This blog post owes a big thank you to Christina Vida, Heather Lodge, the staff of the Windsor Historical Society , and The Loomis Chafee School for their research on Nancy. In addition, Eric Lurie, Research Project Lead for the Fairfield Slavery Project, investigation of Toney Bartram’s life is also commendable. As archives continue to be explored, other stories like Nancy’s will come to light.
A Portrait of Nancy Toney (1774-1857) by Osmert Burr Loomis, ca. 1862
In Part II of my article on the Black Loyalists of Fairfield County, CT, I discussed how Toney Bartram (also known as Tony Barton) became a freedom-seeker after fleeing Fairfield County when it was burned down by Loyalists on July 8, 1779. Although Toney’s name does not appear in The Book of Negroes, he escaped with his two daughters, 9-year-old Nancy and 7-year-old Flora. Like many Black Loyalists in British-occupied New York City, Nancy and Flora were kidnapped and faced the brutal threat of re-enslavement. While Flora’s fate remains unknown, Nancy was abducted by a Loyalist sea captain and merchant named Henry Rogers, who attempted to sell her back to her former enslaver. Rogers’ actions flagrantly defied the British government’s certificates of freedom for Black Loyalists.
Anthony Bartram’s petition filed in 1783 trying to reclaim Nancy/ Nova Scotia Archives
As a Black Loyalist holding a General Birch Certificate, Toney Bartram exercised his rights as a newly freed citizen of the British Empire by filing a petition to reclaim his daughters. Despite his valiant efforts, he was unsuccessful. In November 1783, Toney boarded the brig Concord bound for Port Mouton, Nova Scotia, tragically leaving his daughters behind.
After enduring numerous hardships and deprivations, Toney was granted land in Tracadie, Nova Scotia, in 1787. According to Lurie, by 1792, nine years after leaving New York, Toney had established himself as a sailmaker in Guysborough.
In the 1871 census for Manchester, Guysborough, Nova Scotia, a 39-year-old woman identified as “African,” named Mary Bartrom, is recorded living with her four daughters—Sarah, Lidia, Sarah (likely an error in recording), and Caroline—as well as her son, James. While Mary’s exact relationship to Toney is unclear—whether she was his daughter or daughter-in-law—the survival of his surname in a region rich with Black Loyalist history is a powerful testament to Toney Bartram’s enduring legacy as a freedom-seeker.
The Burning of Fairfield County, CT on July 7-8, 1779
Burning of Fairfield – Connecticut Historical Society
On July, 8, 1779, under the direction ofGeneral William Tryon, British Loyalists launched an epic assault on the Town of Fairfield, CT, which included parts of today’s Towns of Bridgeport, Westport, and Southport. Tryon’s attack was twofold; he wanted to crush dissent in both New Haven and Fairfield. Soldiers plundered, murdered, raped, and punished residents as they burned the town down. They carted off enslaved people, Free People of Color, and were also welcomed by freedom-seekers who wanted to join their cause. It is in this battle environment, that Toney and his family made a move.
Attributed to Osbert Burr Loomis, Nancy Toney, oil on canvas, ca. 1862 – Photograph from the collection of the Loomis Chaffee School Archives, Loomis Chaffee School, Windsor, Connecticut
Toney Bartram was married to an enslaved woman named Nanny, though they were owned by different enslavers. Toney was first enslaved by Jeremiah Sherwood of Green Farms, who died in 1777. Afterward, Toney became the property of Sherwood’s neighbor, Job Bartram, from whom he fled in 1779. Nanny, on the other hand, was enslaved by Rev. Andrew Eliot, minister of the First Congregational Church of Fairfield (then known as Christ Church). Just two days after the assault on Fairfield, Rev. Eliot sent his brother a vivid and harrowing account of the events (see pp. 283-84 in a History of Fairfield County, Connecticut)
What became of Toney’s wife, Nanny, remains a mystery. Did she flee with him and later perish? Was she killed during the attack? Was she kidnapped by someone else? Perhaps their children were living with Toney in the Bartram household rather than with Nanny, which may explain why he fled with them.
We do know that Rev. Eliot officiated Toney and Nanny’s marriage on February 25, 1775, at Christ Church. As was customary, the marriage was arranged by their enslavers. At the time, Toney and Nanny were already parents to a son, Toney Jr., baptized on December 2, 1770, and a daughter, Anna (later called Nancy), born on November 27, 1774. Sadly, Toney Jr. may have died from an illness on December 27, 1776. Their daughter Flora was born on June 23, 1776.
Connecticut, US Church Records and Abstracts, 1630-1920/Ancestry.com
Captain Henry Rogers followed through on his grim promise, selling Nancy to Hezekiah Bradley of Greenhill, CT, a cousin by marriage to Jeremiah Sherwood. Bradley then gave Nancy to his daughter, Charlotte, as a wedding gift. When Charlotte married Dr. Hezekiah Chaffee Jr., Nancy moved with the Chaffee household to Windsor, CT. The family lived next door to Hezekiah Chaffee Sr., who owned three enslaved women whom he emancipated in 1810.
However, Nancy was not granted freedom. In his 1818 will, Hezekiah Chaffee Jr. bequeathed Nancy to his daughter, Abigail S. Chaffee Loomis, the wife of Colonel James Loomis. Census records from Windsor in 1810 and 1820 show that Nancy was the only enslaved person documented in the town during that time.
Close Uo of Hezekiah Bradley’s 1818 will.
In his book, Historical Sketches, Jabez H. Hayden remembered “Old Nance” this way:
In census records from 1830 to 1850, Nancy is listed as a Free Person of Color. However, as Heather Lodge notes, no official record of her emancipation has been found. It’s possible that the Chaffee family “unofficially emancipated” her. Nancy continued to live with the Loomis Chaffee family until her death, performing household and childcare duties.
Abigail S. Loomis Chaffee’s son, Osbert Burr Loomis, later painted A Portrait of Nancy based on a family daguerreotype. Osbert was a young child when Nancy entered the Chaffee household, and it’s likely that he had fond memories of her from his early years.
May the Circle Be Unbroken: What’s in a Name?
It is especially poignant that Nancy chose her father’s first name as her surname. For enslaved and formerly enslaved people, names were often reclaimed or passed down as a way of honoring and preserving the memory of their ancestors. These names served not only as a connection to their roots but also as a source of strength in the face of immense grief and hardship. Although Toney Bartram never reunited with his daughters, I believe their spirits reunited as they transitioned onward. Nancy was a true survivor, having endured the American Revolution, the War of 1812, and the cruelties of enslavement. I’m certain her father instilled in her the knowledge that, no matter what, she would always be loved. May they all rest in power!
The names of Kitchawan (Wappinger Federation) Black Patriots, Isaac Sharp, Absalom Moony/Money, John Moony/Money, are ERASED NO MORE. We thank them, and their descendants, for their service to this country. Decolonizing the archives is how we, the descendant’s of enslaved and Free People of Color, repair historic accounts of our ancestors and write them back into history. It can be done. Thank you, Cousin Billie, I am sharing your ancestral story with me and allowing me to pick up your research where you left off. I know your ancestors are rejoicing now. Praise be to them in the highest.
This article is a more extensive version of the “Repairing Erasure: Indigenous Identity and Paper Genocide” webinar I gave on October 19, 2023, at the 2023 National Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society’s Conference Hiding in Plain Sight: Recovering the Erased Histories of our Ancestors in the United States and the Caribbean.
As a descendant of the Munsee Lenape, early Afro-Dutch settlers, and some of the first Africans hailing from Central, West Africa and Madagascar who arrived in New Amsterdam during the early 1600s, I’ve had the privilege of bearing witness to the systematic erasure of my ancestors from history, a tragic narrative that continues to persist throughout the ongoing settler colonial project. The overarching goal of settler colonialism has consistently revolved around replacing the original inhabitants of Lenapehoking with waves of settlers who, in substantial numbers, arrived in the early 1600s, solidifying and imposing their distinct national identity and notions of sovereignty. This nefarious process, marked by genocide, enslavement, dispossession, and coupled with the insidious practice of paper genocide, has tragically contributed to perpetuating the mistaken belief that the people of Lenapehoking were rendered extinct.
Here is Part 2 of a 2-part article on The Fate of the Black Loyalists of Fairfield County, CT. Part 1 of this article series lays the groundwork to understanding the position that Black Loyalists found themselves in while serving the British Crown. Part 2 tells the individual stories of what happened to some of the Black Loyalists from Fairfield County, Connecticut, after they arrived in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Canada, and Sierra Leone. I approach this topic as a family historian-genealogist and a descendant of enslaved/formerly enslaved African and Indigenous peoples who served as Black Patriots and Black Loyalists in Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey. I believe that their remarkable contributions to both the United States and Britain have been overlooked. It is important to recognize that their acts of resistance and agency positioned them as the
“Founding Fathers” in the US and Canada.
While this article does not provide a comprehensive overview of Connecticut Loyalists’
involvement in the War, it offers a snapshot of the significant events that Black Loyalists of Fairfield County faced. Their fates highlight how the promises made to them by the Loyalists ultimately turned out to be grand gestures that led to a false sense of freedom. While some may view Black Loyalists as “the losers’ losers,” we regard them as heroes for pursuing liberty, freedom, and justice in the face of great odds. The decision they all made to ta The Fate of the Black Loyalists of Fairfiled County, CT Part 2ke a chance on freedom is perhaps the most American of all stories.
I had a wonderful time speaking with Andrew Martin of The Family Histories Podcast. We discussed my genealogy/family history background, my 4X great-grandmother, Antonia Snyder, who was one of New Jersey’s last enslaved people to be freed by the Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment, as well as one of my brick walls, my great-grandfather Robert Henry Fischer. Somehow, I managed to take a trip in a time machine and ended up in colonial Peru! What a trip that was. Who said genealogy was boring???
If you like my episode, please feel free to subscribe to The Family Histories Podcast to listen to other fascinating episodes by clicking here: https://familyhistoriespodcast.com/ .
Here is Part 1 of a 2-part article on The Fate of the Black Loyalists of Fairfield County, CT. Part 1 of this article series lays the groundwork to understanding the position that Black Loyalists found themselves in while serving the British Crown. Part 2 will tell the individual stories of what happened to some of the Black Loyalists from Fairfield County, Connecticut, after they arrived in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, Canada, and Sierra Leone. I approach this topic as a family historian-genealogist and a descendant of enslaved/formerly enslaved African and Indigenous peoples who served as Black Patriots and Black Loyalists in Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey. I believe that their remarkable contributions to both the United States and Britain have been overlooked. It is important to recognize that their acts of resistance and agency positioned them as the
“Founding Fathers” in the US and Canada.
While this article does not provide a comprehensive overview of Connecticut Loyalists’
involvement in the War, it offers a snapshot of the significant events that Black Loyalists of Fairfield County faced. I do mention Black Patriots throughout because both groups served under similar conditions and faced similar outcomes. These events highlight how the promises made to them by the Loyalists ultimately turned out to be grand gestures that led to a false sense of freedom.
For those wanting to know more about the Munsee and African presence in New Amsterdam/Colonial New York, please consider taking this Walking Tourthat Russell Shortohas put together. I was happy to see Manuel Plaza, named after my 9th great-grandfather, Manuel de Gerritt de Reus, on this list.
Disclaimer: The views expressed here are my own. I do not speak for, or represent, anyone else, but myself. As a Ramapough (Munsee) Lenape descendant, I owe it to my ancestors to tell their truth. Please make sure to click on the red hypertext links.
Update: On June 17, 2023, the Delaware Nation voted to remove Daniel “Strongwalker” Thomas II from his duties effective immediately, from representing the Tribe, and stated that he was NOT the hereditary chief of Willie Thomas as that status was not passed on. The full report can be found here. While the Oklahoma Delaware Nation appointed him to to act as an official tribal representative to combat “corporations posing as Indigenous nations/non-profits” in 2021, they only removed him a little over a week ago which is two yearsafterthe Nation was informed of his background as a convicted felon by his own daughter, and her mother, who also accused him of mental, physical, and sexual abuse/incest. I am glad the OK Delaware Nation finally saw him for who he is. #FactsMatter
In May of this year, two of my personal essays regarding my own Ramapough Lenape ancestry were published in Our Stories, Our Land, a collaborative project with Rutgers University, Department of Landscape Architecture, and the Ramapough Lunaape Nation. I hope and pray that the Delaware Nation , under new leadership, will one day acknowledge that the Ramapough Lenape Nation is NOT a threat to their existence, but that our ancestors were the Lenape who stayed behind after The Treaty of Easton was signed in 1758 at the end of the French and Indian War. We should be viewed, if anything, as their long lost cousins.
The Legacy of David S. Cohen’s The Ramapo Mountain People and the Rise of Indigenous Hatekeepers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenapehoking
For the past two decades, I have dedicated my time to researching my maternal family’s history, which has guided me to write a book. The voices of my ancestors have always led me to where I am today, providing me with clues and revealing a family history that resisted settler colonialism, which caused genocide, slavery, and dispossession. I firmly believe that there is no separation between the living and the dead; the ties that bind us are eternal.
During the colonial era, indigenous people along the Eastern seaboard suffered from paper genocide, which was a policy enacted by settler colonizers to classify and erase indigenous identity and ties to their ancestral homelands. It is actually quite easy to denigrate and dispossess a people of their land, if you call them anything but indigenous. This practice has resulted in historic trauma that can never be forgotten or denied. The silence of the disappeared voices that remain hidden in the archives speak volumes. However, my family has always known who we are and where we come from, despite the attempts to erase our Afro-Indigenous identity.
https://www.wikitree.com/photo/jpg/Van_Dolzen-1-1Taphow and Joris land sales show the fluidity of borders and ethnicities in the Northern part of Lenapehoking.
My grandfather’s oral and written history indicated that our family’s lineage consisted of Dutch, German, Swedish, Finnish, British, Scots-Irish, Malagasy, West African, and Native American tribes from Connecticut, primarily from Fairfield County, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. Our ancestors were from many tribes, including Munsee, Delaware, Minisink, Wappinger, Shinnecock, Nipmuc, Golden Paugusset, Powhatan, Mohawk, Wampanoag, and others, all connected to a Black and Red Atlantic. Our enslaved ancestors, used as human shields, were first put on the front lines to protect the Dutch from the Munsee Lenape in New Amsterdam, but they also formed lasting relationships and intermarried with the Munsee Lenape. Although marriages between Native men and women of African descent occurred, it was primarily Native women who married men of African descent in our family and were the cultural bearers who passed on their knowledge. Similarly, the Lenape also adopted people of African descent into their tribe. DNA does not determine culture. It is possible to be of African and Native descent, European and Native descent, or a mixture of all racial categories. I respect the hard choices that our ancestors made to ensure their survival and that of their descendants. It is a myth that all Lenape were removed from New York and New Jersey in the late 1700s. It is a fact that many Lenape people stayed behind. Most of our family never left their ancestral homeland in PA, NY, NJ, and DE, which shows that our ancestors made the right decision and are the true keepers of our sacred Lenapehoking.
Cohen, David S. The Ramapo Mountain People. NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1974.
David S. Cohen’s book, The Ramapo Mountain People, which I read ten years ago, is inaccurate based on my family history and the knowledge handed down by my elders including my great-grandfather, Helen B. Hamilton, Yvonne Chandler, Chris Moore, and Pat Mann-Stoliby. Although we descend from enslaved and Free People of Color, including Afro-Dutch Free Black people, our ancestors did not originally arrive in the Ramapough Mountains from the Hackensack Valley starting in the early 1800s, or even in the 1680s when the Tappan Patent was formed. The Ramapough (Munsee) Lenape were always there, albeit in much smaller groups that coalesced into larger entities over time. The Ramapough Mountain area has been settled for the millennia and Indigenous people routinely travelled across the Hudson River setting up camps on both sides. Cohen coined the name “Ramapo Mountain People” in his book and he was correct in stating that they were not the pejorative “Jackson Whites.” However, his book is not a definitive account of our ancestors. It is rooted in a discipline closely affiliated with the field of eugenics and should be seen as a relic of the late-1960s to early-1970s community-based studies. That his book has never been updated in light of new scholarship over the past couple of decades, says a lot.
Cohen’s book ignores a gender issue which clearly affects his ability to even entertain the possibility of Afro-Indigeneity. He fails to acknowledge the existence of a large number of Black-Native relationships that produced Afro-Indigenous children who learned their culture from their Munsee Lenape mothers. He ignores the fact that many people of African and Indigenous descent escaped to freedom together throughout the colonial period and even after. Unfortunately, the names of these Indigenous women were not recorded in official records, but this does not mean that they never existed or that their voices and lives do not matter. Cohen dismisses these relationships as insignificant, despite their long history in the Hudson River Valley region, dating back to the1613 arrival of Juan Rodriguez, a fur trader of African descent from Santo Domingo who married a Munsee Lenape woman and fathered children with her. Intended or unintended, Cohen left people with the mistaken impression that the Ramapough (Munsee) Lenape strictly descended from African and Afro-Dutch people who had forgotten their history — a history he decided to give them back.
