Jacobs are the utmost Americans. Arriving from Angola by the early to mid 1600s. Absorbing the Dutch, English, and Scottish Highlanders with whom we worked. Always adjacent to the indigenous people wherever we lived. In the beginning enslaved in the same households.
For this country we bear both a unique responsibility and demand.
- We created this. At indigenous expense.
- And we have not always been compensated for our toil. A debt must be acknowledged.
Fully ‘American’, at least ten free colored southeast NC Jacobs fought as patriots during the Revolutionary War. Eight surnamed Jacobs, two Webb.
Peter Jacobs fought in Germantown PA, Fall 1777 and Monmouth NJ, June1778 – both battles led by General George Washington. In between was the winter of Valley Forge. Jacobs’ First NC Regiment was either at Valley Forge with Washington, or part of the troops he stationed nearby.
George Washington, husband of Martha Dandridge Custis and step-father of the Custis children, had no idea that the free colored Jacobs men fighting with him were from a man whom John Custis manumitted in 1700. The Jacobs had probably lost the name ‘Custis’ in their oral history as well.
American Jacobs of color have been forged by water, wares, and war.
Scroll down to begin the journey
Jacobs as Americans
The story of the Jacobs in southeast NC is well known and documented.
Many groups of people – identifying variously as Black, Native American, white – across the South and Midwest trace their lineage to the free colored Jacobs of southeast NC circa 1750s. Their historians could see Gabriel Jacobs, free, in Northampton County VA circa 1700 and had gelled on the premise that NC Jacobs came from there. But there was no strong paper or DNA trail.
The publishing of a ‘new’ earlier 1745 Jacobs record (“Thanks!” @ Paul Heinegg) set in Northeast NC opened a door.
The 1745 record was a transaction between a Jacobs and a Pugh.
Two historians noted that the southeast NC Jacobs were neighbors of a Pugh family. They began to trace the Pugh family, and tracked Jacobs with them – all the way back to Eastern Shore/Northampton County VA.
Jacobs in Southeast North Carolina, Coastal Plain
Jacobs appear to have landed in Duplin & Cumberland counties in early 1750s and planted in Pender/New Hanover by early 1760s. From there, Jacobs spread to neighboring counties.
Two Jacobs families did not live in Pender/New Hanover county in early 1760s: (1) Abraham Jacobs was down the road in neighboring Sampson County, NC. (2) Isaac Jacobs was in Richland, SC
The southeast NC Jacobs moved in as the final remnants of the original people of the area were being absorbed into the general population or moving elsewhere. The original people were nameless by 1750 – not listed by tribal name in written English records.
Jacobs are believed to have lived near and with the remnant people.
Isaac Jacobs in Northeast North Carolina, Coastal Plain
The newly-found record shows that Isaac Jacobs was indebted to the estate of Francis Pugh for £500 in 1745, Chowan County NC. A new date for arrival of Jacobs in NC, and first sighting in northeast NC.
£500 was a decent amount of money. This shows a relationship between Jacobs & Pugh.
We recollected that Abraham Jacobs was living next to Shadrach Pugh in southeastern NC. We began to research the Pugh family.
Pughs were global merchants, ship-owners and faux-friends to original people. They tended to live next to native lands – and end up owning them.
In Chowan and Bertie counties, the Pughs lived next to Chowanoke and Tuscarora. They were the Indian Commissioners for the Tuscarora. ‘Jacobs’ and ‘Pugh” surnames went with the Tuscarora when they left NC for NY in late 1700s.
The Pughs Were from Southeast VA-Tidewater
The Pughs lived in Southeast VA before northeast NC—Nansemond County. They took land from the Nansemond tribe in 1695 and lived adjacent.
Nansemond courthouse records burned three times. There is no written record of the Jacobs alongside the Pughs in Nansemond. Only church vestry records of Pughs at all.
However – prior to knowing about the Pughs – we had known there was a Tidewater VA Jacobs presence, because southeast NC Jacobs DNA match a free colored Nansemond County family named Cuffee.
The Pugh relationship clarifies how and why the Jacobs were in Tidewater mingling with Cuffees.
Across the Chesapeake Bay to Eastern Shore
From Nansemond County VA to Eastern Shore VA is eighteen miles across the Chesapeake Bay.
Gabriel Jacobs was enslaved by John Custis on the Eastern Shore of VA and freed in his 1696 will. How and why did the Jacobs cross the bay to be in Nansemond before 1745?
- The Pughs were global ship-owning merchants.
- John Custis was a global ship-owning merchant. Custis’ 1696 will freed Gabriel Jacobs — after he worked four more years on Custis’ ship.
- Gabriel was a seaman.
