This information alone is telling of some sort of an association. 
Was Pory’s loyalty to the company, trying to diminish the association by the cover of a Dutch marque?  Or was his loyalty to the Earl of Warwick?  Possibly it was to the English Crown.  But, clearly Pory’s loyalties didn’t align with the White Lion who was sent back into the English channels with a letter suggesting a Spanish piracy, not to mention, a cargo that would confirm Pory’s words.

Why?  There are several reasons.

Just months before the African’s arrival, Samuel Argall, the acting Governor of Virginia, was ordered to return to England to face questioning from the King’s Privy Council regarding the suggestion Virginia was nothing more than a Pirate’s haven.   The thought of a Spanish Piracy by an English ship so soon might be the last straw to an English King’s already tarnished image with Spain.  Proof of a Spanish piracy would surely condemn the Virginia Company, giving King James good reason to revoke their patent.

Another reason…..there were two ships involved, two English Corsairs.  When the Treasurer arrived at Pointe Comfort carrying Africans just days after the White Lion, oddly the Treasurer was immediately turned away, or was the ship warned off?  The Treasurer, captained by Daniel Elfrith was owned by Robert Rich II, Earl of Warwick, one of the most influential and powerful men in England.  The Treasurer would sail for Bermuda, an island known to be under the Earl of Warwick’s hand, where he could control the secrecy of the situation.

England would be tricky, as the White Lion was a common sight in the Port of Plymouth where the ship sat for years.  Reverend Jope had purchased the decayed White Lion from a member of his congregation, who captained the ship during the Elizabethan War between England and Spain 1585-1604.  In fact, it was the Port of Plymouth where Captain Jope re-launched the White Lion’s sails after the ten (10) years it took to refurbish the old war ship.    The White Lion, it’s captain and it’s crew were English, not Dutch as Pory’s letter would suggest and now their identities would need to be hidden under the association of a “Dutch” marque.

As fate would have it, the San Juan Bautista’s Captain Acuna, who reported the incident upon his arrival in Mexico, was kin to Count Gondomar, the Spanish Ambassador who was in the inner circle of England’s King James.  When the Spanish Captain Acuna makes claim to his kin that two English Corsairs pirated his San Juan Bautista just off the coast of Vera Cruz, Mexico stealing some fifty or sixty African slaves, Virginia becomes the target of Gondomar’s rage and demands retribution. For an English Captain in the year of 1619 the act of Spanish piracy would be a death sentence, for it was less than two years earlier Sir Walter Raleigh was be-headed for Spanish piracy, a result of Gondomar’s insistence under the Maritime Peace Treaty.
 

Continue to follow this blog as I reveal my findings while discovering Margaret.