Were the first African Americans in Jamestown slaves or indentured servants?

Question

Recently, Governor Ralph Northam of Virginia referred to the first African Americans to arrive in Jamestown as [indentured servants](https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2019/02/10/ralph-northam-indentured-servants-sot-nr-vpx.cnn). This quickly created a twitter storm of corrections, first by [random users](https://twitter.com/WvuAlphaSoldier/status/1094793776588042240), then by [historians](https://twitter.com/historianess/status/1094683488614338560?s=19). However, wikipedia seems to [bear the governor out](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_Virginia). It's pretty clear that the institution of the pure chattel slavery was in completely in place a generation later, with all the horrific consequences thereof. But was this something in place from the start, or was it something that evolved in the first few dacades of the colony.

Answer 1

The Governor is very WRONG! Fifty Africans from the Kongo were captured from a Spanish ship, the San Juan Bautista when it left Luanda, the capital of Portuguese Angola. They were captured by two British privateers the White Lion while they were being transported from NDONGO to the Spanish colony of Vera Cruz. The British ships brought 50 of the captured Africans to Jamestown where they were enslaved.