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John Graweere also known as John Gowen (ca. 1615–living 1641) was one of the First Africans in Virginia, who was a servant who earned enough money to pay for his son's freedom. He filed a lawsuit to free his son, arguing that he wanted to raise him as a Christian.
Jul 29, 2021 · John Gowen lived a remarkable life in Virginia. His story is being ignored as the idea of him enslaved upon arrival as the first Angolans is a sorry bastardization of what he did.
African-American John Gowen/ Geaween was the servant of an Englishman named William Evans in Elizabeth City, Virginia. John Gowen had first arrived in Virginia prior to 1630.
One of the oldest and well documented African American families in English America are the descendants of Angolan John Gowen and Margaret Cornish who arrived...
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- Ric Murphy
John Graweere also known as John Gowen (ca. 1615–living 1641) was one of the First Africans in Virginia, who was a servant who earned enough money to pay for his son's freedom. He filed a lawsuit to free his son, arguing that he wanted to raise him as a Christian.
John Gowen I (originally “Geaween” and sometimes mistranslated “Graweere”) was born about 1615. By 1640, Gowen, described as a “negro”, was the freed servant of William Evans of Virginia. John Gowen, a hog farmer, became a freeman in the first generation of British North America.
John Gowen, senior, retired on a pension of £52.50 per annum on 23 January 1823, assisted by references from John Macarthur and Rev. Samuel Marsden. As a Liverpool landholder John applied to Governor Thomas Brisbane for more land and was granted 280 acres in that town on 15 July 1824.
