Edmund Morgan in American Slavery-American Freedom wrote, "...it seems 
probable that all Negroes, or nearly all, arrived in the colony as 
slaves...There was no evidence during the period before 1660 that they were 
subjected to a more severe discipline than other servants. Some slaves were 
allowed to earn money of their own and to buy their freedom with it." He 
refers to Oscar and Mary Handlin who gave the other view in "The Origins of 
the Southern Labor System," WMQ 3rd ser. VII (1950) 199-222 [pp.154-5].

I believe Doug Deal found that all the Africans on the Eastern Shore who 
became free were originally slaves. And early families like the Goins/ 
Gowens and Sweats had similar origins. The only one that comes to mind is 
Emanuel, a "Mulata,"  who was adjudged by the Virginia Assembly a Christian 
servant and ordered to serve as other Christian servants [VMH XVIII:232]. He 
was probably identical to Emanuel Cumbo who started one of the very early 
free African American families.
Paul 

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