John Rolfe was an Englishman born in Heacham, Norfolk, in 1585. During his early years, Spain held a near world monopoly of the lucrative tobacco trade, a subject in which he had a particular interest.
Spanish crops were grown primarily in their southern New World colonies, where the climate was ideal for tobacco growing, England being a particularly prominent customer for their product.
Rolfe in his formative years studied the tobacco trade in detail and managed to ‘acquire’ some of Spain’s unique tobacco seeds, this was notable as in Spain selling them was an offense punishable by death.
This Spanish strain of tobacco had a number of customer satisfaction benefits over crops from other countries, firstly it was sweeter, but most importantly it was much stronger in nicotine, a narcotic, whose stimulant value and addictive properties are not they understood each other for many years. come on, users just felt compelled to want more.
In order to successfully compete against Spanish growers, Rolfe recognized the need to move to a more favorable climate than England, and therefore set sail for the New World.
English colony of Jamestown, Virginia, North America. This colony had been formed in May 1607, although Rolfe was unaware that he was still struggling to survive.
In 1609 Rolfe boarded the ‘Sea Venture’ bound for Jamestown, however as they approached Bermuda a hurricane struck and destroyed the ship, some travelers were saved but among the dead were the wife and daughter of Rolfe.
Rolfe himself had survived, and in May 1610 he left Bermuda, finishing his voyage in a repaired ship that had been part of the small convoy of which the Sea Venture had been the flagship.
By Rolfe’s arrival, the British Virginia colonies were already producing a lower grade of tobacco, but finding markets to buy their low-quality products was proving a problem. But when Rolfe’s crop of Spanish seeds became successful and available for sale, demand from the local and export markets began to skyrocket.
John Rolfe named his brand ‘Orinoco Tobacco’ paying homage to one of tobacco’s greatest advocates, Sir Walter Raleigh, the Orinoco being the flagship on his voyage of exploration to find the legendary city of El Dorado.
Rolfe’s plantations were well situated along the St James River on the outskirts of Jamestown for the benefits of irrigation, these lands were originally uncultivated and therefore allowed for economic expansion where trade and profit allowed. He named his plantations under the group banner ‘Varina Farms’. .
In 1615 he married again, but this time to the daughter of an indigenous Indian chief, her name was ‘Pocahontas’, who later became famous in her own right as the pagan Indian turned refined Christian bride, her story is became so well known that she was invited to visit England to meet the royal family.
So, until August 1619, the English colonies in Virginia had used only indigenous Indian labor or Europeans who had been tempted to immigrate to the New World to find a better life than living in misery in their own country.
Then, at the end of this month, an English ‘corsair’ ship called the ‘White Lion’ sailed up the St. James River to drop anchor within sight of Rolfe from his estates.
John Rolfe was certainly not the only person to witness the unusual cargo on board the ship, but he was the author of highly detailed and accurate journals of events that are used to this day as credible educational materials of the time.
His writings describe ‘twenty-something’ dark-skinned natives, who he presumed to be of African origin. They were quickly landed and offered for sale in the market to the highest bidder.
Rolfe also went further to point out that the buyers of the African slaves were the Governor of Jamestown, Sir George Yeardley and one of the town’s leading merchants, who kept their new purchases to work on their own important plantations.
It was later established that these particular Africans originated from the kingdom of Ndongo (now Angola), and could only speak the ‘Kimbundu’ language, thus being totally incapable of pleading their case for help or release.
Needless to say, they had been brutally kidnapped by slave traders, themselves of African descent, and then forcibly marched to the coast to be sold to one of thirty-six Portuguese or Spanish transatlantic slave ships.
In this case, the ship had been the Spanish ‘San Juan Bautista’ which had stopped at Veracruz in Mexico for water when the English ‘corsair’ The White Lion and her sister ship the Treasurer had attacked.
Finding the Spanish ship in disrepair and not worth taking as a prize, the victors searched for valuables but found none, in their desperation for a profit the privateers divided up the best slaves for each other, the White Lion then departed. headed up the North American coast to Virginia to Hopefully make a sale worthy of replenishing your ship with food and essential supplies.
Although John Rolfe’s journals from 1619 are now commonly used to describe the origins of slavery in North America, there are other, less prominent accounts that infer that African slaves may have been present in other parts of the Americas as early as the 15th century.
Therefore, it is not unreasonable to assume that John Rolfe may have been a genuine witness to the arrival of the first slaves in the thirteen colonies of Virginia in North America, but the transatlantic slave trade, when it was still in its infancy, was already had begun to have significant effects. deliveries of its African cargo elsewhere.
