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Subject: Origin of the Melungeons - 1619, Part 2
Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 22:26:07 EDT


The following series of articles are excerpted from my research on the
delivery of Africans to Virginia by two pirate ships in August of 1619. These were
the very first Africans to arrive in British North America, one year before
the Mayflower. This story has never been told in full detail. Fortunately I
had the direct imput of several scholars, respected in their fields.

Evidence indicates that Margaret Cornish and John Geaween (Gowen) were two of
the Africans the pirates had taken from a Portuguese slaver in the Bay of
Campeche in July, a few weeks before the pirates arrived in Virginia. John and
Margaret are believed to be the earliest ancestors of the Gowen/ Goins families
of color, including the Goins/Goens etc of the Melungeons.

Why should non-Goins be interested? As I said before, evidence indicates the
Melungeon community began four centuries ago, small like a snowball, growing
larger as more surnames were added in the successive decades. Many Melungeons
likely have Goins ancestors somewhere in the past, even if not yet
discovered.

More importantly, this research sheds light on the history of the Melungeon
people, and this Melungeon history provides a context or background; a critical
aid in locating and identifying ancestors. It also helps in understanding
where we came from, just as English history is important to whites, and Black
history is to African Americans, regardless of whether families are directly
mentioned by name.

Finally, on a larger scale, a fuller examination of the arrival of the first
blacks in 1619, including those Africans who would be numbered among other
ancestors of many Melungeons, will reveal, I believe, that this event sparked a
debate in the British Parliament and in the palaces of King James that
determined future characteristics of America at the critical moment of birth;
characteristics of free enterprise, local representative government and religious
freedom.

The numbers through out the articles indicate endnotes that will be furnished
at the end of the series.

From:

"Origin of the Melungeons - 1619, Part 2
by Tim Hashaw
all rights reserved.


July 15, 1619 in the Bay of Campeche, West Indies - Several dozen pirates
from the White Lion and the Treasurer jumped onto the deck of the Portuguese
frigate in the midst of a storm. After intense hand to hand fighting, the
pirates forced the surviving Portuguese crew to surrender. After disarming the
enemy, the victorious boarders set about rifling the disabled ship in search of
gold, silver and jewels.

But instead of treasure, the buccaneers from the White Lion and the Treasurer
discovered that the smoldering San Juan Bautista carried 220 Angolans; the
chained survivors of the original 350 men, women and children boarded in Angola
in several weeks earlier.1

But a pirate will steal anything or anyone. While some 60 English and Dutch
buccaneers surrounded Capt. Manuel Mendes de Acuna and his surviving crew near
the splintered main mast, down below in the dark cargo hold the two pirates
captains John Colyn Jope and Daniel Elfrith inspected the shackled Africans.
By lamplight the two pirate captains selected 60 of the healthiest men, women
and children from the many sick and dying; 30 Africans for the White Lion and
30 for the Treasurer.

After pilfering the Bautista's supply of grain and tallow the pirates loaded
the Africans, boarded their ships and disappeared into the low-lying cloud
bank.

Thankful to have survived, the Bautista's master offered prayers for the dead
and dying and then grimly assessed the battle damage to his ship, crew and
cargo. Though the masts and rigging were destroyed, the hull was sound. Capt.
Acuna's next concern was his cargo, for without the Africans the voyage would
be an utter financial debacle.

The English corsairs left him with 150 Africans in poor health. To stem his
losses Manuel Mendes de Acuna decided not to continue on to Vera Cruz but
ordered his remaining crew to row the disabled ship back to the nearest port of
Jamaica "to refresh, for he had many sick aboard, and many had already died."

Arriving weeks later, Capt. Acuna abandoned the badly charred Bautista and
hired the frigate Santa Ana and her master Rodrigo Escobar to take the remaining
human cargo on to Mexico. Left penniless after the attack, Capt. Acuna had
to sell "24 slave boys" in Jamaica to lease the Santa Ana.

The remaining Africans were transferred to the new ship and they got
underway. By the time Capt. Acuna finally arriving in Vera Cruz at the end of August
1619, the entire voyage had taken four long harrowing months during which 140
of the Angolan prisoners perished to hardship and disease.

