Davidson, Tom

English

ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst

African Diaspora Archaeology NewsletterVolume 1Issue 2 July 1994 Article 57-1-1994The First Africans in VirginiaTom DavidsonJamestown-Yorktown FoundationFollow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/adanThis Articles, Essays, and Reports is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion inAfrican Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contactscholarworks@library.umass.edu.Recommended CitationDavidson, Tom (1994) "The First Africans in Virginia," African Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter: Vol. 1 : Iss. 2 , Article 5.Available at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/adan/vol1/iss2/5The First Africans in Virginia Submitted by Tom Davidson, Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation A recently discovered historical document indicates that the African population of Virginia during the Virginia Company period (1607-1624) was larger and more widely dispersed geographically than previously had been thought. The first Africans known to have arrived in Virginia came in August or September, 1619, and numbered "20 and odd". They were purchased by George Yeardley and Abraham Piersey, who both lived in Jamestown, then Virginia's capital. However, a new group of Virginia Company records discovered by Dr. David Ransome contains an official muster or census of the Virginia colony for March, 1619/1620. This document reads in part: Others not Christians in the service of the English  Indians in the service of several planters 4 Negroes in the service of several planters 32 negro men 15 negro women 17  taken from a microfilm copy of the Ferrar papers compiled by David Ransome (Item 159, Ferrar Papers, Magdalene College, Cambridge, Microfilm Academic Publishers) The muster shows that in March, 1620, only seven months after the "first" Africans arrived, Africans constituted 3.3 percent of all non-Indians in Virginia and that they were living at multiple locations in the colony. Since the total number of late Company period sites in Virginia is not very large, the odds of encountering traces of these early Africans during archaeological field work are high enough to merit some serious attention. Archaeologists should keep the possibility of an African presence in mind whenever they encounter an early seventeenth-century site in Virginia.  1Davidson: The First Africans in VirginiaPublished by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst, 1994

The First Africans in Virginia

https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1770&context=adan

The First Africans in Virginia

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst