A Study of the Africans and African Americans on Jamestown Island and at Green Spring, 1619-1803

McCartney, Martha

During 1998 and 1999 documentary research was conducted in support of the Jamestown-Green Spring African American study. One of the project’s principal goals was to chart the course of Africans and African Americans in the transition from servitude to slavery. Through a close examination of documentary records associated with Jamestown Island and Green Spring, an attempt was made to determine how this drama unfolded at both locales. Special attention was given to legal records that regulated the conduct of ethnic minorities (especially Africans, African Americans and Native Americans) in Virginia during the period 1619 to 1803. These dates were chosen to bracket the period of study because they commence with the arrival of the Africans in Virginia and end with the establishment of a free black community comprised of Green Spring’s former slaves. Throughout the research process, data were collected from primary and secondary sources. Extensive use was made of a master list of people known to have owned or been associated with properties on Jamestown Island or with Green Spring plantation. Information also was gathered on people known to have been involved in activities at one or both areas. By the mid-eighteenth century, much of Jamestown Island had been absorbed into the plantations owned by the Amblers and the Travises. Therefore, each of those properties was studied in detail and compared with Green Spring. Whenever Jamestown Island landowners or tenants are mentioned within this report, they are cross-referenced to the specific properties with which they were associated. Each of these properties’ boundaries, identified as components of Study Units, Tracts and Lots (along with any structures they contain) are shown on the electronically generated base map produced as part of the Jamestown Archaeological Assessment. Within this report, black people have been identified as Africans whenever it is almost certain that they were born in Africa. Those identified as African Americans are people of African descent who most likely were born in the New World. Whenever Africans and African Americans are referenced collectively (for example, in legal records), or when there is uncertainty with regard to a person of African ancestry’s place of birth, they are referenced as black. Whenever people are identified as mulattoes (a term traditionally applied to those having black and white ancestry), it is because they were labeled as such in one or more historical records.

A Study of the Africans and African Americans on Jamestown Island and at Green Spring, 1619-1803

Collections