The first Africans who arrived in Virginia were not slaves in 1619, but it
is not accurate to say that

>They were indentured servants;

although all the material for the Jamestown 2007 400th anniversary
emphasizes this. See, for example, the Official Website of the Jamestown
400th  http://www.jamestown2007.org/kids.cfm

Schoolchildren are asked to use their knowledge of Jamestown history to
complete the following statement:

"The first documented Africans arrived in Jamestown as...
A) indentured servants, B) investors, C) peasants D) slaves.

There are no indications whatsoever that the African prisoners of war or
victims of piracy had anything resembling an "indenture", which is a legally
binding contract between two parties that specifies legal obligations and
specific terms, detailing the rights and responsibilities of each. The
Africans may indeed have been treated as were other indentured servants  -
and certainly some worked off  the equivalent of a ‘term of indenture’  -
but to the best of my knowledge, there is no evidence that the Virginia
Africans possessed any legal document nor did they have assured access to
the courts. White indentured servants occasionally described themselves as
“slaves”, but did have access to the courts.
To call the Africans "indentured servants" is therefore wishful thinking,
not history.

There are other inaccuracies in the simple anniversary quiz for
schoolchildren that reflect popular cultural perceptions and American myth,
rather than any historical research. For example, in answer to the question:
“Who established the first English settlement: Christopher Columbus, John
Smith, Christopher Newport or John Cabot?” the desired answer is naturally
John Smith. Yet a stronger case can be made for Newport. Even the endlessly
self-promoting Smith argued that he “saved” the colony, not that he alone
deserved credit for “establishing” it; Smith called Bartholomew Gosnold as
“the prime mover.”

It is not surprising that school children are confused about American
history when
the Library of Congress Learning Page
http://memory.loc.gov/learn/features/timeline/colonial/jamestwn/jamestwn.html
instructs us that the relevant American “documents were written in Middle
English”

(for the generally accepted notion that the use of Middle English went out
in the fifteenth century, see Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_English)

Emily Rose
New Hall, Cambridge

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