Angela’s arrival in Jamestown in 1619 marked the beginning of a subjugation that left millions in chains.

The sun sets on the James River in April, seen from Historic Jamestown in Williamsburg, Va.

  

By the time Angela was brought to Jamestown’s muddy shores in 1619, she had survived war and capture in West Africa, a forced march of more than 100 miles to the sea, a miserable Portuguese slave ship packed with 350 other Africans and an attack by pirates during the journey to the Americas.

“All of that,” marveled historian James Horn, president of the Jamestown Rediscovery Foundation, “before she is put aboard the Treasurer,” one of two British privateers that delivered the first Africans to the English colony of Virginia.

Now, as the country marks the 400th anniversary of the arrival of those first slaves, historians are trying to find out as much as possible about Angela, the first African woman documented in Virginia. They see her as a seminal figure in American history — a symbol of 246 years of brutal subjugation that left millions of men, women and children enslaved at the start of the Civil War

The conditions endured by settlers and enslaved people alike were awful.

The colony, which had been established in 1607, stretched from Point Comfort to what is now Richmond. There were plantations scattered for about 100 miles along the banks of the James River. Jamestown itself probably had a population of about 100.

The colonists had, at one point, nearly been wiped out. In 1609, they were under siege by the Powhatan and facing starvation that led to cannibalism. Capt. John Smith described that horror in a 1624 letter:

“October 1609 — March 1610, there remained not past sixtie men, women and children, most miserable and poore creatures; and those were preserved for the most part, by roots, herbes, acornes, walnuts, berries, now and then a little fish: they that had startch in these extremities, made no small use of it; yea even the very skinnes of our horses.

“Nay, so great was our famine, that a Salvage we slew and buried, the poorer sort tooke him up againe and eat him; and so did divers one another boyled and stewed with roots and herbs: And one amongst the rest did kill his wife, powdered [i.e., salted] her, and had eaten part of her before it was knowne; for which hee was executed, as hee well deserved: now whether shee was better roasted, boyled or carbonado’d [i.e., grilled], I know now; but of such a dish as powdered wife I never heard of.”

[Anthony and Mary Johnson were pioneers on the Eastern Shore whose surprising story tells much about race in Virginia history]

Angela lived through what is called the “Second Starving Time.” “Many people died during the Second Starving Time,” Horn said. “There isn’t enough corn to support” the large numbers of arriving settlers. “You have a period where food prices, particularly for Indian corn, are astronomical. A lot of poor servants and white indentured servants perished or died of disease. It is a grim period.”

Angela probably survived because she lived on the plantation of Pierce, one of the wealthiest men in the colony. “We know some Africans died during that period,” Horn said. “We know there were 32 Africans living in the colony in 1620. We know only 23 Africans were living in the colony in 1625.”

But by 1626, Angela disappears from the census records. Her fate is unknown.

The 1624-1625 Jamestown census lists an “Angelo a Negar.” 

Jamestown Rediscovery recently released an illustration depicting Angela, circa 1625, standing on the banks of the James River as ships are anchored in the background.

“We wanted to provide a setting for Angela that reflected what was going on in Jamestown at the time,” Horn said. “She would have been living in Jamestown six years around 1625, which is a good date for the drawing. She certainly would have been dressed in English clothing. The dockside, it is quite possible she would have spent time down there, which was a few yards from the Pierce house.”

Horn said the artist wanted to give Angela a sense of dignity and autonomy. She is not dressed in rags.

“Her clothing would not have been fancy,” Horn said, “but everyday working clothing. Essentially, she is dressed in the clothing of a working young woman for the Pierce family.”

The illustration allows viewers to fill in the gaps in history, paying due to the colony’s first documented African woman.

“I see her not so much as a kind of Eve figure for Africans,” Horn said. “There were other Africans in the colony in Virginia. I see the significance of Angela being able to put a name to her and identify her in a place.”

And to remind Americans 400 years later what she managed to survive.