To Mr. Adams and All: I agree that older historical works sometime present wonderfully novel scholarly insight but in the field of the Atlantic slave trade this is highly unlikely. The massive empirical work--think of P. Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census, as an example--done in the 20th century has turned the history of the slave trade from anecdotal to truly historical. I think this is why Paul Finkelman observed that the Harvard study was outdated. Harold S. Forsythe ----- Original Message ----- From: "John P. Adams" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Monday, September 11, 2006 5:52 PM Subject: Re: "20 and odd Negroes" > Surpassed or not, some of the older books reflect the feelings of the > time, > not these politically corrected or REVISED historical reviews. > > John Philip Adams > > -----Original Message----- > From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history > [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Paul Finkelman > Sent: Monday, September 11, 2006 4:45 PM > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Re: "20 and odd Negroes" > > This is of course a very old book, and long surpassed by other work. > > Paul Finkelman > President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law > and Public Policy > Albany Law School > 80 New Scotland Avenue > Albany, New York 12208-3494 > > 518-445-3386 > [log in to unmask] >>>> [log in to unmask] 09/11/06 5:13 PM >>> > http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17700/17700-h/17700-h.htm > Please read. a great history of this subject. > THE SUPPRESSION OF THE AFRICAN SLAVE-TRADE TO THE UNITED STATES OF > AMERICA > 1638-1870 > Volume I > Harvard Historical Studies 1896 > Longmans, Green, and Co., New York > > > John Philip Adams > > -----Original Message----- > From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history > [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Anita Wills > Sent: Sunday, September 10, 2006 4:27 PM > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Re: "20 and odd Negroes" > > Harold, > I have done research on the descendants of Antonio Johnson, looking for > links to my lines. My Johnson ancestors came from Maryland into > Southeastern > Pennsylvania prior to the Civil War. They were free blacks, and part of > the > Underground Railroad. Some of the relatives remained in Maryland, and > traveled across the Mason/Dixon freely. I know that Antonio Johnson > moved > from Virginia into Southern Maryland, where he raised his children. I > am > still working on that line to see if there is a connection there. > > Anita > > >>From: Debra Jackson/Harold Forsythe <[log in to unmask]> >>Reply-To: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history >> <[log in to unmask]> >>To: [log in to unmask] >>Subject: "20 and odd Negroes" >>Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2006 15:32:04 -0400 >> >>I would like to join this discussion regarding the first Africans > landed in >>Virginia but mind you I am working from memory. As I remember it there > was >>more than one entry by Rolfe on this matter. Elsewhere he notes that > the >>men and women were purchased for "victuals" from a Dutch privateer but > the >>English declined to buy any Africans from the English privateer for > fear of >>starting trouble with the Spanish. (Privateers were officially > licensed to >>raid a particular foreign realm, in this case Spain and its colonies.) >>Those Africans (or Afro-Cubans) whose names were listed in the 1625 > census >>of Virginia had in many and perhaps all cases Spanish names. >> >>The conclusions I drew when I examined documents related to this > incident >>about 1980 were 1) the Dutch sailors were starving and willing to trade >>their captives for food; 2) the Africans were captured in Cuba and > held as >>slaves by the Dutch; 3) as Paul Finkelman notes, there was no law >>establishing or regulating slavery in Virginia in 1619; 4) colonial >>officials were afraid of provoking a Spanish attack and thus would not > buy >>Africans taken from Spanish lands from Englishmen; and, 5) that the >>introduction of a small number of Africans into a white indentured > labor >>system did not immediately produce any change in the labor regime on >>Virginia plantations. >> >>Morgan, Breen, and Innis tell a fascinating tale of this first > generation >>of Africans in Virginia. Antonio and Maria from 1625 became Anthony > and >>Mary Johnson, landowners in Accomack County by the 1650s. One of their >>grandchildren owned a farm he named "Angola." One thing worth noting > here >>is that Morgan argues that during the VA Company period, the local > company >>leaders choose the healthiest indentured servants sent over to Virginia > for >>their own private use, while assigning the sickliest to land farmed for > the >>Company. This must also have happened to the arriving Africans, > 1619-1624. >> >>But all of this is a small though interesting oddity, between the >>immensities of the Atlantic slave trade on the one hand, and the > 300,000 >>enslaved black people in Virginia in 1790. The Chesapeake was a > latecomer >>to the extensive exploitation of Africans in the western European >>reinvention of chattel slavery in the Western Hemisphere but made up > for it >>with vigor after 1700. The enslavement of Africans reshaped Virginia > in >>the 18th and 19th centuries and as Morgan notes in his conclusion, that > new >>Virginia had decisive importance in shaping the United States at its >>founding. >> >>Harold S. Forsythe >> >>To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the > instructions >>at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html > > _________________________________________________________________ > Got something to buy, sell or swap? 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