Francis and Theophilus Pugh married women from Eastern Shore. They traded and socialized with Shore inhabitants. Francis Pugh’s wife’s family (the Harmanson/Savages) administrated the will of Gabriel’s son Daniel in 1733. And they bought and freed his in-law Daniel Webb.
Conclusion: Gabriel’s sons and or grandsons were recruited by Pughs to work on their ships. That explains why the wealthy English family and free Angolan family were together in three different VA/NC locations.
Trade Between Eastern Shore, Tidewater, & New Amsterdam
The primary domestic American trading partner of Tidewater and Eastern Shore was the Dutch colony of New Netherlands, city of New Amsterdam. This is New York, New York (Manhattan) today.
Their parent countries – England and the Netherlands – were their main supply line & market. Their sole existence was as a resource to their king.
As seamen, the Jacobs worked on the domestic trade loop. It is what enabled them to move from Eastern Shore to Tidewater. And the global trade loop is what brought them to America as chattel.
Gabriel Jacobs on the Eastern Shore of VA
Gabriel was Generation Two of Africans in America. The "first" Africans arrived in the 1619 in Tidewater, VA (Hampton). Several of them ended up across the bay on Eastern Shore.
Gabriel was listed as a "boy" in a 1655 Eastern Shore estate inventory. He was inherited by John Custis. We assume Gabriel's birth around 1640.
By 1662, Gabriel married a woman named Barbary, who probably had the same Angolan ancestry as he did. They had at least two children—Daniel and Jenny.
Gabriel Jacobs was a seaman. His sons and grandsons were likely ship pilots or seaman. The skilled occupation of waterman employed many men of color. Enslaved or free, these men enjoyed more autonomy and equality than farm or house workers. The importance of colored waterman continued and is documented in many Revolutionary War and Civil War records.
There were very few Africans in America when Gabriel was either kidnapped and transported to Eastern Shore prior to 1655 or born there around 1640.
There were more European indentured servants than Africans in this period. The slave trade had not begun in earnest. On the one hand, this meant a lack of ship manifests to search for Gabriel by name. On the other hand, it greatly narrowed the search for his route and roots.
In the 1600s, Africans in America were Angolans who had been stolen twice. Once by enemy kingdoms in the Congo—and sold to the Portuguese. And again, by Dutch/English, taken from the Portuguese. This was Gabriel Jacobs' story.
Global Trade Routes
Spain/Portugal-Angola-Brazil
Amsterdam-Curacaos-New Amsterdam
Some of the Congo kingdoms were at war. Europeans were at war, too.
Global trading from Africa was ruled by the Portuguese at the time Gabriel was born. Portugal had a colony in Angola, had converted the ruling kingdom to Catholicism, and was exploiting wars between the African kingdoms to obtain a steady supply of war-captured Congo people.
Portugal shipped the kidnapped people to Brazilian sugar plantations, but their ships were often pirated by Dutch. Humans were among the cargo that the pirates would steal, mid-ocean.
That is how Gabriel or his parents got from Luanda, Angola to either New Amsterdam-then-Eastern-Shore, or directly to Eastern Shore.
Europeans were at war, too. Dutch often pirated Portuguese ships. Humans were among the cargo that the pirates would steal in mid-ocean. The Dutch pirates/privateers intercepted the ship containing Gabriel* and transferred him to their ship.
Dutchmen traded between their home in the Netherlands and their colonies in New Netherlands/New Amsterdam (what is New York today) and Curacao in the Caribbean. They also heavily traded with the English in Europe and the English colony of Virginia—Tidewater and Eastern Shore.
Gabriel* was taken to New Amsterdam-then-Eastern-Shore, or directly to Eastern Shore.
(A genetic footprint in New Amsterdam, and the existence of Jacobs & Cuffee surname in Long Island Shinnecock tribe, both need to be researched further)
Jacobs as Angolan
1500s: Africa, America, and Europe were separate, evolved, thriving continents. In each, most people were sustenance farmers/gatherers. And in each art, astrology, literature & sailing existed.
In Africa, America and Europe the people grouped into clans/tribes, then along hierarchical social tiers. Warfare between the groups was common; angling for power and resources.
Mastery of the water changed everything.
New shipbuilding techniques made crossing the Atlantic easier. The three continents -- each with their own inner conflicts -- faced each other as never before. There began to emerge a global conflict over power and resources.
Navigating through conflict and oppression...
This was Gabriel Jacobs’ story
Credits:
Created with images by davide bonaldo - "wooden pier in south carolina low country marsh at sunset with green grass" • Archivist - "Scene on board a slave ship. Date: circa 1830" • Vladimir Grablev - "Buck Hollow Overlook Along Skyline Drive"