Do you suppose his name was African? Reading the accounts of runaway
slaves and servants in the colonial Virginia Gazette, I was struck by
the slaves who seemed to have tribal markings, scars on their faces,
front teeth missing [I believe I read that in some tribes that was
also a mark of manhood]. Has anyone ever looked into this, to
identify what tribes or areas in Africa they may have come from?

Nancy

-------
I was never lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.

--Daniel Boone



On Jan 15, 2007, at 8:42 PM, Douglas Deal wrote:

> Harold Forsythe wrote:
>> Save for
>> the fact I would have probably been a slave, I think I would have
>> preferred
>> 17th century VA over MA.  (smile)
>>
>>
> Harold:
>
> As it happens, there was at least one free black in early Boston
> (1640s-50s) who decided, for reasons we'll never know (unless more
> records turn up), to move down to the Eastern Shore of Virginia. He
> lived there for the rest of his life (he died in 1670). In Boston,
> he'd
> been a sailor, and we do have one record of a voyage he made to
> Virginia
> years before he moved. His name in Boston was Bastian Ken (with many
> variations). His life there is described in the old Robert Twombly and
> Robert Moore piece on the Black Puritan." On the Shore, he was
> known as
> Sebastian Kane. I have written a few pages about him in my /Race and
> Class in Colonial Virginia. /
>
> Doug Deal
>
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