John Rolfe is well-known as the person to report the arrival of enslaved Africans in Jamestown, in 1619. My questions are,
A) Did Rolfe himself continue the enslavement of any of these individuals in his own tobacco fields?
B) Did Rolfe at any point, even later, use enslaved labor on his land?
Andrew Waldo
He died in 1621 or ‘22 not long after the Africans arrived. His will does not mention any enslaved people but did say he had three indentured servants.
Carson, Jane. “The Will of John Rolfe.” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 58, no. 1, 1950, pp. 58–65. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4245674.
He is my 10th GGF. He reported Dutch ships but did so as to hide their true identity. But I believe it has come to light that it was indeed English ships that brought over slaves and NOT Dutch.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/08/24/slaver...