That being said, The Ramapo Mountain People’s greatest flaw is that it fails to acknowledge the historic erasure of indigeneity inherent in official records such as census records. Native Americans were not listed as such in any US census records between 1790-1840. They were, however, included in the racial categories as “Mulatto,” “Black,” “Negro,” “Colored,” “Free People of Color,” and “White” —- labels that striped them of their “official” indigeneity. This is the time period that Cohen attributes the Ramapough (Munsee) Lenape as having relocated to the Ramapo Mountains. How convenient it is to make claims that are hard to prove when records do not exist to the contrary because people were made to disappear on documents. Who is Cohen to decide who is indigenous, or not , based on one-drop of “Black” blood rule?
In my family, we had ancestors who decided to accept, on paper, the racial categories that they were given because they could not challenge them especially during segregation and we had ancestors who 100% identified as Afro-Indigenous. Again, one can be Black and Native— they are NOT mutually exclusive identities. I can assure you that my great-grandfather, who was born in 1881 in Newark, NJ, knew who he descended from as his family always kept one foot in the Ramapough Mountains and one foot in Essex County, NJ. Our family continues to do the same today. Cohen clearly believes that only written sources can be used in research and that our oral history doesn’t matter —- except it does. We have our history that clearly shows that the Ramapough (Munsee) Lenape maintained their culture despite slavery, genocide, and dispossession. What Cohen wants is for the Ramapough (Munsee) Lenape to wholeheartedly accept the colonized view of history — a top-down, one-sided version of history that leaves no room for a history from below. No, thank you. Our history, oral included, is our history and it has been shaped by specific historical forces that are not up for debate.
Cohen’s book has been used in the tribe’s quest for federal recognition despite questions about the validity of his conclusions. Cohen now claims that the Ramapough (Munsee) Lenape are “of dubious descent.” He has also been very vocal in stating that all Lenape where removed in the late 1700s and therefore the Ramapough (Munsee) Lenape, Nanticoke Lenape, and Powhatan Renape Nations are not legitimate and thereby questions their NJ state-recognition. The Ramapough (Munsee) Lenape have nothing to prove to David S. Cohen, as he insists, they do. Today, Cohen only recognizes the Oklahoma Delaware Lenape, the Stockbridge-Munsee Community in Wisconsin, and the Delaware of Six Nations in Ontario. It should be noted that the Lenape people of PA, NY, NJ, and DE have always welcomed fellow Lenape who were removed from Lenapehoking.
Recently, my distant cousin Claire Garland, Director of Sand Hill Indian Historical Association, published “Indian Summer at Sandy Hill: The Revy-Richardson Families at the Jersey Shore,” which serves as an excellent counterpoint to Cohen’s book. It should be evident that Cohen interviewed a small segment of Ramapough (Munsee) Lenape in the late 1960s when he did his research and then applied his findings to the larger Ramapough Lenape population— many who had ceased to live in the Ramapough Mountains, but still lived in other parts of NJ and NY. Claire’s discussion of her centuries-old family history, which is relevant to our own Lenape-identified Van Salee/Van Surlay Revy ancestors, can be traced back to New Amsterdam/New York City, Orange and Rockland Counties, NY, and Bergen, Essex, Burlington, and Monmouth Counties, NJ. It never dawned on Cohen that the Afro-Dutch of New Amsterdam actually continued to intermarry with Lenape before, during, and after they relocated to the Tappan Patent.
In her article, Claire draws on tax records, land deeds, property transactions, census records, cemetery records, vital records, as well as oral history and family photos and memorabilia to detail her family history. Elizabeth Susan Van Surlay Revy, our ancestor, married into the Richardson family, who were Cherokees from Georgia and stopped in Monmouth County, NJ on their way to the Oneida Nation in the late 1700s, where they settled. Claire’s research proves a continuous Lenape presence in New Jersey from the past until the present day. I am positive that there are also other Lenape micro-histories in existence that have yet to be discovered for all the reasons I discussed above. Decolonizing the archives and re-examining past research is a MUST in order to discover these histories as they do exist.
The Rise of the Indigenous Hatekeepers
I recently attended a UPenn webinar courtesy of the Wolf Humanities Center and Penn Museum where the legacy of Cohen’s book was clearly on display. The video can be viewed herein full. (Please note that the video can be triggering for some, particularly one hour in at the start of the Q&A section.) It was billed as a “discussion that highlights tribal relationships to Lenapehoking, the ancestral and spiritual homeland of Lenni-Lenape and Delaware peoples of the Delaware Valley. Archaeologists and tribal cultural specialists bring the site-specific landscapes and histories to life, illuminating once-vibrant places that remain important to tribal Nations today.” I was looking forward to learning more about the Oklahoma Delaware Nation. While Jeremy Johnson, Director of Cultural Education, Delaware Tribe of Indians based in Bartlesville, OK was informative and respectful, the same cannot be said of Daniel “StrongWalker” Thomas. This was actually the first time I heard him and saw him.
Though The Wolf Humanities Center posted his credentials on their site, I will not be repeating them here. I don’t respect a man who launched such hate-filled, venomous attacks on various Lenape present in the room as well as the people who were on the panel sitting next to him. No dignified “hereditary chief” that I know would ever present themselves in public in such a way, especially to those who welcomed him with open arms. The optics of it all not only looked bad, but also smelled bad. His focus on federal recognition and treaty signing as qualifiers of indigeneity, the not so-veiled references to race, his seeming ignorance of Eastern seaboard Native history, and his avowed 100% insistence that all Lenape were removed from the Northeast mimicked points that David S. Cohen made in his book and subsequent papers. While, I, in no way, shape, or form hold David S. Cohen responsible for the words and actions of another person, the conclusions made in his book are now being used by Daniel “StrongWalker” Thomas and other federally-recognized Native Americans. Let’s be clear, these are Native people who want to silence and erase the specific histories of PA, NY, NJ, and DE Lenape, as well as Afro-Indigenous people, especially on the East Coast, by labeling them “Pretendians” and “CPAIN” derogatory terms no different than “Jackson Whites.”
The OK Delaware Nation claims some sort of authority over Northeastern Lenape because they have federal recognition, a status they were given when they accepted relocation to Cherokee land in Oklahoma in 1867. However, the PA, NY, NJ, and DE tribes are state-recognized, have their own inherent sovereignty, and are accepted by the US government as such. I am in 100% agreement with the statement below made by a long list of Indigenous activists and posted on the Last Real Indian website:
“While federal and state recognition are ways that we legally acknowledge and understand Native American and Indigenous Peoples in the United States, a colonial state, we also honor the fact that federal and state status is not the only form of “recognition” and “assertion of rights” for tribes, Native Nations and Indigenous Peoples across North America. We also recognize the problems with disenrollment, xenophobia, anti-Indigenous, anti-Indian, and anti-Black racism that can lead to insidious forms of individual and collective exclusion. Many tribes have been terminated or thought non-existent for example because they do not meet the requirements of another non-Native government (the United States). We reject the premise that federal recognition is the only way to determine American Indian, Indigenous, and Native American identity. It is within this context that we call on all community members to reject attempts by outsiders to determine tribally specific status of individuals and groups. We believe that every tribe’s self-determination and/or sovereign status should allow them to define who is and is not a member of their communities, including adoption as that is a tribe exercising their sovereignty to determine their own citizenship.”
It is disheartening to see other Natives engage in hate tactics that are straight out of the settler colonial project play book. The fact that the OK Delaware Nation refuses to recognize those Lenape who never left, under the guise that they themselves know that “No Lenape would ever leave another behind,” is absurd. They can never speak on matters with 100% certainty when they weren’t alive to witness the event themselves or know all the hard individual choices people made at the time. They can’t speak of the decisions that Afro-Indigenous people made for fear of state-sponsored punishment —- as if our ancestors had the power to make any decision in the construction of a racial classification system hundreds of years ago. They maintain that the Ramapough (Munsee) Lenape never called themselves that until Cohen published his book because they had no name. Not only is this false, but we were called by many names: Munsee, Tappan, Haverstraw, Minisink, Hackensack, Pompton, Acquacanock, Esopus, Wappinger, and others. That these Indigenous bands formed larger confederacies in the wake of colonization, does not mean that the people who inhabited the Ramapough Mountains, and surrounding areas, never knew who they were. Neither does it mean that Cohen gave us our name.
Why The Wolf Humanities Center and Penn Museum invited Daniel “StrongWalker” Thomas to be on the panel is beyond me when there were local Lenape groups available to present. I am not too sure why representatives from local Lenape tribes were not on the panel, as they should have been, and this fact was not lost on many who intended in person and online. I also question why the Delaware Tribe of Indians in Bartlesville, OK would have a representative of their nation sit on any panel with Daniel “StrongWalker” Thomas because it made it look like they condoned his rude behavior. He stated that he did not speak for the tribe, but for “the people.” What people? Who gave him the authority to speak on behalf of all Lenape in PA, NY, NJ, and DE? Is this how the OK Delaware Nation builds alliances with local Lenape? WHY can’t he speak for the tribe now?
The way he performed at the webinar made me question who he was and why was he so angry and disrespectful. I called some of my Indigenous contacts across the country asking them if they knew him, and many did. I am now left with the impression that Daniel “StrongWalker” Thomas is a “hatekeeper,” a term I use to refer to the ways in which some Natives from federally recognized tribes advocate for a one size fits all Indigenous experience. It is interesting to note that these Natives are primarily from the Midwest and Southwest who refuse to acknowledge the specific experiences that Eastern tribes faced as the first tribes who were colonized. These Natives also tend to wield their federal recognition around like a club they can hammer other Natives over the head with for not being “Native ” enough. Some have even gone further and have engaged in acts of harassment, bullying, intimidation, and more.
Perhaps the best-known example of a “hatekeeper” is Jacqueline Keeler, a Navajo activist who keeps an “Alleged Pretendian List.” While the original goal of identifying “Prentedians” was based on valid concerns, it has gone above and beyond its original intent and has morphed into a whole different beast. The list that has rightfully been exposed and denounced by many Indigenous people as highly problematic. The following links demonstrate how “hatekeepers” are specifically targeting people, even federally recognized Native Americans with whom they disagree, and are compiling dossiers on individuals complete with personal information, vetting individual family trees and misinterpreting family relationships/ties, etc. to try to discredit people.
Comprehensive Timeline of Keeler’s Harassment of Indigenous People (with mention of Daniel “StrongWalker Thomas in a couple of places)
It turns out that Keeler is a well-known associate of Daniel “StrongWalker” Thomas. If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, then it’s a duck. Their tactics mirror each other.
I wasn’t surprised then to learn that Daniel “StrongWalker” Thomas is also affiliated with, and routinely posts in, a Facebook public group called Roots of Illusion, Ramapo/Ramapoughthat believes in “educating the public of who the Ramapo, Ramapough Mountain People really are.” This group often shares Cohen’s papers as well as the Afro-Dutch genealogy charts featured in his book to make determinations about individual Ramapough (Munsee) Lenape family trees and ethnic identification. The group advocates using DNA tests to determine how much “Native American” admixture Ramapough (Munsee) Lenape have in order to “prove” individuals are not Native. They also share DNA information without a person’s consent which is very unethical. This group has no understanding of ethnic admixture, how genes are inherited, and how admixture is calculated by DNA companies. It is also apparent that they think “race” is a fixed status, and not a social construct, and that census enumerators were always correct in recording a person’s “race” based on their phenotype. Needless to say, their one-dimensional view of history where they see “Enslaved/Free Blacks versus Lenape” is troublesome as it is ignorant and places blame unfairly on Enslaved/Free Blacks for the oppression of all Lenape people. Their Black History Month postings are indicative of their anti-Black racism though they claim not to be so. The Ramapough (Munsee) Lenape, Nanticoke Lenape, and Powhatan Renape are all NJ state-recognized sovereign tribes that Daniel “StrongWalker” Thomas does not have jurisdiction over. He knows this and has decided to pursue an agenda to malign these tribes at all costs.
Here are some screenshots from the Roots of Illusion, Ramapo, Ramapough Facebook group:
An example of their anti-Black and ignorant understanding of the history of settler colonialism.
Native Americans can be of any “race.” Individual Ramapough Lenape are being targeted for derision as evidenced in the posting of these 1950 census records.
An example of anti-Black bias post that was posted during Black History Month. Why????David S. Cohen’s book and papers are routinely shared in their Facebook group where they cherry-pick what he has written.
I want to state clearly that I don’t know if David S. Cohen is working directly with Daniel “StrongWalker” Thomas and other “hatekeepers,” or if he is unaware of how these “hatekeepers” are using his book to promote their own agenda in the way that may cause real harm to others. I have never met David. S. Cohen. I am actually sure we could have a civil conversation about his book and the impact that it has undoubtedly had on Ramapough (Munsee) Lenape descendants that he has never met, in addition to the ones he already knows. What I do know, is that his book has been used to unfairly define a group of people for decades and is also now being used by “hatekeepers” to target and character assassinate the Ramapough (Munsee) Lenape. However, is this really the legacy Cohen wants to leave behind? I wouldn’t think so. I would hope not.
Time to Mann Up: Nicka Smith, The Legacy of the Cherokee Freedmen, & the Hope For A Better Future
As I listened to the Wolf Humanities Center/Penn Museum webinar, I couldn’t help to think about how the OK Delaware Nation resides within the boundaries of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma. This led me to think about my friend, mentor, and professional genealogist Nicka Smith, who recently gave several lectures about her Cherokee Freedman ancestor, US Deputy Marshall Isaac Rogers, to the Cherokee Nation. She provided various written, oral, and DNA (i.e., cousin matching and not admixture) documentation to provide one of the best case studies I have ever seen by a Afro-Indigenous descendant. You can view her presentation below.
I thought about how the Cherokee Nation has finally come to realize the mistakes of the past and are now working on reconciling their history with that of the Cherokee Freedmen to provide a fuller, truer picture of the past. I can only hope that sometime in the future, the OK Delaware Nation will be open to reconciling with the PA, NY, NJ and DE Lenape instead of trying to erase our history in Lenapehoking. Until that day comes, I will continue to pray for Lenapehoking and all Lenape wherever they reside as my ancestors have always done.
David S. Cohen’s Book and Articles:
The Ramapo Mountain People. NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1974.
The Academia.edu articles below are listed as part of his upcoming book titled Dubious Descent, with the exception of the last article.
Below are some suggested websites, articles and books that you should read if you are interested in exploring some of the issues slavery in the North, Indigeneity, New Amsterdam/New Netherlands under the Dutch vs. British in NY &NJ, paper genocide, and resistance. This is meant as a starting point only. I also encourage people to dig deep into the archives (libraries, historical societies, newspapers, etc.), re-examine what has been written and what may have been left out of the historical record, and write those who have been left out back into the historical record. It is only when we see how history was experienced by all viewpoints that we can truly understand how this country came into being.
Indian Summer at Sand Hill: The Revy and Richardson Families of the Jersey Shore” by Claire Garland in New Jersey Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Volume 9 , No. 1 (2023) Winter 2023 (p.168-224). https://njs.libraries.rutgers.edu/index.php/njs
“ Reytory Angola, Seventeenth-Century Manhattan” by Susannah Shaw Romney (pp. 58-78) and “Sarah Chauqum, Eighteenth-Century, Rhode Island and Connecticut” by Margaret Ellen Newell in As If She Were Free: A Collective Biography of Woemn and Emancipation in the Americas, Edited by Erica L. Ball, Tatiana Seijas, and Terrell Snyder.
The U.S. Census and the Contested Rules of Racial Classification in Early Twentieth -Century Puerto Rico” by Mara Loveman Caribbean Studies, Vol. 35, No. 2, Julio-Diciembre, Instituto de Estudios, pp. 79-114. https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/392/39215017004.pdf
“How Puerto Rico became White: Boundary Dynamics and Intercensus Racial Reclassification by Jeronimo O. Muniz and Mara Mara Loveman, American Sociological Review, Vol. 72, Issue 6, pp. 915-939.https://bit.ly/3Kiz8Yf
Beyond Conquest: Native Peoples and the Struggle for History in New England by Amy E. Den Ouden
Indigenous Continent: The Epic Contest for North America by Pekka Hämäläinen
Firsting and Lasting: Writing Indians Out of Existence in New England by Jean M. O’Brien
African Founders: How Enslaved People Expanded American Ideals by David Hackett Fischer
Spaces of Enslavement: A History of Slavery and Resistance in Dutch New York by Andrea C Monsterman
Bound by Bondage: Slavery and the Creation of a Northern Gentry by Nicole Saffold Maiskell
The Red Atlantic: American Indigenes and the Making of the Modern World, 1000-1927 by Jace Weaver.
Settler Memory: The Disavowal of Indigeneity and the Politics of Race in the United States by Kevin Bruyneel
An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States by Kyle T. Mays, Shaun Taylor-Corbett, et al.
Louisiana Creole Peoplehood: Afro-Indigeneity and Community by Rain Pru’homme-Cranford, Darryl Barthe, and Andrew Jolivette, eds.
Ties That Bind: The Story of an Afro-Cherokee Family in Slavery and Freedom by Tiya Miles
Frontiers of Citizenship: A lack and Indigenous History of Postcolonial Brazil by Yuko Miki
Tainos and Caribs: The Aboriginal Cultures of the Antilles bySebastian Robiou Lamarche
Unfreedom: Slavery and Dependence in Eighteenth Century Boston by Jared Ross Hardesty
Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery by Mark Charles and Soong-Chan Rah
Reckoning with Slavery: Gender, Kinship and Capitalism in the Early Black Atlantic by Jennifer Morgan, Angel Pean, et. al.