So it was by a strange quirk that no single ship completed that entire
historic voyage from the mainland of Africa to the mainland of the Americas.
Several nations were involved in the voyages of the three ships. The Bautista was a
Portuguese ship with a Spanish license and a Lisbon contract. The White
Lion was an English privateer with a Dutch license. The Treasurer was an English
pirate with an invalid Italian license. Each of these three vessels may
reasonably claim a share of the title "the African Mayflower of British North
America."

After selling the Africans to the silver mines, Manuel Mendes de Acuna sat
down in Vera Cruz and wrote a letter. In it he described the attack; the names
of the corsairs, their nationality and as many details as he could summon.
The letter was addressed to his cousin Diego Sarmiento de Acuna, count of
Gondomar; the Spanish ambassador to the English Court of King James I. This was the
same wily Gondomar who had successfully pressured King James to execute
English adventurer Sir Walter Raleigh two years earlier by running into the palace
shrieking"Piracy! Piracy! Piracy!"

But that was politics. This time the outrage was personal: it was piracy not
only against Spain but against the powerful Acuna family. Receiving his
cousin's letter in London several weeks later, Gondomar vowed to hang the English
pirates who had stolen Africans from the Bautista in July 1619. But this time
Gondomar would meet his match. Robert Rich was not another Walter Raleigh.

Fencing stolen Africans:

Meanwhile, after robbing the Portuguese slaver, the two English corsairs
faced a challenge of their own. The human cargo presented unique problems for
privateers rigged to haul off gold, spirits or dry goods. To board and subdue an
enemy ship, a raiding corsair carried a larger than average crew. Space was
already cramped. Unexpected prisoners had to be fed and watered from the
soldiers' share of food.

But worst of all, a stolen human cargo could tell tales. These Africans,
many of whom had been baptized Catholics in Angola, could get them hanged if they
talked.

The privateers could not smuggle their stolen Africans into London or any
other large European port without alerting the harbormasters of King James. No,
the Africans had to be unloaded in some isolated backwater where they would
not arouse suspicion; a place where laborers were in short supply and employers
would pay top dollar.

When the two privateers first met near Cuba before attacking the Bautista,
Capt. Daniel Elfrith of the Treasurer bragged to Capt. John Colyn Jope of the
White Lion about the sweet set up in Virginia: in Jamestown there would be no
embarrassing questions about stolen Spanish property, for the man in charge of
the black market was Gov. Samuel Argall and he was protected by the powerful
Robert Rich, 2nd earl of Warwick, one of the richest lords in all of England.
Conveniently, both Rich and Argall were also high profile investors in the
Virginia Company of London that held the colony's charter.

Capt. Elfrith was an employee of the Treasurer's owners and London and
Jamestown were his home ports. Capt. John Colyn Jope was an independent privateer;
master of his own ship sailing out of Plymouth, England and Flushing, the
Netherlands. Although Capt. Jope carried an active letter of Marque and could
claim that he legitimately owned his prisoners, he was still an Englishman who
had violated his king's order against robbing Spaniards. Therefore he too could
not risk taking his share of the stolen Africans to Europe. Capt. Elfrith's
boasts persuaded him, and on July 15th, 1619, leaving the scene of the crime
with his share of the stolen Africans, the captain of the White Lion sailed his
ship alongside the Treasurer on the voyage to Jamestown.

The Jamestown black market scheme:

Daniel Elfrith at the time had cause for boasting about illegal profit at
Jamestown.
Two years earlier, Lord Rich had launched his black market operation when he
recommended to the London Company the appointment of his man Samuel Argall as
deputy governor of Virginia. At the time, the Virginia Company board of
directors in London had no idea of his motive or they would have rejected the
nomination.

The earl of Warwick owned the single largest fleet of ships, public or
private, in all of Britain, greater even than the royal fleet of envious King James.
The earl, a Puritan who fiercely opposed the spread of the Spanish Catholic
empire, was deeply involved in numerous commercial ventures in America, and
Samuel Argall was the protégé who became his sword arm in Virginia.

After his appointment in 1617, Gov. Argall at Lord Rich's direction turned
Jamestown into an international pirate base; a "sedem belli" from whence not
only Warwick's ships, but other renegade privateers could launch attacks on the
rich Spanish and Portuguese shipping in the West Indies and return to trade
Spanish booty to frontier settlers always in need of supplies.

