Unlike the Spanish, the English explorers brought no blacks with them on their expeditions to the New World. No blacks were present in the first English colonies in North America, neither in the lost colony of Sir Walter Raleigh, nor in the little settlement at Jamestown. It was 12 years after the founding of Jamestown that blacks first made their appearance there. In 1619, a Dutch ship, headed for the West Indies, dropped anchor. The captain was short of food and other provisions, and he wanted to exchange the blacks for supplies. He traded them not as slaves but as indentured workers, which meant that they had to work for a few years without pay. These 20 blacks became the first settlers from Africa to make their homes in an English colony. Five years later, in 1624, little William Tucker was born. He was the first black child to be born in what was to …