The Afro-Latin@ Reader: History and Culture in the United States edited by Miriam Jimenez Roman and Juan Flores
North Carolina’s Free People of Color, 1715-1885 by Warren Eugene Milteer, Jr.
Native American Whalemen and the World: Indigenous Encounters and the Contigency of Race by Nancy Shoemaker
The Lumbee Indians: An American Struggle by Malinda Maynor Lowery
An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxane Dunbar-Ortiz
We Refuse to Forget: A True Story of Black Creek, American Identity, and Power by Caleb Gayle
The Myth of Indigenous Caribbean Extinction: Continuity and Reclamation in Boriken by Tony Castanha
Long Hammering: Essays on the Forging of an African American Presence in the Hudson River Valley to the Early Twentieth Century by A. J. Williams-Myers
In Defiance: Runaways from Slavery in New York’s Hudson River Valley 1735-1831 edited by Susan Stressin-Cohn and Ashley Hurlburt-Biagini
Africans and Native Americans: The Language of Race and the Evolution of Red-Black Peoples by Jack D. Forbes
Slavery in the Age of Memory: Engaging the Past and Museums and Atlantic slavery by Ana Lucia Araujo
The American Discovery of Europe by Jack D. Forbes
The Pinkster King and the King of Kongo by Jeroen Dewulf
A History of Connecticut’s Golden Hill Paugussett Tribe by Charles Brilvitch
Blurring the Lines of Race and Freedom: Mulattoes & Mixed Bloods in English Colonial America by A. N. Wilkinson
The Book of Negroes: African Americans in Exile after the American Revolution (2021 edition), Edited by Graham Russell Hodges and Alan Edward Brown
Black Indian Genealogy Research: African-American Ancestors Among The Five Civilized Tribes, An Expanded Edition by Angela Y. Walton-Raj
Freedmen of the Frontier Volume 1: Selected Cherokee, Choctaw, & Chicasaw Freedmen Families by Angela Y. Walton-Raji
Freedmen of the Frontier Volume 2: Selected Creek and Seminole Freedmen Families by Angela Y. Walton-Raji
Complicity: How the North Promoted, Prolonged, and Profited From Slavery by Joel Long
Black Lives Native Lands White Worlds: A History of Slavery in New England by Jared Ross Hardesty
The Business of Slavery and the Rise of American Capitalism, 1815-1860 by Calvin Schermerhorn
The Saltwater Frontier: Indians and the Contest for the American Coast by Andrew W. Lipman
Brethren By Nature: New England Indians, Colonists, and the Origins of American Slavery by Margaret Ellen Newell (A must read)
Root & Branch: African Americans in New York & East Jersey, 1613-1803; Pretends to be Free: Runaway Slave Advertisements from Colonial and Revolutionary New York and New Jersey, and David Ruggles: A Radical Black Abolitionist and the Underground Railroad in New York City by Graham Russell Hodges
Slavery in the North: Forgotten History and Recovering Memory by Marc Howard Ross
New England Bound: Slavery and Colonization in Early America by Wendy Warren
In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626-1863 by Leslie A. Harris
Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America and Generations of Captivity by Ira Berlin
Slavery and Freedom in the Mid-Hudson Valley by Michael E. Groth
Slavery and Universities: Histories and Legacies by Leslie Harris, et. al.
Scarlet and Black: Slavery: Slavery and Dispossession in Rutgers History (Vol 1) by Marisa J. Fuentes and Deborah Gray White, eds.
Scarlet and Black: Constructing Race and Gender at Rutgers, 1865-1945 (Volume 2) by Kendra Boyd and Marisa J. Fuentes, eds.
Pirates, Merchants, Settlers and Slaves: Colonial America and the Indo-Dutch Atlantic by Kevin McDonald
Memories of Madagascar in the Black Atlantic by Wendy Wilson Fall
Running from Bondage: Enslaved Women and Their Remarkable Fight for Freedom in Revolutionary America by Karen Cook Bell
Flight to Freedom: African Runaways and Maroons in the Americas by Alvin O. Thompson
Tacky’s Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War by Vincent Brown
Fugitive Slaves and Spaces of Freedom in North America by Damian Alan Pargas, ed.
The Archaeology of Social Disintegration in Skunk Hollow: A Nineteenth Century Rural Black Community by Joan H. Geismar
From Rebellion to Revolution: Afro-American Slave Revolts in the Making of the Modern World by Eugene D. Genovese
Black Rebellion in Barbados: The Struggle Against Slavery, 1627-1838 by Hilary Beckles
Purchasing Whiteness: Pardos, Mulattoes, and the Quest for Social Mobility in the Spanish Indies by Ann Twinam.
The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism: The Roots of, White Supremacy, and Capitalism in Seventeenth-Century North America and the Caribbean by Gerald Horne
The Kidnapping Club: Wall Street, Slavery, and Resistance on the Eve of the Civil War by Jonathan Daniel Wells
Slave No More: Self-Liberation before Abolitionism in the Americas by Aline Helg
Surviving Slavery in the British Caribbean by Randy M. Brown
Black Patriots and Loyalists: Fighting for Emancipation in the War for Independence by Alan Gilbert
Standing in Their Own Light: African American Patriots in the American Revolution by Judith L Van Buskirk
The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution by William Cooper Nell
The Negro in the American Revolution by Benjamin Quarles
The Colony of New Netherlands: A Dutch Settlement in Seventeenth-Century America by Jaap Jacobs
New Netherlands Connections: Intimate Networks and Atlantic ties in Seventeenth-Century America by Susanah Shaw Romney
Before the Melting Pot: Society and Culture in Colonial New York City, 1664-1730 by Joyce D. Goodfried
hat the Blood Stay Pure: African Americans, Native Americans, and the Predicament of Race and Identity in Virginia by Arica L. Coleman
I am re-posting this blog for the new members of FTDNA’s Malagasy Roots Project—many whom are Malagasy and may never have heard of Sophie Legars Henry.
On Using Full Sequence mtDNA and Autosomal DNA to Discover Enslaved Malagasy Global Migration Dispersals
People of Madagascar
Slavery, colonialism, and genocide were never designed for Black and Native family reunification. On the contrary, it was meant to obliterate the ties that bind FOREVER.While many people know that 12 Million people of African descent were forcibly imported into what became the United States during the Transatlantic Slave Trade, many are unaware of the fact that between 2-4 Million Native Americans, primarily men, were forcibly exported from their Turtle Island homeland and they were the first people to be enslaved by British colonizer settlers. Ships that sailed from ports laden with colonial merchandise from the American colonies transported shackled enslaved Indigenous Americans around the world. On these same ships returning from the Caribbean, Central and South America, Europe, West and East Africa, were enslaved Africans who occupied the same hellish spots that many Indigenous Americans previously occupied only months before. As a descendant of Native American, North/South/West/East African, and Malagasy people, any one of these enslaved people could have very well been my own ancestors.
Any discussions of African- and Native American genetic genealogy must be viewed within the lens of slavery and capitalism. Commodities like gold, silver, coffee, sugar, tobacco, spices, timber, copal, indigo, cotton, wine, and enslaved people were traded between the 15th and 19th centuries by the Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, British, Danish, and American colonial powers. The wealth of nations was literally made off the extraction of forced enslaved labor. The disposability of enslaved Black, Brown, and Red bodies has always been calculated for maximum profit with losses always taken into account. It was the overall exchange of merchandise that allowed colonial empires to prosper and which has led to repeated calls for reparations today (and yesterday) by the descendants of those who were formerly enslaved.
Looking at global macro-histories allows us to see the conditions which led to our ancestors forced migrations. Likewise, a mtDNA analysis of Full Sequences matches, along with autosomal DNA matches, gives a “micro-history” of how the institution of slavery dispersed enslaved people around the globe. Using my extended M23 DNA family as a case study, my 1st book, The DNA Trail From Madagascar to the Americas, will discuss how genetic genealogy can be used to flesh out the silences of our ancestral pasts. I will be updating and expanding on my four blogposts below. In addition, I will be discussing the micro-histories of many of our ancestors in the locations where they ended up with the sole intention of inserting them back into the historical record and adding to the growing literature that is focused on the historiography of enslaved people.
As of today, Andrea and I have been able link a majority of our M23 Malagasy matches to the NY/NJ Hudson River Valley Region going back to the mid-1600s and a subset of that group to VA, AL, LA, and MS. Three of our M23 cohort members are connected to the French Huguenot Devoe /Devereaux Family of Ulster County, NY, Middlesex County, NJ, and Pennsylvania. They are also descendants of Rose Fortune, a Black Loyalist, who ended up in Nova Scotia at the end of the Revolutionary War along with 5 Thompson women —possibly our own ancestors— from Newark, NJ. Another member traces his ancestry to St. Helena Island in the Southern Atlantic Ocean, an island that received thousands of enslaved Malagasy. As part of the Islamic Slave Trade, 1 cohort member’s family ended up in Antigua, before moving to St. Croix via India and another my own family has an exact mtDNA match to a man whose Malagasy ancestor ended up in Yemen. Four members are the descendants of NY/NJ ancestors who were kidnapped and sold South to enslavers in AL, LA, MS via the illegal Van Wickle Slave Ring to work on sugar and cotton plantations. Like many Malagasy women who ended up as concubines, another of our M23 cohort member is linked to the Ragland and Merriweather Families of Colonial Virginia whose descendants migrated to KY, TN, and TX. Moreover, four other cohort members are linked to the African American Timbrook/Ten Broeck Family who were enslaved by the Buckelew Family of Middlesex County, NJ. Lastly, our own family is tied to the Dutch Blauvelt, Haring, Schmidt, Demarest, Mabie, DeWitt, Ackerson, Ackerman and other collateral founding families of Bergen County, NJ who left New Amsterdam and settled the Tappan Patent in 1678. Though a mtDNA test will never help us identify our common M23 ancestor, we are still able to learn “micro-histories” about the lives of our Malagasy-descended DNA cousins by finding more about their family origins.
Her Name Is Sophie/Sophia Legars Henry (1805-1868) : A Malagasy Migration Micro-History in Small DNA Segments
When categorizing our small DNA segment matches on Ancestry, several of my family members shared DNA with K.W. When Andrea reached out to K.W. inquiring about her Malagasy ancestor Sophie/ Sophia Lizard Henry. Andrea was told that, “Sophie was born in Madagascar and was sold into slavery. She was sentenced to death in Mauritius but it was overturned and she was sent to Australia with her son.” There was nothing else known about her parents or siblings. We had so many questions as to what Sophie did to get a death sentence. How did she end up in Australia? Was Sophie related to us? Possibly. We hope this DNA cousin will take a mtDNA test since Sophie is her maternal ancestor and may also have a M23 haplogroup.
Louisa Hemson Atkins (1855-1943), daughter of Sophia Emma and John Hemson, and granddaughter of Sophie/Sophia Legars Henry
Sophie was sent to New South Wales, Australia on the Ship Ann, as a convict in 1825. She was described as being – 5’2″ tall with copper skin and black eyes, black lips, a broad nose, and stout. Her migration micro-history definitely caught our attention.
National Archives of Mauritius., Court of Assizes Proceedings, April 1823
After a bit of deep digging to see what I could find on Sophie, I came across a University of Tasmania dissertation by Eilin Friis Hordvik titled “Mauritius Caught in the Web of Empire: the legal system, crime, punishment and labour 1825-1845″ that described all the events that led to Sophie’s banishment to New South Wales, Australia. Sophie had been a personal child slave to Madame Francoise Legars (not Lizard) before her marriage to Amedee Bonsergent, a Medical Officer in Mauritius, in 1818. At 18 years old, Sophie was in a relationship with Jean Gombault, a Free Black Creole and was pregnant with their son Jean, Jr. Below describes the events as they were reported at the time.
For his receiving of stolen money, which was returned, Jean Gombault received 8 years in iron chains.
The Bonsergents wanted to be compensated 300 piastres for Sophia and her son’s transportation to Australia as well as damages to their other property. At the time, the French Indochinese piastre, was the currency used in the Indian Ocean and Far East commercial trade. When the British took over Mauritius in 1810, they continued to use piastres. According to Hordvik, “The average price for a female slave at the time was 250 piastres. Negotiations between Bonsergent and the local government in the end settled on the sum of 80 piastres (including the child), which was the price fixed for a male slave in similar circumstances. substantially less than the open market price. The Mauritian authorities were not prepared to pay extra for Sophie’s son.” For the record, Sophie was the first Mauritian to be banished to Australia and her son Jean, Jr. was the only child to follow a parent to Australia when it was just a penal colony.
Sophie was probably assigned to work as a domestic for a free settler or assigned to work at the Perramatta Female Factory as a majority of female convicts had to do. Though Sophie and her son would technically be freed upon arrival in Australia, one has to question what degree of freedom (i.e., “unfreedom”) she actually obtained if she worked under the same harsh conditions as before her arrival. That she was female also opens up the question as to what, if any, sexual abuse she may have been subjected to during her banishment.
Three years after she arrived, Sophie, now known by the English version of her name Sophia, married John Henry, another convict of color who arrived in New South Wales onboard the Earl St. Vincent in 1818. Of the 160 men who boarded in Cork, Ireland on August 7, 1818, he was one of 157 survivors who landed on December 16, 1818. He was born in Suriname which was then part of British Guiana and was mostly likely from a mixed-race background. We don’t know when or how she met John Henry, but he was sent to Parramattawhere worked on a Farm Factory until his term expired. These two convicts were married in St. James Churchwith a marriage bann with the consent of the Governor on March 21, 1828.
John Henry later adopted Jean Gombault, Jr. after he married Sophie and together they also had a daughter named Sophia Emma Henry. In September of 1833, both John Henry and Sofia Emma were baptized together in St. James Church in Sidney.
Sofia Emma Henry (1833-1905), K.W.’s ancestor, married John Hemson (1814-1887), a convict from Suffolk, England who arrived on Ship The England in 1835. They had the following children: John, T., Sophia, Louisa, Emily, Agnes, Walter, Alice, Eva, and Lenard. John was able to purchase land after completing his sentence and later became a police constable. At this time, we know little regarding Jean Gombault Henry, but this may change in the future.
On Using Small DNA Segments
As an African American AND Puerto Rican genealogist with Native American family and ancestral ties to many nations up and down the East Coast due to my deep colonial roots,I believe in the inherent value of small segments in certain situations and always in conjunction with traditional genealogy methods. Because my family has tested 30+ family members, if any or some of them match an individual between 8-20+ cMs, then chances are that my 6 cM or 7 cM match may not be just “noise.” It may be indeed “real.” I am not alone in believing that eliminating <8 cMs will be devastating for us. Fonte Felipe, a Cape Verdean Dutch genealogist/genetic genealogist, published a blogpost this week that describes in depth why Afro-Descendants are rightly concerned with losing their matches. He calculates that 50-75% of our matches will disappear. Fonte’s research also shows how people in the African and Native Diaspora use AncestryDNA matches in creative ways. His breakdown analyses of various African regions at the micro-level per country is one GREAT example. Shannon Christmas, a well-known and respected African American genealogist/genetic genealogist, has also published a blogpost titled What Genetic Genealogy Needs Now —Priorities, Problems, Solutions”That gives a great overview of the issues facing African American Genetic Genealogy with all DNA testing companies.
For many of us, DNA testing has allowed us to finally discover some of our ancestral truths by revealing these 5th-8th DNA cousin matches. For someone like me, just knowing that an ancestor was Munsee, Pequot, Wappinger, Golden Pauggussett, Mohawk, Wampanoag, Lenni-Lenape, Ewe, Nipmuc, Fante, Pamunkey, Malagasy, etc. is something I want to know because I consider it to be my birthright! That being said, as long as I have my African – and Native American DNA cousin matches, I have peace of mind knowing that I found something that was supposed to be lost forever due to all aspects of slavery. The existence of my ancestors’ lives, in the archival records and elsewhere, is a testament to the fact that my Black, Brown, and Red ancestors were consummate survivors of a global capitalist system of slavery that devalued them for centuries. Their “soul value,” as Daina Ramey Berry has written, however, has always been incalculable to me.
As a family historian and genealogist, I constantly remind others that they need to dig deep. By that, I mean that we MUST explore all avenues of research to locate our ancestral stories which are buried and submerged leading to the mistaken belief that everything about our ancestors’ lives have been erased when, in fact, their histories have been just waiting to be found. Genealogical research on African and Native American ancestors is not easy because of the historic trauma they were subjected to as enslaved human beings and the dearth of documentation. However, our duty as descendants also requires us to muster up the strength to soldier on and not get discouraged. Our ancestral stories EXIST!
Below are some blogposts that African- and Native American descended genealogists/genetic genealogists have written that highlight how genetic genealogy has been a godsend for people with African, Native, and Asian ancestry.
This blogpost is dedicated to my father, Antonio Vega Noboa, who never knew much about his Taino ancestry or his Bonilla family and to my cousin Maddy and my Bonilla Quiles family who still live in Yauco. Our extended family has never left Yauco, the land of The Taino. We continue to honor our Indigenous ancestor, Juan Eusebio Bonilla Salcedo, who will always be our Puerto Rican Patriot.