In the beginning, isolated from King James' spies by an ocean, the Jamestown
scheme was a smashing commercial success. Between 1617-1619, the Treasurer
alone racked up three Spanish prizes in as many raids. By subterfuge and
bribery the conspirators had successfully concealed the Jamestown black market for
several months.

It was a well-planned operation. At the center of the scheme was the corsair
Treasurer captained by Elfrith and jointly owned by Lord Rich, Samuel Argall,
Lord De La ware and others.

Here's how the covert operation worked: in England, Lord Rich had the
Treasurer's illegal cannons, muskets and soldiers' armor concealed with nets and
fishing tackle to get past King James' harbor police. Crossing the Atlantic in
6-7 weeks the Treasurer refreshed in Virginia where the conspiracy continued.
At Jamestown, Gov. Argall provided the ship Treasurer with the cover of
official colony business. For example, in 1617 he claimed he was sending Elfrith and
the Treasurer to Cape Cod on a "fishing voyage." The following year he
pretended to send the man-o-war to Bermuda to buy goats. Both times however,
Capt. Elfrith upon clearing the Chesapeake Bay uncovered his 14 cannons and raced
to the West Indies to take Spanish and Portuguese prizes.

To hide the illegal operation Gov. Argall enforced strict security measures
in Virginia. He banned all settlers from approaching Warwick's private
warehouse when the Treasurer arrived before or after a raid, each time nailing up a
proclamation that "none (are) to go aboard ye Ship now at James Town without ye
Governor's leave." 2

In early 1619, Gov. Argall once again provisioned the Treasurer at Jamestown
and sent her out for another raid on the West Indies. In June, the man-o-war
met the White Lion lurking off Cuba. So, the two ships joined in consort for
the hunt and a few weeks later they caught the Bautista creeping along the
Yucatan Peninsula in a storm. On July 15, leaving the smoking Spanish slaver
behind them in the Bay of Campeche, the two predators set sail with 60 Africans
for what they believed was still a friendly port. However, during their
adventures at sea many changes had taken place on land.

The scheme collapses:

In spite of the strict secrecy, rumors that the Treasurer was raiding Spanish
ships were circulating months before she met the White Lion in the summer of
1619.

On one occasion in June of 1618, Edward Brewster, captain of the large
English frigate, the Neptune, crossed the Treasurer's wake in the Eastern Azores
while sailing to Virginia. The Neptune had been fitted out to deliver trade
goods to Virginia. Investors in the Neptune expedition included King James' close
friend and the man who essentially ruled Britain; George Villiers, duke of
Buckingham. The duke's partner in the venture was the absentee governor of
Virginia, Lord De La ware who, unlike Buckingham, was a passenger on the Neptune.

It had been a disastrous voyage for the Neptune. After being driven off
course in a gale, a plague had broken out onboard. Many of her passengers became
sick or, like the unfortunate Lord De La ware, died.

Spotting the passing Treasurer near St. Michael's Island, the captain of the
Neptune hailed Capt. Elfrith and ordered him to bring the Treasurer alongside
the Neptune to transfer some passengers bound for Virginia. Elfrith had
reason to refuse the order, but he could not.

After the Treasurer tied up alongside the stricken ship, Capt. Edward
Brewster did some snooping and keenly observed that although Capt. Elfrith claimed to
be on a fishing voyage, his ship "was not provided for a fishinge voyage nor
had salt, hookes, lines, fishermen, or men skilled in fishing at the tyme she
was sett forth from the porte of London, nor other things that were fitting
for a fishing voyage." Instead, buried under piles of fishing nets Capt.
Brewster found the furnishings for piracy that Robert Rich had concealed on the
Treasurer before she left London; "powder, shot, wastclothes, ordinance,
streamers, flags and other furniture fit for a man of war" 3

Edward Brewster was no fool. He deduced that the Treasurer had been
outfitted in London by "Robert, now Earle of Warwicke. Yet it was so donne for Capt.
Argall being then in Virginia…The said ship did then and during all the tyme
aforesaid properlie belonge and apertaine unto the foresaid Samuel Argoll." In
other words, Lord Rich had armed the ship for pirating and then consigned it
to Samuel Argall for the alleged purpose of a "fishing trip."

