Johanna Sakponou stars in a film on Jamestown (2007)

The Jamestown Foundation called us. A man named Ernest Skinner was putting together a project to celebrate 400 years sine the first ships with English soldiers and settlers arrived in the lands of Powhatan, Virginia and created the Jamestown Settlement with people like John Smith and John Rolfe whose names have become famous in Virginia’s history.

Less famous have been the Black Virginians who helped build Virginia. In fact I often say: “White people arrived in Jamestown in 1607 and for several years they struggled to stay alive. Then some Black people arrived in 1619, and these Africans began to build what would become Virginia.”

The first twenty Africans who reached Jamestown were people from Angola, who had been enslaved by the Portuguese and “rescued” on the high seas by a Dutch privateer. When they arrived in Jamestown, these unfortunate Africans had been traveling for months. They cannot be called ‘slaves’ because Virginia did not install a system of enslavement until 1647; but they were certainly not ‘free’ because they had nowhere to go. So the twenty Africans – and others who soon joined them from the lands of the Mali Empire – were more-or-less indentured servants with no hope of gaining anything like ‘freedom’ in this land where they knew no one but each other.

One of these twenty Angolans was a woman. From Vatican records, researchers have discovered that she was seized from her family, brought to the beach and baptized with the name Angela before being shoved onto the slaving ship that was supposed to carry her to a life of slavery in Brazil.

Why was Angela baptized and how do we know it was she? Baptism was a law imposed by the Pope, who approved of slavery provided that 1) the unfortunate captives had been baptized into the Roman Catholic Church, and 2) that the King of Portugal shared some of the profits with the Church. Christianity has a sad history when it comes to Human Rights.

Because Angela was a woman, however, she was one of a comparatively small number of identifiable people who were baptized on the Angolan beach: and historians have been able to identify Angela from the baptism records. Of course they have no idea who Angela was before she was given the name of an angel.

Ernest Skinner has obtained my name because of the Mali connection, and he asked me to recruit a young actress to play Angela, the first African woman who ever trod on North American soil, and who arrived in 1619.

The gentle and lovely and intelligent Johanna, elder daughter of my friends Lydie and Francis Sakponou was a student at Virginia Commonwealth University, member of VFoM: just the right age, and a beautiful West African woman. So I asked their permission, and then invited Johanna Sakponou to call Mr Skinner. When the Jamestown Foundation videos appeared for the 400th Anniversary, Johanna duly appeared on the screen of the website Jamestown Chronicles, dressed in a fetching 17th century bonnet describing her journey from Angola to Jamestown. She looked beautiful, and she sounded as good as she looked. It is sad that Angela had such a sad story to tell: but education is what this is all about.

watch the video here: https://www.historyisfun.org/sites/jamestown-chronicles/film_angela_hi.html

Her Majesty the Queen Elisabeth, Price Philip and other dignitaries arrived in April 2007, and they were able to watch Johanna in a starring role alongside the actors playing John Rolfe, John Smith, Pocahontas and King James 1 of England and VI of Scotland after whom the Jamestown Settlement was named.

As an actress, Johanna had already become famous before she reached the age of 19. But like the real Angela, she found herself playing the part of someone that – really and truly – she was not.

Jamestown re-enactor talking about life in the 17th century (left)

Replicas have been built of the three ships that launched Jamestown (right)