The Bonilla Family of Yauco & Juan Eusebio Bonilla Salcedo
When I first met Maddy in 2014, she told me the oral history of her 2nd great-grandfather, Juan Eusebio Bonilla Salcedo. She received an oral history passed down by her mother and relayed that to me during our first conversation. After a 10+ year search to find the maternal surname of my 2nd great-grandfather, I was overjoyed to have been linked with a 3rd cousin who had his maternal surname on her tree and who AncestryDNA linked as having the same 2nd great-grandfather. As a newbie to Puerto Rican genealogy and to genetic genealogy, I wrongly assumed that Maddy and I shared the same 2nd great-grandfather and that the info that our other Bonilla DNA cousins from Yauco had on their trees was correct.I added their info to my tree which stated that Juan Eusebio Bonilla Salcedo’s father was Marcos Bonilla Bonilla who was born in Coamo, Puerto Rico. The link to Marcus Bonilla Bonilla was incorrect. Juan Eusebio Bonilla Salcedo is no doubt part of our own Bonilla Family of Yauco, but has no direct link to the Bonilla Family of Coamo as of today. As someone who teaches genealogy and basic genetic genealogy classes, I have no problem admitting that I made a couple of common genealogy mistakes almost 5 years ago. What can I say? I am human. It is a lesson others can learn from when researching their own family trees. As it now stands, everything has been corrected on my family tree and has been shared with Maddy and her family. I have also removed the section of my first Juan Eusebio blogpost to delete all references to Coamo.
I want to make it clear that this blogpost only corrects my relationship status to Juan Eusebio which is that of a cousin. He is not my 2nd great-grandfather, but he IS Maddy’s 2nd great-grandfather and we both have indisputable genetic ties to him. DNA does not lie.#FactsMatter
This is the oral history that my cousin Maddy relayed to me back in 2014:
When I was a little girl my mom (Hilda Quiles Oliveras) told my siblings and me the story of our 2x grandfather’s legend, of his torture, and murder, and how the people from Yauco PR , who lived near the cemetery, could hear my mom’s great granddad moan “Ayudame (Help me).” Some people in town would also say that they saw a man hanging from a tree. That story would scared me. I was about 11 years old. As I grew older I asked my mom if the story was a tale that she would tell to scare us! My mom said “No, my great granddad was murdered, stabbed, and they cut his genitals and stuffed it in his mouth.
Before I started my family tree in 2001, I asked my mom about the story. I thought it was a story told to children on a Halloween night so I asked my mom again if the story she told us was true and she said, “Yes it really happened. It was true!” I asked my mom for more details. My mom had a stroke in 1997 and it was difficult for her to speak, but her memory was intact and she was able to tell the story as it happened to her great grandfather back then.
My mom passed away in 2013. May she rest in peace. My curiosity as to what happened to my 2nd great grandfather became an obsession. I called my maternal aunt Lucy Quiles Amil in Yauco and she gave me more details of our abuelo. My aunt Lucy told me to Google La Leyenda de la Guasima! I did a Google search and also found a reference on Ancestry.com of the legend…
As someone who only had my paternal grandparents’ names on my family tree until 2013, when another DNA cousin, Luis Rivera, fleshed out the paternal side of my tree (See On Discovering My Boricua Branches), finding my DNA cousins was a blessing. That I could find a 3rd cousin who lived close to me, and who was related to me on my Bonilla line, immediately bonded us. Maddy’s oral history rang true. The story seemed like it would be something that people would pass down. It was unforgettable and haunting. The physical violence that our ancestor was subjected to was clearly a message aimed at silencing people in his community—many of whom were of Taino and African descent.
After speaking with Maddy and googling Juan Eusebio Bonilla Salcedo’s name, I came across the book Asesinato Politico. The book, published 50 years earlier, was in the collection of the New York Public Library and I went there the very next day to read it. It confirmed our Bonilla Quiles oral history and added even more heartbreaking details. This book is the closest thing we have to a first person account as it was written by the son of his best friend.
A little over a year later after I wrote my first blogpost, I went to Puerto Rico and filmed an AncestryDNA commercial that was aimed at telling the story of DNA cousins who met via an AncestryDNA test. Before I went, I reached out to yet another Puerto Rican DNA cousin, Luis Ramos, a well-known Taino and Indigenous advocate in New York City and Puerto Rico, to advise me on how to perform a libation ceremony for our ancestor, Juan Eusebio Bonilla Salcedo. I performed the ceremony side by side with my Bonilla Quiles cousins and two other cousins, Ralph and Theresa Delgado-Tossas. We honored our Puerto Rican Patriot and let him know that we would keep saying his name and tell the world about him. That was and is our moral imperative as his descendants and kin.
Descendants and kin of Juan Eusebio Bonilla Salcedo, 2016, Yauco, Puerto Rico
On Resurrecting Juan Eusebio Bonilla Salcedo after 125 years…
The genealogy research I do is all about telling the stories of ancestors who have been erased from the historical record and from public memory. I do not only engage in “begat begat genealogy” where names are gathered on a tree which are divorced from historical context beyond a date. I “dig deep” to resurrect the lives of my ancestors and to tell their true stories within their own local historical context. When I read about Juan Eusebio’s torture and assassination, I cried and still do. While I was very familiar with the treatment of Indigenous people worldwide, it never occurred to me that this would have happened to someone related to me in the not too distant past. I still struggle with this horrific event. Processing historic trauma is never easy. Self-care for genealogists is indeed a MUST.
We have a fundamental belief that there is no separation between our ancestors who transitioned before us and those of us who are still here on Earth. It seemed as though Juan Eusebio was begging us to resurrect his life story, to tell the truth about who he was and what he stood for, along with asking us to remind others of how the Taino people continued to resist centuries after colonization. Resurrecting Juan Eusebio Bonilla Salcedo from the pages of Asesinato Politico , and from historic oblivion was our way, as descendants and kin, of paying homage to him. No one else can make that claim as we brought him back to life, figuratively speaking. #FactsMatter #CiteBlackWomen #CitePuertoRicanWomen
Ain’t Too Proud to Beg: Ellen Fernandez-Sacco to The Rescue
For this blogpost —- a first for me —- I asked my cousin-homie-friend, Ellen Fernandez-Sacco, to help me understand why it has been so hard for me to locate my exact relationship to Juan Eusebio. I am no expert in Puerto Rican genealogy and never claimed to be. There are multiple layers of first-cousin and uncle-niece marriage in my Bonilla line over centuries with not just my direct Bonilla family line, but with all the associated families who married into it (e.g., The Vega, Rodriguez, Figueroa, and Velez families). Because of this, I reached out to Ellen for some clarity and for her to elucidate some of the issues I have to deal with that have impacted my ability to pinpoint how I am related to Juan Eusebio. What is important to remember is that Juan Eusebio Bonilla Salcedo’s surnames are those that pop up on my tree AND with my DNA cousins over and over again. In addition, there are numerous Bonilla families in Susua Alta, and surrounding barrios and Sabana Grande, that are clearly collateral relatives of my ancestors. The Bonillas of Yauco include the following surnames: Bonilla Bonilla, Bonilla Figueroa, Bonilla Limardo, Bonilla Lopez, Bonilla Martinez, Bonilla Morales, Bonilla Quiles, Bonilla Rivera, Bonilla Rodriguez, Bonilla Salcedo, Bonilla Sanchez, Bonilla Torres, Bonilla Vega, Bonilla Velez, and Bonilla Zambrana. Please note that future blogposts will be forthcoming that will show the interrelatedness of all these Yauco Bonilla families.
Ellen has gifted me with her knowledge of Puerto Rican genealogy and Puerto Rico in general. Her own work dovetails with mine. We are both concerned with researching ancestral family histories’ that have been suppressed, silenced, and/or erased and the issue of how resistance is manifested by those who may be considered to be powerless. As women genealogists of color, we are also conscious of how our own identities have emerged as a result of our ancestors being survivors of the triple horrors of genocide, colonization, and slavery. Though both of us descend from European colonizers, slaveholders, and immigrants, we have chosen to focus more on our African and Indigenous ancestors, the ones whose histories remain largely unknown. That being said, Ellen truly has a unique voice of her own that incorporates on many levels the consciousness of diverse groups of people considered to be “forgotten by history.”
Dr. Ellen Fernandez-Sacco
Ellen has almost 20 years of genealogy research experience behind her. She has her own blog, Latino Genealogy and Beyond. She has also published articles on Puerto Rican genealogy in Hereditas, journal of theSociedad Puertorriquena de Genealogia, and this year, has a two part article in the California Genealogical Society’s The Nugget, first published in The Baobab Tree: Journal of the African American Genealogical Society of Northern California (AAGSNC);previously on the California Genealogical Society blog. She has a book chapter on the history of Mundillo in the collection Women and Needlework, thanks to a Senior Latino Smithsonian Fellowship. Her articles can also be found on Academia.edu. Ellen is one of the panelists, along with myself, on BlackProGen LIVE, a YouTube genealogy channel dedicated to teaching others how to research their ancestors throughout the African Diaspora. Moreover, Ellen has served as Past President, President, Vice President, and Board Member of the California GenealogicalSociety , is the founder and co-moderator of Sociedad Ancestros Mocanos on Yahoo! Groups and Facebook since June 2005, is an enrolled member of the United Confederation of Taino People, and belongs to the Yukayeke Guayniana. Finally, she is a graduate of ProGen 16 and ProGen Law (beta).
In her analysis of The Bonilla Family of Yauco, Ellen will discuss the various issues inherent in Puerto Rican genealogy among which include the issues of who is included and excluded in historical records, women & war, the classification of the Taino people within the “Pardo libre” racial/ethnic category, levels of endogamy in small, rural communities,the political economic context of Yauco in the 18th and 19th century, and other topics as well. Ellen also has a way of succinctly pointing out the things that make Puerto Rican and African and Indigenous genealogy research difficult. I am happy that she embraced the task at hand 1000% as you will see.
So, thank you, prima Ellen, for being you and for showing a keen interest in documenting the lives of my Bonilla Family of Yauco, and especially, of our own Juan Eusebio Bonilla Salcedo!
A Bonilla Family Tree: Context, Resistance & Reading Indigeneity
Ellen Fernandez-Sacco, Ph.D.
Simply searching for that linear connection to conquistadors or mainstream historical figures can sideline aspects of research.
If that’s the case, there’s so much you’re missing. As a result of not looking, a lot gets left on the table. Why is genealogy and family history so important? Taken on a personal level, genealogy and historical study enables one to open that identification up, learn about the erasure of people from history, how privilege works and the importance of context.There is something to be said for the weight of context in doing this research. I want to thank my prima Teresa Vega for the invitation to delve into the Boricua branches of her family history.
Yauco: Whose history?
Historical narratives of Yauco’s steady population growth often focus on the arrival of Europeans over time, largely from France, Italy and Corsica. While their material contribution is not to be denied, this lineage can cast a long shadow over different histories contained within the documentary record. If one turns their attention to the legal disenfranchisement of Taino and African descendants whose labor they culled, another trajectory of development becomes visible.
Depending on which region of Boriken, people were undercounted if counted at all, and over time, many escaped the pages of census or parish records creating their own means of privacy as protection. For instance, eighteenth century censuses were not comprehensive and covered only part of the population, leaving the mountainous regions where Native people lived without being subjected to the processes of colonization. The pressures were still there as towns expanded, but if you’ve ever taken the Ruta Panoramica across central Puerto Rico, there are plenty of places that people sought refuge across time.
Indigenous women survived in large numbers, absorbing the men into a culture shaped by matrilineal relationships. [1] The economic repercussions of a shift out of a military structure to the development of plantation economies and its ensuing monocultures of sugar, coffee and tobacco, also shifted the fortunes and conditions of various families.
Barrio Susua Alta y Bajo lies outside of barrio pueblo in Yauco, alongside of Almacigo, and between the two, most family members are based in either of these barrios. As the borders of Sabana Grande (founded in 1817) lies so close, one can see an overlap in the number of families there in the early nineteenth century, possibly the same individuals that are in Susua Alta.
Barrio Susua, Yauco, in red. Google Maps, 2019. Note the elevation and location of the Barrio Pueblo that borders the end of Susua.
Further west and south is San German, the oldest point of European settlement on the western side of the island. Older histories tell the story of Spanish conquistadors encounters with Natives that conveniently soon die off. I’ll come back to this ‘paper genocide’ shortly.
The Reverberation of DNA Evidence: An ethnically diverse society
Some history books stutter over the reality that Arawakan and Carib peoples remained across a region known as ‘El Capital Taino’ The Taino Capital’. This is part of an areas comprised of ancestors with traditions, an identity hidden in plain sight since colonization began. In 2000, Dr. Martinez Cruzado found that 61% of the people he tested had an Indigenous maternal haplogroup, a reflection of an older, deeper history of genocide. Many Taino males were murdered or sold into slavery, while women had consensual or coercive relationships with the Spanish who arrived on the island.
Map from Martinez-Cruzado, “Mitochondrial DNA Analysis in Puerto Rico”
Beneath Spanish surnames are present Indigenous people, many reduced to the disenfranchising status of a color. A color simply denies political status, it is reductive and useful in a system that pits capital against the flesh in an endless attempt to conquer or humiliate an individual.[2] Where did the survivors go? The mountains. These are the regions least known and mapped until the military maps of the late 1880s.
War & Women
,What also needs to come to the table is the treatment of women of color within a system of encomiendas and later slavery. Many remained in a service economy post-slavery. While mapping this may be too theoretical for some, but in Antonia I Castaneda “Sexual Violence in the Politics of Conquest”, she writes, “Under conditions of war or conquest, rape is a form of natural terrorism, subjugation and humiliation, wherein the sexual violation of women represents both the physical domination of women and the symbolic castration of the men of the conquered group.” As women become the symbolic capital of men, rape becomes a “legitimate form of expression of superiority that comes with it no civil penalties” This is a property inheritance system whereby the ownership of property gives legitimacy and can be inherited. It’s backed up by sociopolitical reasons: religion, conquest, slavery, race, class. [3] This process continues into the present.
So we do need to weigh the idea of patriarchal concepts that are at work, embedded in narratives about the past, even those presented in documents. Who do we see in the records?[ How are women described? How are households comprised? What does mtDNA tell us about the past?] Thus, when we read for context, these elements can factor in different proportions depending upon time period or the person or institution presenting the information. The hunter does not tell the lion’s story.
So we do need to weigh the idea of patriarchal concepts that are at work, embedded in narratives about the past, even those presented in documents. Who do we see in the records? How are women described or what is the mtDNA informing us about the past? Thus, when we read for context, these elements can factor in different proportions depending upon time period or the person or institution presenting the information. The hunter does not tell the lion’s story.
“Pardos libres”
There is often surprise at the realization that pardo literally means brown. The point of color is to compress and deny the complexity of identity, and thereby deny claims to sovereignty or political status. ‘Indio’’Jibaro’ are terms that acknowledge the indigenous presence yet, paper genocide renames them to a generic population. In 1808, Governor Toribio Montes instituted the census category eliminated ‘Indio’ and substituted ‘Pardo’ instead.
The census category of Indios, as Castanha points out, came at the expense of a Puerto Rican national consciousness.[4] The racial identification of Bonillas over time range from mestizo, pardo, mulato, blanco, terms that speak more to power than ancestry, and via the legal process of blanqueamiento literally shifts to white by purchase in the early nineteenth century. Yes, you could buy your white status and that was very handy for marriages into families of higher social status.
By the twentieth century, the categories reflect admixture and many in the census are listed as blancos. A similar process occurs in the US, where the context of admixed populations occupies different terminology depending on location, space, time period.
In 1776, the census by Fray Inigo Abbad included Blancos, sus Mujeres, Hijos, HIjas; Pardos libres; Negros, sus mujeres.
Nearly a century later, the numbers of POC in Puerto Rico are much higher than Cuba; note that the number of Indigenous, Afro-Indigenous and African people is almost equal to that
of those deemed white in this caste system in Puerto Rico.
Tracing Male Bonillas in the Early Nineteenth Century
The 1817 Lista de Milicias Urbanas has several Bonillas listed— 56 of them in fact. The spreadsheet created by Walter Cardona Bonet and others for the SPG from the original census in the Archivo General de Puerto Rico. Their document, (available with membership!) has an alphabetical index. Yauco is not part of the areas transcribed, however, there is the adjacent municipality of Sabana Grande.
43 listed had an identity listed: 24- Pardos, 19 Blancos, with a distribution of Bonillas as follows. The majority of militia in Sabana Grande and Coamo in 1817 were Pardos. The years of birth for these men ranged between 1757 to 1792, as service was from ages 25 to 60.
10 Coamo – 8 Pardo; 2 Blanco
8 Anasco – not identified
8 Sabana Grande – 8 Pardo
8 Humacao – 8 Blanco
5 Rincon – not identified
4 Guaynabo- 4 Pardo
3 Gurabo – 3 Blanco
3 Juana Diaz – 3 Pardo
2 Caguas – 2 Blanco
1 Aguada – 1 Pardo
1 Hato Grande – 1 Blanco
1 Las Piedras – not identified
1 Maunabo – Blanco
1 Toa Alta – – not identified
Clearly there is more going on than meets the eye in terms of potential identification and categories for these Bonilla men across the island. I’ve written briefly about why some people in past decades put a halt to their genealogical research– upon discovering that their ancestor wasn’t the European one, but the black or mulatto or mestizo person of the same name; of segregated parish books disappearing, of pages surreptitiously ripped out in fear of being discovered one had pardo, Indian, black or slave ancestry listed on their documents. Things are changing, and people are owning their past.[5] That is less likely to happen now. Given the numbers above, we are looking at a lot of blended people, mostly identified as Indigenous or Afro-Indigenous with the surname Bonilla.