Had the Neptune intercepted the Treasurer returning from the West Indies the
piracy scheme would have been exposed in June of 1618. As it stood, yes, it
was irregular for a fishing vessel supposedly en route to catch fish at Cape
Cod to be bristling with cannons. And a crew of 60 "fishermen" dressed in full
armor with muskets, pikes and swords was something you didn't see everyday.
But a prison cell awaited the fool who accused so powerful a nobleman as the
earl of Warwick of piracy without harder evidence.

The meeting with the Neptune in 1618 proved unfortunate for Lord Rich and his
corsair, the Treasurer, as revealed in a series of lawsuits in 1622 brought
by Buckingham and Lady De La ware over the loss of the trade goods during the
Neptune expedition of 1618. Capt. Brewster and other Neptune passengers would
be called as witnesses in those lawsuits. They testified that after the
Neptune arrived in Virginia in August of 1618, Gov. Samuel Argall took about a
dozen of the deceased Lord De La ware's servants and added them to the pirate crew
of the Treasurer. Facing a shortage of experienced soldiers, Gov. Argall
foolishly confiscated the Neptune's sailors for the very voyage that would
capture the Spanish slaver, the Bautista in July of 1619 and stir the vengeance of
Lord Gondomar.

Lord De La ware's Persian servant John Martin testified in a 1622 lawsuit
that he "did goe in the shipp called the Treasurer from Virginia to the West
Indies, of which shipp Daniel Elfrith was master or captaine, and saith that the
said Captaine Argall at his owne chardge did send forth the said shippe and
from the tme they went forth to the said shippe till they returned into Virginia
there were about some ten months expired and spent." According to testimony
recorded in the High Court of Admiralty, John Martin further testified that
"The Earl of Warwick was generally reputed to be the owner of the Treasurer and
to have fitted her out for her voyage to James Town. Captain Argall sent the
ship to Bermuda to obtain victuals and on the way she met an empty Angola ship
from which she took 25 negroes before completing her voyage and returning to
Virginia."

Because the Marquis of Buckingham was second only to King James in the
government, the high profile lawsuits over the 1618 Neptune voyage unfortunately
publicized the Bautista piracy.

The Spanish royal court protested that the corsair had seized a valuable
Spanish gold shipment earlier that year, and, according to investigators with King
James' Privy Council, "Sir Samuell Argoll was vehemently complained against
by Padre Maestro and the Spanish secretary then here, for Piracy against the
King of Spain's subjects in the West Indies."

Edwin Sandys, the new London CEO of the Virginia Company was hearing these
rumors about the ship's mysterious voyages and he was not happy. The Treasurer
was co-owned by two prominent Company investors who had leased her to the
Company purportedly to be "wholly employed in trade and other services, for
relieving the colonie." The man-o-war had 'Virginia Company' written all over her
as she went about "relieving the colonie" by robbing Spain against King
James' order.

If the tales were true and Lord Rich was secretly raiding Spanish ships,
Pres. Sandys feared the earl was endangering the Virginia colony's charter if King
James should learn that his hard labor to ally with Spain was being
complicated by a gang of Virginia pirates operating under the auspices of the London
Company.

So, early in 1619 Edwin Sandys without directly confronting the powerful Lord
Rich with charges of piracy began organizing a boardroom coup to replace
Warwick's underboss, Samuel Argall in Virginia and shut down the piracy operation.
The president of the Company produced allegations that Gov. Argall was
incompetent and an embezzler and these accusations along with the colony's dramatic
commercial setbacks during Argall's administration persuaded a majority of
stockholders to vote Argall out and to elect Sandys' man George Yeardley to
"reform" the colony.

Yeardley was ordered to proceed at once to Virginia and arrest Argall and
seize whatever stolen loot that "it is reported he hath gotten together ... to
the Colonie's prejudice." 4

The White Lion and the Treasurer meanwhile were at sea and unaware that the
lucrative Jamestown black-market in stolen Spanish plunder was coming to an end.

Tim Hashaw

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