Was the ship that brought slaves to Point Comfort in 1619 a Dutch Man-of-War or a British ship?

Factual Questions
1

Hi
Was the ship that brought slaves to Point Comfort (Jamestown) in 1619 a Dutch Man-of-War or a British ship? I’d like to know which version serious scholars accept as correct?

I look forward to your feedback.
I’ve seen this :

“Rolfe mistakenly described the ship as a “Dutch man of Warr,” perhaps because it bore a Dutch letter of marque. “He brought not any thing but 20. and odd Negroes,” Rolfe wrote, which the governor, Argall’s successor Sir George Yeardley, and the cape merchant, Abraham Peirsey, “bought for victualle [food] … at the best and easyest rate they could.” Some (or perhaps all) of the Africans were then transported to Jamestown and sold.”

and
“1619 - Sometime in the first half of the year, the Portuguese slave ship São João Bautista leaves the port of São Paulo de Loanda, a Portuguese military outpost in West Africa, and sails for Vera Cruz, New Spain (present-day Mexico). It carries a cargo of 350 enslaved Africans.
July–August 1619 - Two English ships, the White Lion and the Treasurer, both sailing out of the Netherlands, intercept the Portuguese slaver São João Bautista off the coast of Campeche in present-day Mexico. After stealing fifty or so slaves, the ships sail to Virginia with the intention of selling them.
Late August 1619 - The White Lion, captained by John Colyn Jope, arrives at Point Comfort, where Jope sells “20. and odd Negroes” in exchange for food. These are the first Africans to enter the Virginia colony. Four days later, the Treasurer arrives and sells an unknown number of its slaves.”

but mostly this:

"In August 1619 “20 and odd Blacks” arrived on the Dutch Man-of-War ship at Jamestown colony. This is the earliest record of Black people in colonial America [36] These colonists were freemen and indentured servants.[37][38][39] "

2

Africans first appeared in Virginia in 1619, brought by English privateers from a Spanish slave ship they had intercepted.

3

I didn’t expect the Spanish!

4

Nobody expects the Spanish! Or their Inquisitions!

5

I think you answered your own question. The White Lion was an English ship carrying Dutch letters of marque.

6

Thanks Captain America. But was it a Portuguese or Spanish slave ship that was intercepted near Mexico? One Wikipedia source says it was Spanish, while another says it was Portuguese.

7

That the slaves must previously have been on the São João Bautista was only established in 1997 by Engel Sluiter in his article, “New Light on the ‘20. and Odd Negroes’ Arriving in Virginia, August 1619”, William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 54, no. 2, 1997, pp. 395–398 (available on JSTOR). Sluiter implies that the São João Bautista was Portuguese, but this point was made more explicitly by John Thornton in his follow-up article, “The African Experience of the ‘20. and Odd Negroes’ Arriving in Virginia in 1619”, William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 55, no. 3, 1998, pp. 421–434 (also available on JSTOR), which set out the background in much greater detail.

That others have got confused on this detail is however not too surprising. In 1619 Spain and Portugal were both ruled by Philip III and II. Although this was only a personal union and Portugal and its colonies were administered separately, it is easy for the more careless to get them muddled up.

8

Thanks for that APB. Very helpful.