Market Day in Yauco https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/96519607/ Yauco was one of Puerto Rico’s sugar exporting towns. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/90713919/
Violence and Family Histories
Through Black ProGen LIVE, we have worked on genealogies whose trees have been scarred by racial terror, the threat of erasure, lynching and attempts to disenfranchise different groups of POC, allies and others. As I came to learn, Puerto Rico is no different. I came to the story of Juan Eusebio Bonilla Salcedo through my cousin, Teresa Vega almost five years ago, when she shared the publication Asesinato Politico. [6] Clearly Juan Eusebio Bonilla became a symbol of the movement the Spanish colonial government sought to crush.
To have a family member, an ancestor lynched requires time to absorb and to literally sit with the implications of a violence perpetrated by institutions that one expects help rather than harm. The historical time period during which Juan Eusebio Salcedo lived came during a shift back to the monarchy in Spain, with two revolts, Grito de Lares in Puerto Rico and Grito de Yara in Cuba. There was a deterioration in living conditions reflected in increasing levels of mortality— for the general population and the birth rate. There was a long process of gradual emancipation, in which people were sold up to the last moment possible in 1873, and the formerly enslaved were required to work three years for their former masters in exchange for freedom. [7] This was a population of color that could be found in every municipality, but in varying numbers.
The Path to Decolonizing Family Histories
Yauco had a series of uprisings since the fifteenth century. A map of rebellions by Hector Andres Negroni from his Historia Miitar de Puerto Rico shows clusters of related events occurred during the nineteenth century. The late 1880s saw the both the establishment of the Partido Autonomista (Autonomist Party) and the arrival in March of General Romulado Palacio Gonzalez. A conservative aligned with the colonial center in Madrid, “identified, persecuted, pushiness, tortured and jailed dozens of autonomists,” [8]
1887 was known as “The Year of Terror” The General was removed from office by that November and returned to Spain. “El Componte” imprinted many oral histories before the Spanish American War of 1898.
Map of Rebellions in PR showing extent of repression of El Componte and resistance to it in the central areas of the island and in Yauco. “Mapa de las rebellions.” Hector Andres Negroni, Historia Miliar de Puerto Rico
Jose Eusebio Salcedo’s Parents
Excerpt, Acta de Defunción, Jose Bonilla y Salcedo, 25 Oct 1885, FS.org
The death record for Juan Eusebio Salcedo’s brother, Jose Bonilla Salcedo holds a very different history in the description of his parents. “Era hijo legitimo de Marcos Bonllla y de Rita Salcedo, naturales y domiciliados que fueron de este pueblo, labradores, difuntos.” Jose Bonilla Salcedo died of anemia at the age of 33; Probably born in the 1820s, the birth of Jose was preceded by at least three others before 1852. Most outlived them. Their parents, Marcos Bonilla Torres and Rita Salcedo Sanchez are described as agricultural laborers, which isn’t the same as agricultor proprietarios -agricultural landowners as with theuan other Bonilla line.
Juan Eusebio Bonilla Salcedo was a business owner, a comerciante, who dealt in coffee. He unlike many Bonillas was literate and able to sign his name. His resistance to processes of colonization has its basis in a longer suppressed history of Indigenous existence on the island.
Working Documents: Marcos & Hermenegilda
There’s a fundamental difference in practice among some family historians. There’s a bit of shoehorning happening with a certain Marcos Bonilla who appears in some trees tied to the Bonillas of Yauco. As a result, it doesn’t take much to disprove the presence of Marcos Bonilla in Coamo who a few assumed was the same Marcos Bonilla Torres of Yauco.
According to the 1888 death certificate, a 50 year old Marcos Bonilla in Coamo died of a wasting disease (caxequia paludica). Francisco Matos, a neighbor, reported Marcos’ vital details. The secretary notes of Francisco ’sin segundo apellido’, an indicator of potential illegitimacy or class; its often found with POC as there are more single female heads of household. Born about 1838, the record states that Marcos was “hijo ilegitimo de Paula Bonilla natural de esta Villa, ya difunta”— the illegitimate son of Paula Bonilla, born in Coamo, deceased.” Next.
Hermenegilda Limardo Cintron
This Acta de Defunción for Hermenegildo Limardo Cintron is a hot mess. If someone did not already work other areas of the tree from the twentieth back to the early nineteenth century, a special surprise awaits.
Fortunately, I located the baptisms of several of her children, and was able to see who was listed as the father of the children along with her parents, all documents that predate this one by nearly two decades. There are no records listing these children as those of Juan Antonio or Juan Velez; neither are there two marriages with Hermenegilda Limardo Cintron.
This is the information given in the certificate above:
Dionicio Lopez Lugo natural y domicilado, casado, labrador, mayor de edad
primeras nupcias Juan Antonio Velez Agricultor proprietario
7 hijos, Juan, Damaso, Maria, Juana, Evaristo,
2ndas nupcias: Juan Velez, Agricultor proprietario, un hijo, Juan
The declarante, Dionisio Lopez Lugo (1837-1892) was in his early 50s at the time, and died where he lived, in the adjoining barrio of Almacigo Bajo. He was married to Maria Bonilla, who remains to be identified at this time. Clearly he’s got some relationship to the Bonillas, but, does he have an agenda? As a legal document this is very problematic. Today, if someone tries to build a tree with this document, they will soon be nowhere.
I’ll address the baptismal information in the next section. I’d like to give a shout out to Anaisa Bayala, for her index to the Iglesia Nuestra Señora del Rosario, Yaucoon FamilySearch. Without the links, this is next to impossible to locate.
Close & Closer Still: Endogamy, BigTime.
Looking at most of the family connections in Yauco lead back to several clusters of Bonillas there that have varying degrees of consanguinity and admixture. Given several close dispensations, and having outlined several trees based on series of civil and parish records, it quickly becomes evident several strategies are at work to keep networks of property and family in the same hands. There can be a high cost, as the records show.
For us today, the problem is a bit different when trying to determine relationships on the basis of DNA. One hilarious example is using MyHeritage’s system of AutoClustering that intends to group ancestry on the basis of dna. Ideally a set of rectangles isolating each grouping cascades diagonally across the page. When I took the test, the result was distributed into a practically solid pink surface, a visual suggestion of the layers of endogamy embedded in my ancestry; Teresa’s was the same. Here too, AutoClustering is of no help.
A Second Degree of Consanguinity: Why it matters
What tracing the Bonilla line provided was a similar experience of endogamy first hand, which I will demonstrate. There are several dispensations early on, which begin to collapse the Bonilla tree. Two of the marriages are extremely close, a segundo grado de consanguinidad (second degree of consanguinity). These layered relationships begin early, very early.
As I said earlier these are tools of economic survival, justified by the church and extension, the community. This isn’t about avoiding color, its about cementing relationships during times of intensive material and social change.
There are also connections across both across two main clusters of Bonillas that I have determined occurring over two centuries. I’ve annotated two charts to make the relationships visible.
First, here is a partial translation of the 1875 petition for dispensation requested by Juan Ramon Bonilla Limardo and Josefa Bonilla Figueroa for a second degree of consanguinity:
In the town of Our Lady of the Rosary of Yauco Nuestra Señora del Rosario de Yauco on the 10 of August 1875, I the undersigned parish priest having explored their intention in respect to contrasting marriage between Juan Ramon Bonilla, legal son of Juan Ramon and Ermenegilda Bonilla, and of Josefa Bonilla legal daughter of Vicente and of Cecilia Figueroa, dispensation granted by the His Grace, the Bishop of this Diocesis Don Juan tu.P Puig, for the canonical impediment of second degree of consanguinity on equal transverse lines, examined by Christian doctrine and conceded the three canonical banns anticipated in the Council of Trent
Second degree here was the marriage of two first cousins, and basically Juan Ramon Bonilla and Vicente Bonilla Sanchez were brothers and their children married each other. While this level of endogamy is not seen today, there are a few among nineteenth century dispensations. Uncle – Niece marriage also happened and falls under second degree. That these children had the same grandparents and the same set of aunts and uncles, is what endogamy and pedigree collapse refers to.
Juan Eusebio Bonilla Sanchez: Tying the Trees Together
Further research to continue but looking at the clusters of family, there will be more endogamy to connect the Bonillas together across time. The goal here is to bring visibility to POC within the local history, and the costs of that identification during a moment of political repression 125 years ago. This holds meaning for us as Taino today.
Conclusion
Ultimately, people will grapple with this situation, and see the need for deeper historical context paired with documentation and DNA results. Taken all together: “Finally, we show that the Native American components in some present-day Caribbean genomes are closely related to the ancient Taino, demonstrating an element of continuity between precontact populations and present-day Latino populations in the Caribbean.”[9]
The Bonillas of Yauco are also part of this larger historical context. Juan Eusebio Bonilla Salcedo’s revitalization is important as is remembering his death and understanding our origins.
References
[1] Tony Castanha, The Myth of Indigenous Caribbean Extinction: Continuity and Reclamation in Boriken (Puerto Rico). Palgrave MacMillan, 2011.
[4] Castanha, 90. “In other words, the creation of a Puerto Rican awareness came at the expense of the Indian or Jibaro. This form of ethnocide negated or instantly wiped out the Indian presence from the record books, and since the category of “pardos libres’, which we now know pertains to Indigenous people, has not been interpreted this way in history, the job was complete. As with indigenous groups historically, this negation assumes a national consciousness to be superior to, and thus takes precedence over all things indigenous, particularly one’s identity…” Also see Loida Figueroa Mercado’s observations: “Note: Please note that there was a majority of non-whites. In 1771, 38,259 comparted to 31,951, and in 1778 56,295 compated to 46,756. Please note, moreover, that crossbreeds are not specified (native with White) or other mixtures, under the term free coloured peoples. If we compare this census with O’Reilly’s made in 1765 we see an increase in the number of slaves from 7,592 in 1771 and 11,560 in 1778, compared to 5,037 slaves in 1765.
If we take all this data into account it is evident that the time has come to throw overboard the fallacy of the extermination of the native population. Of course there were grounds for the creation of this fallacy and for the subsequent transmission to future generations, as the documents of the first half of the century repeat that the “native Indians” had been eliminated.” [emphasis added]http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/41/304.html
[7] Fernando Pico, History of Puerto Rico, Princeton: Marcus Weiner Publishers, 2006, 199-202. Also key is Pico’s observation on p 198
Racial divisions have a serious effect on the development of national identities. This is a problem Puerto Rico shares with the rest of Spanish America, where there have been similar examples of prejudice against the indigenous peoples. But the desperate attempt to gain the approval of the leading cultural institutions in the metropolis led many Puerto Ricans to turn back on their Caribbean reality, to assume exaggerated Hispanophile poses. For a long time our culture defined itself as Spanish.”
[9] Hannes Schroeder, Martin Sikora, Shyam Gopalakrishnan, Lara M. Cassidy, Pierpaolo Maisano Delser, Marcela Sandoval Velasco, Joshua G. Schraiber, Simon Rasmussen, Julian R. Homburger, María C. Ávila-Arcos, Morten E. Allentoft, J. Víctor Moreno-Mayar, Gabriel Renaud, Alberto Gómez-Carballa, Jason E. Laffoon, Rachel J. A. Hopkins, Thomas F. G. Higham, Robert S. Carr, William C. Schaffer, Jane S. Day, Menno Hoogland, Antonio Salas, Carlos D. Bustamante, Rasmus Nielsen, Daniel G. Bradley, Corinne L. Hofman, and Eske Willerslev, “Origins and genetic legacies of the Caribbean Taino.” PNAS March 6, 2018 115 (10) 2341-2346; first published February 20, 2018 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1716839115
Hector Andres Negroni, Historia de Yauco. Gob. Municipal de Yauco, 2006.
This blogpost is dedicated to all Speakers of TRUTH, especially my fellow BlackProGen LIVE panelists, who are on the battlefield for their ancestors and who continue to speak truth to power in a manner that makes their ancestors proud.
Our Obligation to Our Ancestors…
On this Good Friday 2019, I want to discuss the moral obligation that descendants have to their ancestors. This is a topic I have spoken about for years now and will continue to speak about. My cultural worldview is one that is African-Native and has been shaped by the fundamental belief that there is NO SEPARATION between those who reside on high and those of us still among the living here on earth. Our ancestors are with us wherever we go! They not only exists in the features they left us with, the beautiful rainbow shades we have, the color of our eyes, but they also are with us in the words we speak and the acts of restorative social justice that we do in THEIR NAMES. We call their names so that they will be remembered by all.
For years now, my multi-racial extended family has been in places and situations that can only be described as guided by our ancestors. We were not supposed to be at the last public hearing in Greenwich, CT before the “Byram African-American Cemetery,” Byram Cemetery and Lyon Cemetery were to be acquired by the Town of Greenwich back in September 2016. And yet we were there. On April 17, 2019, our extended family attended the Rutgers-Newark Agitate! The Legacy of Frederick Douglass and Abolition in Newark celebration . We were not supposed to be there originally, but there we were. I was initially slated to only speak three minutes due to time constraints, but I spoke for 10 minutes. Our ancestors rendered possible what seemed to be impossible. It was through God and their divine intervention that I was able to point out the FACTS of their lives — that they made up the bedrock of abolitionism in Newark.
These T-shirts can be purchased on www.rrbb-shop.com to support the preservation of cemeteries.
On Restorative Social Justice for Our Ancestors
Last week my Goin cousin and fellow BlackProGen LIVE panelist, Dr. Shelley Murphy, informed me that the Boyd Carter Cemetery in Kearneysville, West Virginia, another historic African-American cemetery, is facing destruction. Our ancestors are in this cemetery facing a peace disturbed because a pipeline is slated to run through their sacred resting space. Shelley is working with other descendants of people interred there along with concerned allies, like Chris Petrella, a professor at American University and the Director of Advocacy and Strategic Partnerships with the Antiracist Research and Policy Center and others.
While we love working in tandem with our allies and welcome any help we can get, descendants of those buried in cemeteries, facing desecration and destruction, should fight on behalf of their own ancestors. It is OUR MORAL IMPERATIVE, OUR MORAL OBLIGATION as long as we reside on this earth to be our ancestors’ unified voice to articulate their pain, loud and clear, with our heads held high…
I want to say to the many people who have ancestral places that are currently under attack by outside forces that the battle is only over when WE SING and SHOUT! Don’t be dismayed that things aren’t going the way that you want them to go. To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven!And in this our season, it’s time to get LOUDER and resurrect the lives and memories of those who are facing historic erasure.While the powers that be may eventually do what they always have done and erase our ancestral presence from the physical world, we, as descendants, have the power to do what we always had to do and that is to find ways of remembering those who have gone before us. While our ancestors risked being severely punished, mutilated and killed for writing and speaking out in their own defense, they always relied on the power of memory and oral history to stay in touch with their own ancestors. Today, we have the power to remember our ancestors, resurrect their communities, and then turn around and tell the world about our kin. We are not powerless! Our ancestors left behind their DNA in us to fight any battle that comes our way! We’ve come this far by faith…
Stories from the National Memorial for Peace and Justice
BlackProGen LIVE has been working with the descendants of lynching victims and have been helping them flesh out their family trees and tell their ancestral stories. As Nicka Smith points out, “In 2018, The Equal Justice Initiative opened the The National Memorial for Peace and Justice which memorialized more than 4,400 African American men, women, and children who were hanged, burned alive, shot, drowned, and beaten to death by white mobs between 1877 and 1950.” Our two upcoming BlackProGen LIVE episodes “will feature the family history of some of the victims documented in the memorial in an effort to humanize and bring light to their lives outside of a tragic event they have been associated with,” states Smith.
BlackProGen LIVE is committed to educating and helping descendants of both Free and enslaved ancestors discover their ancestral stories. As a group, we believe that our research is nothing short of reparational acts of restorative social justice. Time and time again, we have proven that here are ways in which our ancestral stories and family history can be discovered in spite of slavery.
In conclusion, I posted this video almost 8 months ago and I am going to leave it right here AGAIN because our ancestors are with us wherever we go and they guide our research every step of the way!
This blog is written as a supplement to the Agitate! The Legacy of Frederick Douglass and Abolition in Newark celebration taking place at Rutgers University-Newark on April 17, 2019. A special thank you goes to City of Newark Town Historian Junius Williams who several years ago invited me to add our Thompson-King family history to his websitewhich is devoted to African-American political mobilization and activism in Newark and to his Rutgers University -Newark students Peter Blackmer, Noelle Lorraine Williams, and others. Dr. James Amemasor and the staff at the NJ Historical Societydeserve special mention as they have all aided my research for almost a decade now along with my good friend Rich Sears Walling for his endless quest to bring the Van Wickle Illegal Slave Trade to light and seek social justice for the 177 Lost Souls–some of whom were our NJ ancestors. My best friend and purveyor of all the research items I need, Professor Rhonda L. Johnson, Head of Access Services at CUNY- Hostos Community College, my BlackProGen LIVE geneabuddies and fellow Truth Seekers, Muriel “Dee Dee”Roberts, Shannon Christmas, Calvin Schermerhorn, James J. Gigantino II, Joshua Rothman, Graham Russell Hodges, and others who have supported my research over the years.
