In 1696 Jonathan Dickinson left Jamaica with the intention of settling with his family in Philadelphia. Dickinson and his family, which included his wife, Mary, their six-month-old son, Jonathan, and his ten slaves, took passage on the barkentine "Reformation". The "Journal" opens with a list of everybody on the "Reformation" which looks like the "dramatis personae" of a play. This list included the Commander (or Master) and the Mate of the "Reformation", five sailors, "the Master's boy", "the Master's Negro", the Dickinsons and their slaves, Robert Barrow, a prominent Quaker preacher, Benjamin Allen, a "kinsman" of Dickinson, and Venus, "an Indian Girl".