1500s: Africa, America, and Europe were separate, evolved, thriving continents. In each, most people were substenance 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.
By the 1600s, Africans in America were Angolans who had been stolen twice. Once by the enemy kingdoms in the Congo—and sold to the Portuguese. And again, by the Dutch/English, taken from the Portuguese. This was Gabriel Jacobs' story.
War, wares, and water spawned the existence of America’s Jacobs of color.
Scroll down to begin the journey
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.
Gabriel Jacobs as Angolan
Gabriel Jacobs (*or his parents) was likely born into one of the interior kingdoms of the Congo. The Kingdom of Kongo ruled today’s Angola, Republic of Congo, and Democratic Republic of Congo. Ndongo, Imbangala and Mbundu were among the peer or subsidiary kingdoms.
Portugal ruled the global trade from Africa. They arrived in 1483 and had a colony in Angola. The King of Kongo soon converted to Catholicism and built trade relationships with the Portuguese.
Some of the Congo kingdoms were at war. This was encouraged by the Portuguese as a means to acquire war captives.
Kidnapped by enemy kingdoms, Gabriel* was marched from the interior to the Portuguese port city of Luanda, Angola. Sold by fellow Congo people to the Portuguese. Loaded onto a ship, his original destination was Brazilian sugar plantations.
Global Trade Routes
Spain/Portugal-Angola-Brazil
Amsterdam-Curacaos-New Amsterdam
Some of the Congo kingdoms were at war. Europeans were at war, too.
Dutch ships pirated the Portuguese ships headed to Brazil, and stole their goods — including humans.
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.
Trade Between New Amsterdam, Eastern Shore, and Tidewater
New Amsterdam and Eastern Shore traded so heavily together that several Dutch families moved from New Amsterdam to Eastern Shore.
People also migrated directly from Amsterdam or Rotterdam in the Netherlands to Eastern Shore – including John Custis, a global ship-owning merchant.
When the English and Dutch went to war in Europe, the English governors had to remind/reprimand the Eastern Shore colonists to stop trading with the "enemy"—the Dutch.
This is important because Jacobs have New Amsterdam DNA matches, and there were Jacobs in the Shinnecock tribe on Long Island.
Gabriel Jacobs on the Eastern Shore of VA
The trade loop brought Gabriel Jacobs to America. He was a kidnapped solo child, or he was born to Generation One Angolans who came this way.
Gabriel was Generation Two of Africans in America. The ‘first’ Africans arrived in 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 seamen. 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 watermen continued and is documented in many Revolutionary War and Civil War records.
At the same time, Francis and Theophilus Pugh traveled back and forth across the Chesapeake Bay between Eastern Shore and Nansemond. They came into contact with seaman Gabriel Jacobs, his son Daniel, and grandsons. The Pughs, global ship-owning merchants, needed the Jacobs men on the Nansemond, Elizabeth, Chowan, and Pasquotank Rivers.
In 1696 Custis’ will ordered Gabriel freed—after he worked four more years on Custis’ ship. Gabriel’s son Daniel was free on Eastern Shore in early 1700s, dying in 1733. Gabriel’s other sons/grandsons were likely sailors as well.
Jacobs in Southeast Virginia, Tidewater
The Pughs were global ship-owning merchants. From Eastern Shore VA to Nansemond County, VA to is eighteen miles across the Chesapeake Bay. The Pugh family lived in Nansemond. They arrived in Jamestown 1665. 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. And they bought and freed his in-law Daniel Webb.
Gabriel’s sons and/or grandsons were recruited by Pughs to work on their ships. They moved to Nansemond to work for the Pughs. This explains why the wealthy English family and free Angolan family would be together in three different Virginia /North Carolina locations.
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.
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.
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 North Carolina for New York in late 1700s.
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. They moved at the same time as the Pughs took land there. They probably moved to settle the Pughs land, which was required by the government. Then they took land for themselves.
From New Hanover, Jacobs spread to neighboring counties.
Two Jacobs families did not live in New Hanover county in early 1760s: (1) Abraham Jacobs was living next to Shadrach Pugh in Duplin 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.
Jacobs as Americans
Today, 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
"War, wares and water spawned our existence in America. We worked on the waters that transported us here. That work, and those waters, provided the path to tie us back from southeast NC to upper NC, lower VA and Eastern Shore. To a time when there were few Africans in the colonies. And they came from Angola.
This is our story
Credits:
Created with images by Vladimir Grablev - "Buck Hollow Overlook Along Skyline Drive" • Archivist - "Scene on board a slave ship. Date: circa 1830" • davide bonaldo - "wooden pier in south carolina low country marsh at sunset with green grass"