The greatest thanks go to Chancellor Nancy Cantor, Peter Englot, Sr. VP Chancellor of Public Affairs and Chief of Staff, and Sr. VP Chancellor for External and Government RelationsMarcia Brown and for inviting my extended family to this hisoric event and allowing me to speak as well as Dr. Consuella Askew, Director, John Cotton Dana Library. On behalf of our Thompson-King family, we look forward to working with Rutgers University in the near future.
This blog is dedicated to each and everyone of my extended family members who will join us at this event — in person or in spirit, especially my cousin-homie-sister-genealogy research partner, Andrea Hughes. Our Ancestor Angels will be watching us on this day happily knowing that it is in THEIR NAMES that their history of AGITATION will be remembered by all! I can imagine that they are also happy that we will be honoring a man whom they honored in life and that we are being united with his DESCENDANTS on this day. Indeed, this is a day that the Lord has made and we will be glad and rejoice in it.
On April 17-18, 1849, our Prophet of Freedom, Frederick Douglass, visited our hometown of Newark to speak at the Plane Street Colored Presbyterian Church as part of his tour of Northeast African-American churches after the publication of his first book and to drum up support for his newspaper, The North Star. When he arrived, he was introduced by Rev. Samuel Cornish, the pastor of the church at the time, as well as greeted by many of our ancestors among whom were the Thompson, King, O’Fake, Ray, Van Riper, Francis, Lewis, Jackson, Goosebeck, and Van Ness families among so many others.
Our ancestors are descended from the Ramapough Lenape who have lived in C/NY/NJ for the millenia, Emmanuel d’Angola, one of the first “Spanish Negroes,” other enslaved people from all over West Africa, the first enslaved people from Madagascar, and European (Dutch, Scots-Irish, British and French Huguenot) colonizers.
With the exception of our indigenous ancestors, all others arrived in the early 1600s (see Part II: The DNA Trail from Madagascar to Manhattan & Our Family’s Malagasy Roots). We are especially proud of our African-Native roots because we know that our ancestors survived the triple horrors of genocide, colonization, and slavery so that we could tell their true stories — the good, bad, and ugly. It is their DNA of resistance that was handed down to us and which is embodied in our multi-racial family history working on the Underground Railroad.
The Abolitionist Context: Newark, NJ Pre-1849
Newark Daly Advertiser April, 8, 1864Centinel of Freedom November 3, 1863
Like most colonial families, our ancestors fought on both sides during the War of Independance. The famed Black Loyalist, Colonel Tye, led the Black Brigade in acts of resistence against the Patriots by launching attacks on Long Island, Westchester County, Staten Island and all over East Jersey. At this time, New York City was under British control. Colonel Tye worked directly with General John Graves Simcoe‘s Queen’s Rangers. These revolts occured in the same locations where our ancestors lived and labored for free. On the last ship out of NYC at the end of the Revolutionary War, were 3,000 Black Loyalists. Among them were Mary Thompson and her daughters May and Polly plus two small girls, who may have been daughters of either one, from Newark, Rose Fortune and her family — all ancestors of ours that we know of at this time. That being said, it is also known that the true number of Black Loyalists who left for Canada was undercounted.
Slavery in Newark persisted after the Revolutionary War as you can see by the two newspaper clippings above. Though our ancestors migrated from the Tappan Patent (Bergan County, NJ and Rockland/Orange Counties, NY) up to Ulster County, and then down to Greater Middlesex County prior to the Revolutionary War, they ending up in Newark (Essex County) after the Revolutionary War. Some were emancipated as early as the 1790s, others were enslaved for a term under the Gradual Emancipation Act of 1804, and others remained enslaved for life. The mixed-status households that our ancestors resided in is the reason why they espoused political activism and mobilization. They saw the horrors of slavery up close and personal— from every angle. The fact that only some of them were freed earlier than others meant nothing to them if everyone was not free. They always saw the full humanity of their people. That our African-Native ancestors were disenfranchised, along with women in 1807, only added to their anger. They had lived through the Revolutionary War living and working side by side along well-known American Patriots, such as Abraham Ogden, and David A. Ogden, Caleb Bruen, and had believed in the American Dream from its inception only to have their fundamental right to vote snatched from their hands. They never gave up on the American Dream though.
It must be noted that after the founding of the AME Zion Church in Newark in 1822, there was an exodus of our ancestors and other African-Americans from the First Presbyterian Church who ended up joining the AME Zion Church. Our ancestors only came back to their Presbyterian roots when the Colored Presbyerian Church was founded in 1836. Both of these churches can be considered “Freedom Churches” as the early Newark African-American community was united in their embrace of abolitionism. Both churches engaged in abolitionist activities whereby the early Black community routinely attended events at each church. We seen this in the early Colored School as the school alternated between both churches in its early years. Likewise, we see this in the First of August celebrations held in Lincoln Park where opening and closing prayers were held at both churches and ministers from each church spoke at these celebrations.
Starting in the early 1800s and up until 1900, our abolitionist ancestors knew all the early abolitionists from their participation in both the AME Zion Church that our King Family founded alongside of Rev. Christopher Rush and the Colored Presbyterian Church where our Thompsons were among the founding families. [Later, our ancestors would be among the founding families of St. Phillip’s Church and Bethany Baptist Church in Newark.] Rev. Samuel Cornish, John B. Russwurm, Rev. Theordore Hunt, Rev. E.P. Rogers, Rev. Theordore S. Wright, David Ruggles, Rev. Henry Highland Garnet, Rev. James McCune Smith, Rev. Peter Williams and his son Rev. Peter Williams, Jr., Isaac Hopper, Thomas Shipley, Charles L. Reason, Rev. Alexander Crummel, Rev. Samuel Ringgold Ward, Gerrit Smith, Lewis and Arthur Tappan, Rev. James C. W. Pennington, Harriet Tubman, Sojouner Truth, Rev. W. T. Catto, James Forten, Robert Purvis, Rev. Simeon Jocelyn, Angelina Grimke Weld and Sarah Grimke, Rev. William O. Jackson, William Lloyd Garrison, Rev. John S. Rock, Rev. Daniel A. Payne, John Brown, William Still, Rev. Daniel Vanderveer, Mary Ann Shadd Cary, William C. Nell, John Teasman, Rev. Bishop James Varick, Rev Jehiel Beman and his son Rev. Amos G. Beman, Martin Delaney, and William Wells Brown are just of the some of the abolitionists my ancestors personally knew.
When Frederick Douglass came to Newark in 1849, Newark was already an epicenter of abolitionism and could hold its own among other Northeast epicenters like New York City and Albany/Troy, NY, Philadelphia, PA, Boston and New Bedford, MA, Providence, RI, and Hartford, CT.
This 1806 map is in the Special Collections of Rutgers University http://mapmaker.rutgers.edu/NEWARK/Newark_1806.jpg
However, some Lyons, who migrated to New Jersey and New York, were Loyalists and ended up in Nova Scotia and Upper Canada West. One of our Lyon cousins, Pamela Lyons Neville, has documentation, both oral and written, that her ancestor, John Lyons, settled in Upper Canada West (Toronto, ON) at the request of the First Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada John Graves Simcoe. His father, Thomas Lyons, fought in the King’s Orange Rangers under Colonel John Bayard. The Canadian Loyalists Lyons, when joined by our Patriot Lyons from CT/NY/NJ, represent the full scope of our multi-racial abolitionist history in the Tri-State (CT/NY/NJ) area.
Lyons Farm Schoolhouse, Library of Congress (https://www.loc.gov/resource/hhh.nj0497.photos?st=gallery) This school was the first schoolhouse erected in Newark 1728 and was burned during the Revolutionary War in 1782, but later rebuilt.
Writing Our Other UGRR Abolionist Ancestors Back Into the Historic Record
This blogpost is nothing short, as Nicka Smith states, “an act of restorative social justice” for our ancestors. It is our duty as descendants to honor the legacy that out ancestors bequeathed to us. For far too long our ancestral stories have been lost, remained hidden in archives, or have been rendered silent. We owe it to our ancestors to write them back into the historic record without hestitation, for every individual has a life story that is worthy to be told. We can count among our extended Thompson-King line many other abolitionist ancestors like Dr. John V. Degrasse and his brother Rev. Isaiah G. DeGrasse, Thomas Downing and his son George T. Downing who are related to us via our Van Salee/Hedden line. Below, however, are our ancestors who are inextricably tied to the City of Newark through blood and marriage.
Rev. Dr. Charles H. Thompson, (1820-1902)
Rev. Charles H. Thompson was the second Thompson-King family member to take up the cause of voting rights after the death of our Rev. John A. King in 1849. He deserves special mention here because of his life-long commitment to the civil rights and education of our people. Rev. Thompson was born in Little York, PA, near Harrisburg, in 1820. He was the son of John Thompson, a brother of our Thomas Thompson. As a young person, he traveled back and forth from Little York, PA to Newark, NJ and Brooklyn, NY. In 1845, he married Elizabeth Berry of Brooklyn, NY and they had several children.
In the early 1850s, Rev. Charles Thompson became involved with the American Missionary Association (AMA), an abolitionist group led by Rev. Simeon Jocelyn, one of the original lawyers for the Amistad captives who landed in New Haven, CT in 1839. The AMA was founded in 1846 by political abolitionists, Black and White, who were also opposed to colonization and wwere members of Presbyterian or Congregationalist churches. Unlike the Quakers, members of the AMA insisted on full equality between the races in their organization. Some of the Black founding members were Rev. James W. Pennington, Rev. Theodore S. Wright, Rev. Samuel Ringgold Ward, and Charles B. Ray. Rev. Samuel Cornish, Rev. Amos N. Freeman, and Rev. Henry Highland Garnet also served as officers in later years.
In the late 1850s, with sponsorship from the AMA and Reverend Jocelyn, Rev. Thompson enrolled in Oberlin College, known for its commitment to abolitionism, in Oberlin, OH. He was among one of the first Black graduates in 1860. According to records in The Black Abolitionist Papers, Rev. Charles H. Thompson maintained a close relationship with Rev. Simeon Jocelyn often writing to him asking for money to help enslaved people as he was also ministering while being a student.
After graduating from Oberlin, Rev. Charles H. Thompson became a minister at Siloam Presbyterian Churchin Brooklyn, NY. It is not surprising that he ended up in Brooklyn as his wife’s family was from Brooklyn. Charles served three years as the reverend of this church. He later ministered at Shiloh Presbyterian Church in New York City.
In 1861, Rev. Charles H. Thompson became the minister of the Plane Street Colored Presbyterian Church. There can be no doubt that he became the minister of this church because of his family’s known ties to the church and also because of his political activism. While a minister at this church, he took up the cause of voting rights prior to the ratification of the 15th Amendment in 1870 and actively challenged the NJ State Legislature to restore the voting rights of people of color. According to an article titled “Have Negroes the Right to Vote in New Jersey” in the Camden Democrat newspaper written on October, 27, 1866, it mentions that Rev. Charles H. Thompson was one of three plaintiffs who filed both a State Supreme Court and a Circuit Court of the United States lawsuit that challenged the disenfranchisement of people of color. On October 25th, 1870, the Centinel of Freedom mentioned how Rev. Charles H. Thompson addressed a meeting of a colored Republican group and admonished Black voters to vote Republican. As we know, the Republican Party was the party of Lincoln at that time. Earlier that year, he spoke at the “Negro Jubilee,” an event organized by a lot of our ancestors and other Newark abolitionists, held in Lincoln Park on April 20th, 1870 where Black Newark celebrated their right to vote. The 15th Amendment was finally ratified in New Jersey on February 21, 1871.
Rev. Charles H. Thompson stayed at the Plane St. Colored Presbyterian Church for 11 years. After earning a D.D degree from Avery College in Harrisburg, PA in 1870, he became an educator, as well as a minister, with the AMA. The AMA played a major role in educating newly freed Blacks in the post-Civil War era. It was instrumental in founding Howard University, Berea College, Hampton Institute, Atlanta University, Fisk University, Straight University (now Dillard), Tougaloo College, Talladega College, LeMoyne (now LeMoyne-Owen) College as well as other historically black universities and colleges. Rev. Charles H. Thompson left the church and became a professor at Straight University (now Dillard University) as well as a minister at St. Philips Church in New Orleans. After his stint at Straight University, he moved on to teaching at Alcorn State University and ministered at St. Mary’s Church in Vicksburg, Mississippi. He later served at St. Matthews in Detroit, MI, St. Mary’s in Augusta, GA, and St. Andrew’s Missions in both Lexington, KY and Cincinnati, OH. He passed away in Cincinnati in 1902 and is buried in “the Colored American Cemetery near Madisonville,” according to the Diocese of Lexington, KY.
Centinel of Freedom April 20, 1870-The “Negro Jubilee” was the day that the city of Newark celebrated the ratification of the 15th Amendment. As in all of Newark’s First of August celebrations, this historic event took place in Lincoln Park, the only park in the city large enough to hold thousands of people.
Hawley Green (1810-1880) and his wife Harriet Peterson Green (1816-1886)
Hawley Green, a photo taken by a cousin, circa 1870
When my 2nd great-grandparents married, their union represented the merger of two early abolitionist families, The Thompsons of Newark, NJ with the Greens of Greenwich (Byram/Glenville), CT and Peekskill, NY). Hawley Green was a cousin of my 2nd great-grandfather George E. Green. Hawley and his wife Harriet owned an Underground Railroad House located at 1112 Main Street in Peekskill, NY. He bought this house from James Brown, a well-known Quaker anti-slavery proponent, for 9 years before selling the home in 1839 to William Sands, another Quaker. Hawley Green and his wife went on to own several other properties in Peekskill. In addition, Hawley Green was one of Peekskill’s best known barbers —an occupation that enabled him to surreptitiously gather intelligence related to “fugitives.”
Hawley and Harriet Green’s UGRR House at 112 Mainstreet in Peekskill. From John J. Curran’s 2008 book , Peekskill’s African American History: A Hudson Valley Community’s Untold Story.
Hawley Green was a well-known UGRR stationmaster, like our Jacob D. King, who was a member of the AME Zion Church in Peekskill. It was said that, if a self-emancipating man made it to Hawley’s House, the next stop was Canada. Peekskill, NY was right on the Hudson River and transporting enslaved people would have been easy because of his UGRR home’s location. As a member of the AME Zion Church, he also helped form a Colored School located there, along with J. W. Purdy. The AME Zion church also routinely hosted agents from Black Abolitionists newspapers like the Colored American and The Emancipator. David Ruggles, Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, and Harriet Tubman certainly knew Hawley and Harriet Green as did all major abolitionists of the day. Gerrit Smith, the wealthy abolitionist gave Hawley a land grant in the amount of 160 acres in Upstate New York which was 4 times the land given to other African-American abolitionists so that they could vote as land owners. Other Peekskill abolitionists such as Hawley’s brother, Goodman Green, son-in-law George Butler, Riley Peterson, Abraham Ray, Henry Jackson, and Moses Stedell also received 40 acre land grants from Smith.
Photo taken by Teresa Vega of a section of a 1837 Map of Peekskill. The full map is in the Collection of the Field Library, Peekskill, NY.
Other notable descedants on Hawley and Harriet Green’s line include the Deyo and Bolin families from Ulster County and Poughkeepsie, NY.
From: Colin T. Naylor, Civil War Days in a Conutry Village, Peekskill,NY: Highland Press, 1961:58. Note: He was only married to Harriet who, like other colonial people of African descent had Native-American, West African and Malagasy ancestry.
The Highland Democrat, Peekskill, NY November 29, 1919
Rev. John Wesley Dungey (1783-1866)
Rev. John Dungey is the father of my 3rd great grandfather Cato Thompson’s 2nd wife, Rosetta Dungey whom he married after my 3rd great-grandmother, Susan Pickett Thompson, died in the late 1850s. Cato met Rosetta through his sister Catherine Thompson who married, Mattias (Thomas) Hedden, Rosetta’s uncle. Rosetta’s mother was Sarah Heady. The Heddens/Headys are Westchester County’s oldest Free Black family. Thomas Hadden (1694-1761) of Scarsdale, NY had a long-term relationship with Rose (1727-1777), his slave. When he died in 1761, in his 5 page will, he freed Rose and their 7 children, gave Rose a house to live on the same property as his white wife and children, provided for his “mulatto” children’s education, and left them an inheritance. Both Sarah and Mattias were the children of his son, Lazaraus Heady, Sr. (1751-1850). It should be noted that the Heady family is also linked to both our Green and Lyon families of Byram (also at times known as East Port Chester and Rye. NY), Greenwich, CT.
Rev. John Dungey was born in Richmond, VA in 1783. He was born to an enslaved mother, Isabel Dungey, and her slave owner with the surname Overton. His father was said to have descended from an English nobleman. When his father’s family moved to Kentucky, they wanted John to come with him. He refused to go as he was married to an enslaved woman at the time. He stayed in Virginia and learned the shoemaking trade and ultimately obtained his freedom.
His first wife died shortly after their son was born. Because his wife was enslaved, his son was also a slave. When she died, he offered to buy his son for $250 from the woman who owned him, but she refused his offer. It was then that he left Virginia and landed in New York City.
