By: Avery E. Kolb
Published by Virginia Historical Society
In The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Oct., 1980, Vol. 88. No. 4
Pages 401-414
I have to say that my research on the BONA NOVA actually did line up with the information in this article on when this ship did arrive in Jamestown. There are only THREE (3) dates when it ARRIVED at Jamestown.
From section on page 407 of original article that had information about the BONA NOVA:
November/December........1619 with 100 people on board.
January..............................1621 with 120 people on board.
April/June.........................1622 with 50 people on board.
As stated before, there are dates all over the place online, ranging from 1618 to 1623, but these three dates are the only valid and well documented dates of arrival of the Bona Nova to Jamestown.
Here are some important comments made by the author of this article that really help us understand the situation in early Jamestown, and the arrival of indentured servants and other persons to Jamestown.
On page 1 of the article...
“There are numerous discrepancies of this type in early Virginia records. The arrival times reported for persons coming to American shores in the seventheenth century vary considerably from the arrival times established for the ships on which they came.”
“Both the completion of indentures and entitlements to land were closely tied to these dates.”
**The term “ancient planters” was used to refer to those who arrived very early in the establishement of the Jamestown colony, before 1616. They had to pay their own passsage and had to stay for at least three years in the colony. These early settlers of means would get the largest plots of land.**
“The large number of apparent errors between ships voyaging in one year and certain of their passengers ostensibly arriving one to three or more years earlier has been the cause of considerable confusion.”
On page numbered 401 and over to page 402 of article...
“The possible dishonesty of the planters or the carelessness of the record keepers, either of which might be inferred from this, has been lightly accepted or negligently passed over by later students and historians.”
“Almost without exception the discrepancies can be explained.”
“...the available company records are neither complete nor accurate. Nor are we sure in the case of the musters and land records what may have been asked and what may have been the understaning of the persons making the responses.”
**Many of those who came as servants were most likely illiterate, and not well educated if they could read.**
“There are reported ship arrivals of thich there are nor records other than the passenger claim,...”
“...there are known passenger ships for which there are no passenger claimants...”
“Simple attempts to resolve the difficulties tend only to perpetuate or magnify the problem.”
“...one study, taking passenger claims as the basis for determining ship arrivals, shows twenty to thirty percent more voyages to Virginia per vessel studied than actually took place in the period.”
On page numbered 403 of the article...
“...cases of different ships with the same or similar names and ships which had more than one name.”
**This is true of the ships like the Tygre (aka: Tiger) or Francis Bonaventure is not the same ship as the Bonaventure.**
“Another difficulty is the impreciseness of ship schedules.”
“Voyages were of uncertain duration, varying in their passage of the Atlantic as much as from five weeks to five months, depending on hazards of the journey and whether or not stops were made in Bermuda or the West Indies.”
“...original documents in the British Public Record Office and in the Library of Congress. These proved fairly reliable but still subject to some judgment where handwritten entries are unclear.”
“...juxtaposing of the lists indentifies the inconsistencies and immediately suggests some explanations.”
On page numbered 404 of the article...
“The most obvious cause of apprent insonsistency in ship arrival times is the one which has long been known but only infrequently clarified. The official and ecclesistical calendars in use during the early seventeenth century.”
On page numbered 405 of the article...
“...ships arrived most often in mid-winter or early spring and passengers remained on board for days or weeks before debarking. It is quite logical to assume that they did knot know their precise arrival time nor how, exactly, to express their arrival month and year.”
**This could have happened with Thomas Ottowell. If he was on the Bona Nova voyage that arrived at Jamestown in November/December of 1619 or January of 1621 he and rest of the passengers would most likely have remained on board the ship for some time. They would not have had shelter, etc. on land until later in the season. I personally believe that Thomas Ottowell arrived in January of 1621 on the Bona Nova based on other clues I have read that I think substantiate my opinion. Below is information that states that:
“John Russell, age 19, who was on board the Bona Nova in 1621 when Blaney made his second trip to Virginia.”
According to the 1624 Census/Muster is shows that John Russell and Thomas Ottowell both worked for Edward Blaney. See the Muster below.
Continued from page 405 of article...
“Transcription errors, the double calendar, and the impreciseness of schedules cannot explain all the inconsistencies in the ship passenger records. But if we assume both honesty and competence in our Virginia forebears an explanation of the other apprent errors must lie in a different direction.”
“...the problem may be in our own misreading of the time, or in our attempts to interpret their thought and responses in the light of today rather than as it must have been for them in their time.”
On page numbered 406 of article...
“...the precise question of “when did you arrive?” does not ring true. It assumes an association with the new land which had not yet developed. Those first planters were still oriented toweard their homeland, to which many expected to return.”
“The respondents may well have answered with reference to their leaving home rather than their arrival in Virginia. The response may not have been definitive at all. It may only have referenced events in England which were remembered as being associated with the time of preparation or departure, as “our daughter had just been born,” or “it was our last Christmas with friends,” or “it was the year the plague began in London,” or “it was about the tenth year of the reign of King James.”
“When the factor of response to a different type of question is taken with the others, the passenger reports or claims in the table tend to reinforce rather conflict with the data of ship arrival times and their estimated passengers. A degree of confirmation and consistency is now apparent. Even some cases of passengers of undated arrivals can be cleared up.”
“...we may have hit upon a very human feature of the earliest Virginia settlers. Home for them was not the new land but the place from which they had come, the place to which most would never be able to return.”
**ALL OF THE ABOVE INFORMATION IS WHY WE MAY NEVER KNOW FOR CERTAIN THE EXACT YEAR THAT THOMAS OTTOWELL ARRIVED IN JAMESTOWN – BUT IT DOES NARROW IT DOWN TO BETWEEN 1619 AND 1622!😄
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