OPINION:
I was disturbed by the caption under the picture of the Sydney King painting featured in “Historians weigh in on battle of birth date of America” (Page 1, Feb. 21). The caption reads: “A Sidney King painting depicts Virginia in 1619 as a Dutch frigate docks at Point Comfort bringing 20 African slaves to be traded to the settlers for food. Some historians call it “narrow and ideological narrative.”
We know it was the British raider the White Lion that traded 20 or so Angolans for supplies. The White Lion, sailing under a letter of marque, seized a number of Angolan captives from the Sao Joao Bautista, a Portuguese slave ship destined for the islands in the Caribbean and South America. No one knows just how these captives were treated, but many historians think it was as indentured servants. At the time, slavery was not legal in Virginia.
JIM HONTZ
Riverdale, Maryland
