The Two Ships that Got Away: An Update to the Jamestown Colony Story
Posted: Saturday, September 23, 2006
by Joseph Collins
Publisher / Columnist for Double Impact magazine
In 1607, Jamestown became the 1st permanent English settlement in the Americas . For centuries, very little was known about the origins of a group of Africans that landed there in 1619. In fact, the reliance by historians on a few surviving letters and journals written by colonists led to published conclusions that we now know are false. Here is the true story about two ships whose role escaped the eyes of history and what we now know about a group of slaves brought to the shores of Virginia .
Now that they were on a roll, the new Virginians were clearing land and planting fields at an amazing rate and needed help immediately. While tobacco proved to be wildly profitable, it was also incredibly labor-intensive. Meanwhile in Europe, the British were developing a voracious appetite for smoking and tobacco prices were going through the roof! Complicating matters was the fact that Spain was antagonizing its neighbors, Queen Elizabeth needed gold and other commodities to fight back and the Spanish-owned Trans-Atlantic slave trade was in full swing. Standing on the banks of Point Comfort, Captain John Smith described the arrival of an unidentified ship in his journal:
“About the last of August, there came to Virginia a dutch man of warre that sold us twenty negars."
This entry, along with written statements by John Rolfe and Secretary of Estate John Pory, led historians to believe that these were the first African slaves to permanently settle in North America . It was also believed that these slaves were a mixture of tribes and nationalities who were born in the Caribbean and transported from the islands to Jamestown . We now know that these assumptions were not true. In 1997, the late Engel Sluiter, a renowned historian from USC was digging through old Spanish and Portuguese archives and came across an amazing find that changed nearly 400 years of seemingly settled American history. Here is what happened that fateful summer of 1619.
A week prior to the arrival of the twenty slaves, another vessel visited Chesapeake Bay . It didn’t draw much attention because it was flagged with the British Jack. The ship’s captain, a man named Kerby met with Governor Samuel Argall in closed meetings, kept his men well disciplined and had his ship restocked with food, water, tobacco and other necessities. This was something not out of the ordinary for Jamestown . However, what the local common folk didn’t know was that Kerby and Argall were cutting a deal that would make a Texas politician blush!
Meanwhile, out in the Atlantic , a Portuguese slave ship named the San Juan Bautista was making its way from Luanda , Angola to Vera Cruz, Mexico with 350 slaves on board. As she reached the warm waters of the Caribbean , it wasn’t long before the crew of the San Juan Bautista was staring down the cannons of two English ships named the Treasurer and the Trier . Not only were the Treasurer and Trier both man-of-war ships carrying anywhere from 20 – 100 guns, they were also pirates! Despite a few shots across the bow, negotiations ensued and rather than engaging in a bloody battle at sea that would have damaged or destroyed all three vessels, 147 Angolans were transferred to the pirate ships in exchange for the San Juan Bautista’s continued safe passage. Every sailor, scoundrel and cabin boy on-board the slaver breathed a sign of relief, realizing they would live to see another day! The two pirate vessels agreed to remain together en route to Jamestown but somehow they became separated, arriving four days apart. Both ships sold a number of their slaves to the colonists for loads of tobacco and supplies, and then headed back South to continue doing whatever pirates of the Caribbean do.
In what is probably the crowning achievement in a long and distinguished career, Professor Sluiter was able determine something that remained hidden for centuries: the identity and role of the Trier , the unnamed Dutch man-of-war that delivered the slaves on the last day of August 1619. Confusing? Sluiter carefully articulated in the William and Mary Quarterly that the English provided extensive military support to the Dutch who had no standing navy at the time, so it was not unusual for Dutch ships to fly the British flag when circumstances warranted. That is why the San Juan Bautista reported being robbed by two English man-of-wars, but the slaves were observed being delivered by a Dutch man-of-war. The Netherlands were a small country militarily and could not afford to be implicated in the plundering of Spanish crown ships. On the other hand, the British had not officially entered the slave trade at this time, but the Dutch were known slavers. Dr. Sluiter also sheds light on the fact that Governor Argall’s cohort Kerby was commander of – you guessed it – the Treasurer!
Most importantly, he uncovered the previously unknown facts that the slaves were taken by force on the San Juan Bautista’s transatlantic voyage and that the slaves were from Angola and not the Caribbean . In the scheme of historical updates, this story is of monumental importance and has significantly increased our understanding of this segment of the Jamestown chronology. The Treasurer and the Trier are not only the two ships that got away from the Portuguese, they also got away from history for 380 long, long years.
Copyright © Joseph Collins (2006). All rights reserved.
This article is an excerpt from my upcoming book. For now, the title and subject will remain unannounced but the published manuscript is due out in the Spring of 2007.
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Top-level comments on this article: (6 total)Very weel written. Very informative as well. James, VAJames, thanks for responding! (For the benefit of my readers, James and I met in our first few months of serving in the US Air Force and have remained friends for over twenty years.)
Excellent article. Thank you for taking the time to research this very important part of our history.Martin, thanks for commenting. I really enjoyed working on this section of my book. It is not often that we witness a correction to such a foundational piece of American history. It is my hope to make some important contributions of my own someday, particularly to Texas history. The stories are out there - it is just a matter of somebody doing the work to uncover them. Have a great week!
Joseph, you've done it again. Remarkable! Outstanding! Educational and very interesting! I look forward to your book with great anticipation. I'm honoured toNot only well written but outstanding For the past 10 years I have been writing an historical novel (in Spanish) that starts with the incident of the San Juan Bautista. Lord Rich and Argall two delinquents that would be just right in our 21st century.Comment left by Maricarmen Kenney 8/29-2010
...know of you! - AvisAvis, you are too kind! Thanks for responding!
Kerby was not the captain of the ship Treasurer. It was Daniel Elfrith.Janis,Thank you for commenting on this article! As I attempted to make clear, the basis of my information was the research of Dr. Sluiter, particularly his article in the William and Mary Quarterly. Therefore, you may be correct.I would be interested to know what you base your information on. Given the import of this story in American history, I continue to remain interested in anything that updates and helps to tell this story correctly. If you have references you would like to share, I would be greatly appreciative. You can forward them to me by using the envelope icon on any of my articles (direct email addresses are not allowed on this site). Thanks and have a great week!
It certainly did.It is an amazing revelation of the corruption of those times..all times> present times?Bravo for the historians a litle late-380 years however the thruth always is there. Historian Engel Sluiter I wish I could find his address, I am a fanatic of history,My admiration for the courage and determination.comment: Maricarmen Kenney, Glendale CA. 9/3/2010
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