He married his 2nd wife, Sarah Heady, after arriving there and she bore him 5 children. However, we only know about two of them. By that time, he already had a large wholesale and retail shoe store at 24 Chatham Street and employed around 20 white men. His shoe store was right next to the New York Free School (which was different from the African Free School). Rev. James Varick, one of the founders of the AME Zion Church and it’s first Bishop, used to be a shoemaker and the two men probably first met to discuss his business as well as community issues. By 1812, Rev. John Dungey became a minister in the AME Zion Church. When Sarah died of an illness, he was left with 5 young children and his business suffered a downturn that left his family impoverished. It was then that he took stepped out on his faith and became a full-time minister.
Rev. John Dungey established AME Zion churches in Flushing and Ossining, NY, New Haven, CT and finally the last one in Troy, NY. He was a minister for over 50 years in the AME Zion Church. He attented Colored conventions, spoke at numerous abolitionist events, and aided those who sought freedom in the North.
The New York Tribune October 5, 1862
The Times Record, Troy new York June 13,1942
Rev. George Weir, Sr. (circa 1800- 1862) and Rev. George Weir, Jr. (1822-1882)
Rev. George Weir, Sr. was married to Rev. John Dungey’s daughter Nancy Dungey. Both he and his son, from his first wife, Rev. George Weir, Jr., were UGRR stationmasters in Buffalo, NY, Rochester, NY and Upper Canada West. Rev. George Weir, Sr. was the first permanent pastor of the Vine Street AME Church (which was later named the Bethel AME Church). He served as pastor from 1838-1847). The Vine Street AME Church was very active in the Abolitionist Movement from its inception and was known as a “Buffalo Station.” Among the abolitionists known to have ties to this church were Abner Francis, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, William Wells Brown, Lewis Baker, Henry Moxley, George DeBaptiste, Thomas Hamilton, and James Whitfield among many others. Buffalo, NY was the station on the other side of Niagara Falls from the final destination of self-emancipating people fleeing slavery. Both Rev. Weirs represent our family’s UGRR ties to Upper Canada West, especially St. Catherines Parish. Hand in hand, working with both Black and White abolitionists, they ferried people across Lake Erie starting in the late 1830s and escalating after the passage of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act.
Rev. Weir, Sr. was a member of the National Negro Convention Movement, Buffalo Anti-Slavery Society, Temperance Movement, and routinely gave anti-slavery lectures across the North. He regulary traveled to Newark and New York City and was routinely feature in the Colored American and the North Star. Likewise, Rev. George Weir, Jr. owned a grocery store and was one of Buffalo’s weathiest Black residents and his home was also a known UGGR depot. He was a regular contributer to Frederick Douglass, North Star. Our Newark ancestors also made visits to Buffalo, Rochester, and Upper Canada West no doubt to visit family, friends, and engage in abolitionist activities.
The Buffalo Daily Republic August 8, 1849 Rev. Weir organized the first First of August Celebration in Buffalo.North Star, March 20, 1851
The Liberator, June 27, 1862
Six Degrees of Separation: Frederick Douglass and Our Ancestors
Frederick Douglass had a 50-year intergenerational relationship with our ancestors that also included some of his family members. At times, it seems like there is six degrees of separation between the descendants of Frederick Douglass and our Thompson-King Family.
His son, Frederick Douglass, Jr. was married to our cousin Muriel “Dee Dee” Robert’s 3rd great-grandmother’s niece, Virginia L. Molyneaux Hewlett. On Dee Dee’s line, her ancestors were both Black Loyalists and Patriots. Her Thompson line is connected to Jeremiah Lott, an original settler of Flatbush, Brooklyn, NY.
Frederick Douglass, Jr., husband of Virginia L. Molyneaux Hewlett
Pvts. George Butler, son-in-law of Hawley Green, and his brother Albert, were members of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment along with Peter Vogelsang and Dr. John Van Surley DeGrasse, two of our other ancestors who are on our Van Salee-Hedden line that goes back to New Amsterdam. Frederick Douglass’ two sons, Sergeant Major Lewis Henry Douglass and First Sergeant Charles Redmond Douglass, also served in the 54th Regiment. All five were our “Glory” ancestors, the epitome of Patriots!
George Butler, Peter Vogelsang, and Dr. John A. DeGrasseLewis Henery and Charles Redmond Douglass
Finally, our own ancestor, Wallace King, son of William King and Phyllis Goosbeck (Thompson), was an abolitionist, Prince Hall Mason, and one of the most famous internationally known Black opera singers and minstrels in the post-Civil War era. Of him, Frederick Douglass commented that he was “among his most gifted proteges.”
San Francisco Chronicle, February 22, 1903
On Honoring Our Ancestors and Newark History
For 10 long and illuminating years, my cousin Andrea and I have been researching our “Radiant Roots.” This precious time has been filled with joy, anger, tears, grief, and laughter. As we near the completion of our research, we have decided to further listen to the voices and messages of our ancestors and publish a book on our extensive family history. In this way, we will place them back into the historical record. This blogpost is just an inkling of what we have uncovered…
This blogpost is written as a supplementary addition to the December 16th, 2018 historic Day of Remembrance at the East Brunswick Public Library as part of The Lost Souls Public Memorial Project. A special thank you goes to Rev. Karen Johnston, Mae Caldwell, the NJ Council for the Humanities, The Unitarian Society, New Brunswick Area Branch of the NAACP, Afro-American Historical & Genealogical Society – NJ Chapter Sons & Daughters of the Us Middle Passage Society, East Brunswick Human Relations Council, East Brunswick Senior Center and the East Brunswick, Library. Additional thanks goes to my BlackProGen geneabuddies and fellow Truth Seekers, Muriel “Dee Dee” Roberts, Shannon Christmas, James Amemasor and the staff at the NJ Historical Society, Junius Williams, Rhonda Johnson, James J. Gigantino II, Calvin Schermerhorn, Joshua Rothman, Grahan Russell Hodges, and others who have supported my research over the years. I am most indebted to Rich Sears Walling for his endless quest to bring this horrific travesty to light and to seek social justice for these 177 Lost Souls.
This blogpost is dedicated to all my ancestors and to my M23 cousins who decided to take mtDNA and autosomal DNA tests that have enabled us to reconnect with our DNA cousins who share our Native-American, Malagasy, West African, and European ancestry and find out our true family history. A big shout out to my cousin-homie-sister- genealogy partner Andrea Hughes, Mildred Armour, Robert Armour, Sharon Anderson, Ray Armour, Tashia Hughes, our late Cousin Helen B. Hamilton , Alan Russell, Frances Moore, Lois Salter-Thompson, Dorothy Miller, Brenda Ryals-Burnett, “Donnie”, Sharon Baldree, Rhoda Johnson, and Barbara Pitre and her mother Pearl Kahn.
On Insidiousness….
The Van Wickle Slave Ring was insidious from its inception. The word origin of insidious comes from the Latin insidiosus meaning cunning, deceitful, artful and from from insidiae (plural) meaning to plot, snare, and ambush.
In 1818, there was a conspiracy of slave speculators who stole African-American and mixed-race free, enslaved for a term, and enslaved for life people out of New Jersey and New York and transported them to Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama with the full collusion of Judge Jacob Van Wickle and his judicial cronies. They operated in full violation of a 1812 New Jersey state law that clearly stated that no person of African descent or other person of color who was a servant, slave for life or slave for a term could be taken out of the state without their consent if they were of age or their parents’ consent if underage. This law was put into effect to further strengthen the Gradual Emancipation Act of 1804that declared that any child born, after July 4th, 1804, to a slave mother had to first serve a term — 25 years if male and 21 years if female — as a servant for their mother’s owner and then they would be free. In order to make a profit from slave speculating, Van Wickle and his devious gang devised a plan where they would procure People of Color in New Jersey and New York by any means necessary and sell them South as slaves for the rest of their lives without their knowledge or consent. Most of the 177 individuals that we know of today were in their teens or early 20s though there were many children under the age of 10 –the youngest two being just 2 days and 6 weeks old. Freedom was snatched from all of them with a blink of an eye and with Jacob Van Wickle’s signature all over the place. Among them, were some of my maternal ancestors. Any emblem of justice was denied to them.
Two years ago, I wrote my blogpost Part II: The DNA Trail from Madagascar to Manhattan & Our Family’s Malagasy Rootswhere I discussed my maternal ancestors’ migration out of New Amsterdam to the Tappan Patent (Bergen County, NJ/Rockland and Orange Counties, NY) and our Full Sequence M23 mtDNA Cousin matches at that time. Two years later, this blogpost expands on our most recent findings. We now know that while Lewis Compton, James Brown, Charles Morgan, Nicholas Van Wickle, and others, on November 13th-17th, 1818, were in a Pennsylvania courtroon answering to the charges of removing People of Color from New Jersey and New York without their consent, my ancestors were among the 48 individuals already on their way to serving lives of involuntary servitude in the South. Crammed onboard a ship outfitted with plantation supplies and equipment, they were on the last documented slave ship out of South Amboy, the Schoharie, which sailed on October 25th, 1818. That they were unwitting pawns in a system designed to further dehumanize them is the epitome of the insidiousness of slavery indeed!
If Fred Could See Us Now: On the Uses of DNA Testing for Slave Ancestor Research
In 1855, the late great Frederick Douglass stated, “Genealogical trees do not flourish among slaves.” Boy, if Fred could see us now. DNA testing has opened wide doors for those of us who are seeking to find out more about our formerly enslaved/enslaved ancestors. The 1870 brick wall that has blocked us from discovering our ancestry in the past no longer exists as a barrier. DNA testing, along with a host of other documents that help us trace our enslaved ancestors, has proven that walls are meant to be broken down. Thanks to mtDNA, Y-DNA, and autosomal DNA testing, what was once impossible to prove has now been rendered possible. The pepper in salted histories can be now seen by all and can no longer be denied. DNA testing also allows us to see the true humanity inherent in earch individual and to connect us with our DNA cousins of all backgrounds.
In addition, DNA testing provides us with DNA migration maps that document where our ancestors originated and the geographical areas they dispersed to over time. I live in NYC where my Native ancestors have resided for the millenia and where my West/East African and European ancestors have lived since 1620. That’s a 400+ year family sojourn that speaks volumes about our family history and resonates in #NoEllisIslandHere. We are, and have been, true Americans before America was even America. Facts matter!
Early Colonial Native and African-American Endogamy in Rural Communities
Our ancestors were the descendants of Native and African people formerly enslaved/enslaved by Dutch, Swedish, French Huegenot, and Puritan/Quaker slave owners in colonial NJ, NY and CT. These colonial rural communities were tri-racial and multi-racial from their inception as slave owners migrated up and down the Hudson River Valley and into New Jersey in search of land, wealth and religious freedom. They, of course, brought their formerly enslaved/enslaved servants with them. Though there were laws on the books and societal sanctions against interracial relationships of any sort, these types of relationships did in fact occur. The migration journey that our ancestors took was out of New Amsterdam (including Westchester County, NY and Greenwich, CT which were also intrinsic parts of the Dutch colony), to the Tappan Patent, and then migrated up and down the Hudson river during the 1600 and early 1700s. They later migrated further into New Jersey ending up in Bergen, Essex, Morris, Somerset, Middlesex, Hunterdon, Monmouth, Burlington, Gloucester, and Cumberland Counties in the early to mid-1700s just before the American Revolution before finally settling in the city of Newark in the late 1780s and early 1800s.
State of NJ, County lines 1753-1824. Based on map created by R. Ryan Lash with information from Minnesota Population Center, National Historical Geographic Information: Pre-release Version 0.1, 2004. Reprinted in James Gigantino II’s The Ragged Road to Abolition: Slavery and Freedom in New Jersey, 1775-1865.
DNA testing confirms that the same surnames and shared DNA shows up in our DNA cousin matches across color lines which would be expected in small rural communities. These surnames can be traced to the founding families of all these counties. To date our list of our NJ and NY colonial surnames include the following: Ackerman, Ackerson, Anderson, Banks, Banta, Beekman, Blanchard, Blauvelt, Bogardus/Bogart, Bolin/Bolling, Brower/Bouwer, Brown, Barkalew/Buckelew, Chapman, Cisco/Sisco, Claeson/Clawson, Clarkson, Conover, Cook, Corlies, Cortelyou, D’Angola, Day, De Vries/DeFreese, Degrasse, DeGroat/DeGroot, Demarest, DeWitt, Deveaux/Devoe, Dey/Deyo, DuBois, Fortune, Francis, Francisco, Freeman, Green, Groesbeck/Goosbeck, Gould, Halsey, Hamilton, Hampton, Haring, Hedden, Hendricks, Hicks, Hill, Hoagland, Hopper, Hooper, Huff, Jackson, Jennings, Johnson, Lewis, Lyon/Lyons, Mabie, Mandeville, Manuel/Mann, Mathis, Moore, Morris, O’Fake/Feich, Phillips, Pickett, Ray, Remson, Richardson, Rickett, Schmidt, Scudder, Schenck, Shipley, Slater, Smith, Snyder, Stillwell, Stives, Stockton, Suydam, Ten Broeck/Timbrook, Ten Eyck/Teneyck, Thomas, Thompson, Titus, Turner, Van Blanck, Van Buskirk, Van Clieff/Van Cleef, Vanderzee, Van Dunk/VanDonck, Van Duyne, Van Dyck, Van Horn, Van Gaasbeek/Van Gasbeck, Van Liew/Louw, Van Ness, Van Riper, Van Salee/Van Surley, Van Wickle/ Van Winckle, Washington, Wheeler, Williams, Wortendyke, Wyckoff, and Zabriskie, among others.
1850 Newark Census that shows my ancestors (Thompson, King, Hedden, O’Fake, Gould, Brower, Jackson, and Francis) living next to other people whose ancestors came from Middlesex County.
The issue of endogamy within colonial America must be discussed as it relates to formerly enslaved/enslaved people in these Northern states. Given that so few People of Color resided in these states in the 17th-19th centuries, it is not surprising that intermarriages and/or relationships were very prominent among the same African-American and mixed-race families in those places. Like endogamy among Ashkenazi Jews and Puerto Ricans due to close cousin or family intermarriage, People of Color at this time tended to marry or form relationships with people living nearest to them just like everyone else. Because of the nature of slavery and lack of genealogy records on formerly enslaved/enslaved people, descendants of these people would not necessarily know that they shared a common gene pool with the same families, especially as they migrated away from these rural communities towards burgeoning cities, like Newark and NYC, where they increased their pool of marriageable partners and became less endogamous. As descendants of these people, we need to be cognizant of the fact that we may be related to a person based on many shared ancestors and not just one or two.
The DNA Trail from Madagascar to Middlesex County, NJ: The Case of the Slave Ship Schoharie
An October 26, 1818 Schoharie slave ship manifest listed the names of 48 individuals who were stolen away from their families, their communities, and their home state. The ship first sailed to Norfolk, VA and then to La Balize on the Mississippi River where the human cargo was checked before traveling onward to New Orleans and elsewhere. Unlike the other Van Wickle Slave Ring victims whose names were changed to hide their true identities or who forever remain nameless, the 48 individuals on the last documented slave ship out of New Jersey had their real names written down. At the time of their departure, those responsible for their removal made no attempt to hide who they were or what they did. They were very transparent in their conniving ways knowing full well that the laws were made by them and for them. Our ancestors’ lives weren’t worth anything beyond their production labor value. They were seen as no different from any work animal or old tool — easily replaceable and disposable.
These innocent victims were:
William MClare, m, 25, 5;8:, light negro
Jafe Manning, m, 21, 5 5 ¾, black, same
Robert Cook, m, 17, 4 9 ½, light, same
Ben Morris, m, 22, 5’1” black, same
Sam Prince, m, 19, 5’10”, light, same
Sam Peter, m, 30, 5’4”, black, same
George Phillips, m, 18, 5’3”, black, same
James Thompson, m, 5’5 ¼” light, same
Edward Gilbert, m, 22, 5’3 ½” blk, same
Dan Francis, m, 20, 5’1” light, same
James, m, 15, 4’11” black, same
Charles, m, 19, 5’2 ¾” black, same
Susan Wilcox, f, 36, 5’2” light
Nelly, f, 18, 5’ ¼” black, same
Betsey Lewis, f, 28, 5’1” black
Jane Clarkson, f, 23, 5’5” black, same
Eliza Thompson, f, 21, 5’ 1 ¾” light, same
Jane Cook, f, 15, 5’ ¾”, light, same
Ann Moore, f, 29, 4’ 9 ½”, black, same
Julian Jackson, f., 21, 5’ ¼” dark, same
Jane Smith, f, 33, 4’ 10 3/4” light, same
Peggy Boss, f, 21, 5’ 3” dark, same
Mary Harris, f, 21, 4’ 10 ½” light, same
Sally Cross, f, 20, 5’1” blk, same
Rosanna Cooper, f., 22, 5’3” blk, same
Mary Simmons, f, 18, 4’11” dark
Hannah Jackson, f, 18, 5’ 1 ¼” do
Hanna Crigier, f, 18, 4, 10 ¼” black
Harriet Silas, f, 15, 4’11” light
Fanny Thompson, 14, 4’7” dark,
Elizabeth Ann Turner, 16, 4’8” black
Susan Jackson, 20, 4’8” black
Hanna Johnson, female, 20, 4’9” black
Hannah, eighteen, 4’9 ¼” dark
Cane, m, 22, 5’1/2”
Jack, m, 22, 5’6” dark, same
Lewis, 22, 5’8” black, same
Peter, 14, 4’ 6 ¾” black, same
Frank, 21, 5’2” dark
Caleb Groves, 50, 5’ 2 ½” dark
John, 21, 5’3” black
Collins, 35, 5’3” blk
Othello, 16, 4’10” light
Anthony Fortune, 21, 5’2 ¼” dark
Joseph Henricks, 19, 5’5”, dark
Jane, f, 23, 5’5 1/4” light
Susan, f, 21, 4’10 ½” light
Lena, f, 38, 5’2” dark
When I first saw this list of names, I cried tears that were based on my belief that there is no separation between us, the living, and those who came before and those who shared a journey with us when they were among the living. Death is nothing but a natural happenstance. Nothing has changed. My tears flowed knowing the historic trauma all 48 people went through torn away from their family and community to labor in the sugar and cotton plantations of the South. And I cried most of all because the surnames were ones I knew all too well because they were our own.
