John Rolfe’s Letter to Sir Edwin Sandys about Enslaved Africans
Exploring the Essential Primary Sources
Table of Contents
John Rolfe’s Letter toSir Edwin Sandys aboutEnslaved Africans
Overview
Context
About the Author
Explanation and Analysis of theDocument
Audience
Impact
Document Text
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Abstract
When John Rolfe related in a letter to Sir Edwin Sandys that “20 and odd Negroes” had been off-loaded by a Dutch ship at Point Comfort in 1619, he had no notion of the lasting importance of his account. The seemingly casual comment recorded the first documented case of Africans sold into servitude to British North America. Purchased as indentures in the labor-starved Virginia colony, these twenty-some souls disappeared into the anonymous pool of workers transported to the colony during its first decades. The origins of the Africans and their ultimate fates have long been debated by historians and others studying the account. Rolfe provided little detail and made no further mention of the group.
Contents
- John Rolfe’s Letter to Sir Edwin Sandys about Enslaved Africans
- Virginia’s Act XII: Negro Women’s Children to Serve according to the Condition of the Mother
- Virginia’s Act III: Baptism Does Not Exempt Slaves from Bondage
- “A Minute against Slavery, Addressed to Germantown Monthly Meeting”
- Samuel Sewall: The Selling of Joseph: A Memorial
- James Oglethorpe: “An Account of the Negroe Insurrection in South Carolina”
- Daniel Horsmanden: The New-York Conspiracy
- Dockside At Virginia Tobacco Warehouse Illustration
- John Woolman: Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes
- Slaves for Sale Advertisement
- Thomas Jefferson: Advertisement for a Runaway Slave
- Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation
- Petition of Prince Hall and Other African Americans to the Massachusetts General Court
- Pennsylvania: An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery
- Commonwealth v. Nathaniel Jennison
- Thomas Jefferson: Notes on the State of Virginia
- The Old Plantation
- Constitutional Convention: Debates on Slavery
- Slavery Clauses in the U.S. Constitution
- Drawing of the Slave Ship Brookes
- Alexander Falconbridge: An Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa
- Fugitive Slave Act of 1793
- Richard Allen: “An Address to Those Who Keep Slaves, and Approve the Practice”
- Prince Hall: A Charge Delivered to the African Lodge
- Venture Smith: A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, a Native of Africa
- Act to Prohibit the
- Peter Williams, Jr.: “Oration on the Abolition of the Slave Trade”
- Missouri Compromise
- Samuel Cornish and John Russwurm: First Freedom’s Journal Editorial
- David Walker: Appeal tothe Coloured Citizens of the World
- State v. Mann
- William Lloyd Garrison: First Liberator Editorial
- The Confessions of NatTurner
- “Jump Jim Crow” Song-and-Dance Routine
- Joseph Story: “Privileges of Citizens—Fugitives—Slaves”
- Lydia Maria Child: Thoughts on Slavery and Emancipation
- James Buchanan: Remarks to Congress on Slavery
- William Drayton: TheSouth Vindicated fromthe Treason... of theNorthern Abolitionists
- Wendell Phillips: “TheMurder of Lovejoy”
- John C. Calhoun: “Slavery a Positive Good”
- United States v. Amistad
- Prigg v. Pennsylvania
- Henry Highland Garnet: “An Address to the Slaves of the United States of America”
- William Lloyd Garrison: “Address to the Friends of Freedom and Emancipation in the United States”
- Frederick Douglass: Narrative of the Life ofFrederick Douglass
- Richard Doyle: “The Land of Liberty” Cartoon
- Salmon P. Chase: Reclamation of Fugitives from Service
- William Wells Brown:“Slavery as It Is”
- Frederick Douglass:“Letter to My OldMaster”
- Currier & Ives:“Congressional Scales”Cartoon
- Compromise of 1850
- Fugitive Slave Act of 1850
- John C. Calhoun: “On the Slavery Question”
- Henry “Box” Brown: Narrative of the Lifeof Henry Box Brown, Written by Himself
- Samuel A. Cartwright:“Diseases andPeculiarities of theNegro Race”
- Souther v. Commonwealth
- Charles Sumner: “Freedom National; Slavery Sectional” Speech
- Frederick Douglass: “Fourth of July” Speech
- Martin Delany: The Condition, Elevation,... and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States
- Solomon Northup: Twelve Years a Slave
- Wendell Phillips: “ThePhilosophy of theAbolition Movement”
- Kansas-Nebraska Act
- William J. Grayson: “The Hireling and the Slave”
- John L. Magee: “ForcingSlavery Down the Throat of a Freesoiler” Cartoon
- P.C. Weston: Rules on the Rice Estate
- Hinton Rowan Helper: The Impending Crisis of the South: How to Meet It
- James Stirling: Lettersfrom the Slave States
- Dred Scott v. Sandford
- “Picking Cotton, Georgia, 1858” Illustration
- James Henry Hammond: “Cotton Is King” Speech
- Abraham Lincoln: “House Divided” Speech
- Thomas R.R. Cobb: An Inquiry into the Law of Negro Slavery in the United States of America
- John Brown: Provisional Constitution and Ordinances for the People of the United States
- Ableman v. Booth
- Wendell Phillips: “ThePuritan Principle andJohn Brown”
- Brigham Young: Sermon on Race and Slavery
- Charles Langston: Speech in Oberlin-Wellington Trial
- Elizabeth Cady Stanton: Speech forthe Anniversary of theAmerican Anti-SlaverySociety
- Virginia Slave Code
- Lydia Maria Child: Correspondence with Mrs. Mason on John Brown
- South CarolinaDeclaration of theCauses of Secession
- ConfederateConstitution
- Frederick Law Olmsted: Journeys and Explorations in the Cotton Kingdom
- Harriet Jacobs: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
- Alexander Stephens: Cornerstone Speech
- Thornton Stringfellow: Slavery: Considered in the Light of Bible Teachings
- David Einhorn: Response to “Bible View of Slavery”
- District of Columbia: An Act for the Release of Certain Persons Held to Service or Labor
- Frederick Douglass:“The Reasons for OurTroubles”
- Treaty between United States and Great Britain for the Suppression of the Slave Trade
- EmancipationProclamation
- Frances Ann Kemble: Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838–1839
- “The Scourged Back”Photograph
- Frederick Douglass: “Men of Color, To Arms!”
- War Department General Order 143 Establishing the Bureau of U.S. Colored Troops
- Thomas Morris Chester: Civil War Dispatches
- William T. Sherman: Special Field Order No. 15
- Photograph of the 107th U.S. Colored Infantry
- Black Code of Mississippi
- Gordon Granger: General Order No. 3
- Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
- William Lloyd Garrison: Valedictory Editorial of the Liberator
- Thomas Garrett: Description of HarrietTubman
- Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
- Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
- Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution