Welcome to the History of the Americans podcast, episode 78. I'm your host, Jack Heneman.

And I'm recording this on June 30, 2022, known to corporate tools everywhere as the end of Q2 in New Orleans.

Trust me when I say that if your birthday is June 30th, you might not want to become an accountant.

If you are new to the podcast, we are telling the history of the lands now encompassed by the United States from the beginning without presentism.

You would benefit from listening to In Virginia in 1619 part one before this episode,

but I'm not the prerequisite cop or anything, so you do you.

John Rolfe wrote a letter to Sir Ed and Sands in the fall of 1619,

which contained the following passage, quote,

about the latter end of August, the Dutch man of war of the burden of 160 tons,

arrived at point comfort.

The commander's name, Captain Jope, his pilot for the West Indies won Mr. Marmaduke, an Englishman.

They met with the treasurer in the West Indies and determined to hold a consort ship hitherward,

but in their passage lost one the other. He brought not anything but

twenty and odd negroes, which the governor and Cape Merchant bought for victuals, whereof he was

in great need, as he pretended, at the best and easiest rates they could.

For a long time, this was almost all that we knew about the arrival of the first Africans in English North America.

We also knew the name of the Dutch ship, the White Lion.

And we knew that Rolf's estimate of the number, 20 and odd, was a little low.

A census of the colony in early 1620 revealed 32 Africans.

There's been an immense amount of scholarship around this moment, especially in the last 30 years.

We were returned to a small fraction of it later in the episode. First, though,

let's set the table a bit. Three big things happened in Virginia in 1619. Last week, we discussed the establishment of the House of Burgesses, the first even arguably representative assembly

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