Over the past two years, we have been working hard to discover how our Full Sequence mtDNA cousin matches are related to each other. Looking for these ancestral connections is not for the faint of heart. Unlike Y-DNA where paternal surnames stay the same and paternity can often be established through male cousin matches, mtDNA cousin matching is a different beast due to women changing surnames upon marriage. Now, just add the institution of slavery, colonization, and genocide which were crimes against humanity that interrupted our family trees in a massive way for centuries, and you got a genealogical puzzle with a million missing pieces. Just ponder that for a minute. Despite this, with both mtDNA and autosomal DNA testing, we were able to connect many surnames to other enslaved/formerly enslaved families as well as to their slave owners. Oh, if Fred could see us now!
Please note that the screenshots below are taken from AncestryDNA which I use to unearth family connections among the many family trees of known relatives as well as our DNA cousin matches. They also show the colonial endogamy I’ve spoken about above. Because AncestryDNA does not have a chromosome browser, we are all prevented from doing the level of DNA triagulation that is necessary for 100% certainty which is a shame. At this point, all we can do is compare surnames among our DNA matches and see what surnames and geographical areas we have in common. We have had some luck with DNA cousins who uploaded to Gedmatch, but with the recent changes there, I know that Gedmatch’s triangulation usefulness for People of Color who have enslaved ancestors has been compromised (Please see Nicka Smith’s blogposton this topic).
As children of the African Diaspora, we are considered to be “admixed” and are rarely 100% of any one ethnic/racial group. As I have said many, many times before, ethnic admixture itself doesn’t tell you anything beyond the continental categories of Sub-Saharan African, Native American/Asian, and European. You MUST be committed to digging a whole lot deeper to find your family truth and that involves connecting with your DNA cousins whoever and wherever they are in addition to looking at genealogical records and local history! Click here to see my Genetic Genealogy page for the necessary tools/website links to do so if you are up to the challenge and I am challenging you all to do so. Now, you know.
Here are some examples of early African-American colonial endogamy and clearly show some of the surnames of those whom were sold South from Middlesex County.
Reclaiming Our Lost Community of Ancestors and Their Descendants
In 2015, my cousins Andrea and Helen took FTDA’s Full Sequence mtDNA test to see what else we could find out about our maternal Malagasy line. Three years later, we have 14 Full Sequence mtDNA cousin matches who share our M23 haplogroup. I have been in touch with 9 of our 14 FS mtDNA cousins. We have learned that 4 out of our 9 mtDNA cousins have ties to the NY/NJ area along with my family. Three mtDNA cousins, Brenda, “Donnie”, and Dorothy are actually 5th cousins who share the same set of 4th great-grandparents who were born in Nova Scotia. Their 5th great-grandmother Rose Fortune was born in Philadelphia, PA to Free Black Parents. As a 10-year-old girl, she ended up in Nova Scotia at the end of Revolutionary War. Her parents were Black Loyalists and their family was documented on a 1784 Muster Roll List for Annapolis. We have found some documentation that Rose Fortune’s 6th parents were originally from Westchester County, NY and were owned by the Devoe family.
The Devoe family were French Huguenots who arrived in New Amsterdam in the late 1600s and who settled up and down the Hudson River before some of their descendants moved to NJ and PA, including Philadelphia. Clearly, the Devoes had acquired Malagasy slaves in NY and the children of those slaves would have been inherited by their descendants.
The Alice Applyby DeVoe House in East Brunswick, NJ
The Devoe family was also in East Brunswick, South Amboy, and elsewhere in Middlesex County as were the Fortune family. Could Rose Fortune’s maternal line come from the this line of the DeVoe family? We can’t say for sure at this time, but it may be worth further study.
My 2nd great-grandmother Laura Thompson, Frances who represents Lois Salter-Thompson’s line, Dorothy Miller and her maternal aunt.
We have identified the family line of the two other M23 mtDNA cousins, Lois/Frances and Dorothy, who also match my family along the Timbrook-Titus line and this line originates in the Greater New Brunswick, NJ area. In the 1870s, my family has a Rev. Isaac B. Timbrook living with our Thompson-King ancestors in Newark, NJ and his niece Violet Timbrook is living in a house owned by our 3rd great-grandfather Cato Thompson, who was married to our M23 3rd great-grandmother Susan Pickett. In 1850, Isaac was a laborer on Judge Van Wickle’s nephew, Stephen Van Wickle’s farm.
The Timbrooks are related to our Malagasy descended Thompson-Pickett-Snyder-Scudder line from the Tappan Patent. Lois’s 4th great-grandparents were Thomas Titus and Sarah TenBroeck/Timbrook. Isaac is her nephew, the son of her brother Edward Timbrook. We have been able to identify the slave owner who purchased Sarah and Edward’s mother, Phebe. His name was Abraham Barkelew hence the B. in Rev. Isaac’s name is most likely Barkelew. We have also come across Frederick Barkelew’s 1791 will that mentions “a free negro” by the name of “Fortune.” We also found Abraham Barkelew’s 1809 will where he bequeathed a “negro woman Phebe” to his granddaughter Anne. Dorothy is connected to a Fanny Titus who is related to this family line as well. We are still sorting out the family relationships due to the sharing of many surnames (colonial endogamy), but it is now fairly certain that this is the extended family line that links us to our common Malagasy ancestor. In addition, it should be noted that our line sided with Patriots during the Revolutionary War.
Alan Russell, his daughter, and mother whose M23 line comes from St. Helena Island in the Southern Atlantic Ocean.
Our mtDNA cousin Alan has a maternal grandmother who was half-Malagasy/half British and who was born on the island of St. Helena. This island was the first stop on the return trip from Madagascar. An import tax was paid in the form of Malagasy slaves on ships that arrived in St. Helena’s port. For Alan to be related to all of us means that we either shared a common ancestor in Madagascar whose descendants ended up in two different locations or maybe two females ancestors became separated when a ship from Madagascar stopped in St. Helena on its way to New York. Alan’s connection to our M23 cohort is of particular interest as it shows the importance of St. Helena as a stopover point on the way from Madagascar to New York. Alan can trace his maternal ancestry back to his 3rd great-grandmother, Sarah Bateman, who was born in 1815 on the island of St. Helena. Her maternal ancestors were Malagasy for certain.
Rhoda Johnson, Barbara Pitre-McCants, and her mother Pearl Kahn whose ancestors were sold South from New Jersey in the Van Wickle Slave Ring.
Through mtDNA testing, we have now FOUND our cousins whose ancestor were sold South in the Van Wickle Slave ring. Rhoda, Barbara and her mother Pearl’s ancestors were bought by the John Morrisette Family of Monroe County, AL and passed down to their descendants as property. Their ancestors ended up in Monroe, Wilcox, Dallas, and Hale Counties in Alabama. Today, Hale County, AL is a 4 hour drive to New Orleans, but their ancestors would have walked in a coffle there to labor in sugar and cotton plantations.
Barbara also tested at AncestryDNA as well. She has numerous DNA cousin matches that link her maternal side to New Jersey via some of the same surnames we have like Ten Broeck/Timbrook, Slater, Conover, Van Ness, Deyo, Schenck, Shipley, Wyckoff, and many, many more. We have also been cross-checking with many other DNA cousins who have MS, AL, LA, and VA familiar roots and they are highly likely related to some of these other individuals who were sold South. We can rest assured that it is possible to flesh out our family trees despite slavery. In the future, I hope and pray that the more People of Color take DNA tests, the more we can prove that slavery was not 100% successful because we are still here to represent those who came before us.
On Being A Descendant of Survivors of Slavery…
I tell people that I do “ancestor-guided” research and that my ancestors are with me wherever I go. I consider it an honor to dig up and tell their true stories. I am a proud descendant of the enslaved and the free. My ancestors lived in households that were of mixed status where some were free, some were slaves for a term, and some were slaves for life in NJ, NY and CT. In 1818, they knew without a doubt who was sold and where these folks ended up. They were the witnesses to this atrocity at the time that it occurred. They did not sit back and accept their place in history. Instead, they made America greater by becoming early abolitionists who built schools, churches, joined fraternal organizations, mutual aid societies, and then got to work on the Underground Railroad. We have been blessed to have 3 Underground Railroad homes (Newark, NJ, Peekskill, NY, Greenwich, CT, and Buffalo/Rochester/Upper Canada West) operated by both sides of the color line. In due time, I will be writing a book on our larger family history.
Today, all of us are witnesses to the Van Wickle Slave Ring episode in American history. The 177 individuals who were smuggled out of NJ can rest in peace knowing that they are remembered and that their historical erasure is no more.
In addition to the above 48 individuals, there were 129 other people smuggled out of the state of New Jersey in 1818.
First group sent Louisiana on March 10, 1818/*Mothers are grouped with their children
Peter 15
Simon no age listed, free man
Margaret Coven, no age, free woman
Sarah 21
Dianna 7 months
Rachel 22
Regina 6 weeks
Hager 29
Roda 14
Mary 2
Augustus 4
Florah 23
Susan 7 months
Harry 14
James 21
Elmirah 14
George 16
Susan Watt 35
Moses 16
Lydia 18
Betty 22
Patty 22
Bass 19
Christeen 27
Diannah 9
Dorcas 1
Claresse 22
Hercules 2
Lidia 22
Harriett Jane 3
Bob
Rosanna
Claus
Ann
Rosino
Jenette
Charles (child)
Elias (child)
Robert (child)
Thirty-nine individuals.
Second Group, departed May 25, 1818
Leta 21
Dorcus 16
Sam Johnson 32
Margaret 21
Jane 25
John 4
Mary Davis 23
Phyllis 25
Charles 1
Jack 16
Harvey 22
Elizer (f) 19
Frank 21
Hester 18
Peter 21
Susan Silvey 30
Jacob 18 months
Betsey 22
Jonas 16 free person
Sam 16
William 22
Henry 21
Amey 22
Juda (f) 26
Samuel 2
James 22
Sam 32
George Bryan 18
Hannah 16
Nancy 22
Joseph 2 days
Peter 17 free person
Hannah 14
Jack Danielly 21
Jude [no judicial certificate]
Caroline, 18
Ann, 18
Jeanette, 12
Mose
Thirty-nine individuals.
Third Group departed in late August 1818 and arrived in New Orleans in September.
39 unknown individuals.
Fourth Group departed in mid-October overland through PA, 1818
George 35
Cain 22
Frank 21
Lewis 22
Elijah 31
Mary 27
Law 21
Phebe 21 free person
Susan 23
Charles 43
Pettes 14
Jane 23
Twelve names.
Let us say their names so that they will ALWAYS be remembered!
This blog is dedicated to our cousins Helen Hamilton, Keith Lyon, and Raymond Armour who were on this jouney with us from the start and whom all joined our pantheon of ancestros within the past 8 months. They are now our newly-appointed Ancestor Angels and biggest cheerleaders. We will keep saying their names so that they will always be remembered.
L Cousins Helen Hamilton, Keith Lyon, and Raymond Armour
On behalf of the extended Lyon-Green-Merritt family, we would like to thank the Town of Greenwich Board of Selectmen, State Representative Michael Bocchino, the Conservation Commission, Nancy Dickinson, Christopher Shields, and the rest of the Cemetery Committee of the Town of Greenwich, The Office of the Town Clerk, the Greenwich Preservation Trust, CeCe Saunders, Brian Jones, and the staff of Historical Perspectives, Inc., the Greenwich Historical Society, and the Rye Historical Society for their help over the past four years. A special thank you goes to Josephine Conboy and the Greenwich Preservation Trust who worked hand in hand with State Rep. Michael Bocchino to advocate for a new CT cemetery law that will protect other ancient burial grounds from the descecration our family experienced. Another thank you goes to Jeffrey Bingham Mead who challenged me years ago to research and preserve not only the history of Greenwich, but also to write about a history he knew was important for people to read. Finally, I owe a big thank you, to Eric Fowler, Anne Young, and the Law Department of the Town of Greenwich for dealing with me directly these last two years as it was not an easy thing to do and I admit it.
When the Battle Is Over, I’m going to SING and SHOUT!: We Claim Victory!
They got to keep their driveway. It was never about their driveway or their property for us! NEVER!
We GOT EVERYTHING WE WANTED!!!!
It was all about preserving OUR cemeteries, especially the “Colored Cemetery” section of Byram Cemetery, and making sure all our ancestors would be remembered and properly memorialized. It was about making sure that our ancestors in the “Colored Cemetery” would be able to rest in peace, alongside their kin, after having their section of Byram Cemetery made into someone’s front lawn. It was about making sure our Lyon ancestors’ original intention for the “Colored Cemetery” to exist where it always has been was RESPECTED and given the historic, accurate name it always had. It was about making sure OUR LINEAL RIGHTS as descendants were finally acknowledged. Most importantly, it was about paying tribute to the Native-African presence that has always been in Greenwich and which has always been reflected in the Lyon-Green-Merritts of Color who have the DNA, oral, and written history to back up their Native-African heritage — no one ever had the right to tell us what we always have been. Finally, it was about paying tribute to the history of slavery that was personified in the North which led to our ancestors working together on the Underground Railroad and engaging in the social justice/resistance acts of abolition.
After almost a year of being on the Cemetery battlefield, on August 6th, my 5 cousins and I learned that the judge DENIED The Stewarts their 2nd Motion to Strike us from The Jeffrey M. Stewart et. al. v. The Town of Greenwich et. al. lawsuit. We had been waiting for the day for a judge to read all our documented evidence. Then, on Wednesday, August 8th, we were asked to send a letter indicating our support for the Town of Greenwich’s Stipulation of Settlement as the Now Named 6 defendants. The next day, on August 9th, the Town of Greenwich Board of Selectmen approved the Stipulation of Settlement at 10.42 am. I was at the funeral of my Uncle/Cousin Raymond Armour where I had the honor of announcing the settlement to my family and to him directly. It will now be sent to the judge. Hopefully, this is the beginning of the end of this case.
The “Colored Cemetery” is where our Native-African ancestors were buried. Make no mistake, our ancestors ARE BURIED there and have been for centuries. The Stewarts’ constant and continued denial of our ancestors physical presence in the “Colored Cemetery,” speaks volumes about THEM more than it does our ancestors. In my blogposts on my Green-Merritt ancestors and on the now resurrected, hidden historic community of Hangroot, I documented our ancestors lives in Greenwich, CT and noted how they were the ONLY family of Native-African descent to live next to their former slave owners and slave owner descendants for over a century. In fact, they made up the majority of People of Color in Greenwich in the mid-1800s. DNA also links us to the Lyon, Merritt, and Green families. But, The Stewarts want others to believe that not one of our ancestors were ever buried there??? Please…
The “Colored Cemetery” at Byram Cemetery
In my many blogposts on the “Byram African-American Cemetery,” I documented how our extended family felt upon learning about the desecration of our “Colored Cemetery.” We have been waiting for justice to be served for four years. We always KNEW The Stewarts didn’t have a case. I mean how do you abide by a Cease and Desist Order in 2014 after you desecrate the “Colored Cemetery,” then invite the descendants of people buried there into your home to discuss putting a plaque on tree in honor of the “Colored Cemetery,” and then wait over a year to file a lawsuit that denies the existence of the same cemetery? We won’t even discuss my epic 277-page response, three 1890 contemporary newspaper articles mentioning the first desecration of the “Colored Cemetery,” the 1901 dated, time-stamped, and accepted copy by the Town of Greenwich Clerk map, Historical Perspectives, Inc.’s documentary study, or all the letters written by my cousins which were submitted to the court as proof. If you are interested, you can read all the evidence here (Docket#: FST-CV-17-6033549-S).
The Privileged Don’t Pay the Price, But Others Have to…
A lawyer friend asked me recently how I felt about the process that led to the settlement and what were the things that troubled or concerned me about the settlement? I told him that I did what I had to do to protect the rights of my ancestors to rest in peace and not be erased from history. That being said, while I am happy about the outcome, I do feel that the Stewarts and the Town are now able to just walk away and both entities act like everything was done for “due diligence” and can say “let bygones be bygones.” They can easily both “go home with footballs,” as Attorney Marcus stated in the Greenwich Time newspaper on 8/11/18. Obviously, they never considered the racial and class dynamics that were being perpetuated in prime time that were no different from what my ancestors experienced. They had the power once again to deny us everything and that was not lost on us —not for one second, one minute, one hour, one day, one year nor for centuries.
Meanwhile, I am battle-worn, battle-scared, and suffering from PSTD feeling like I was forced against my will to run thousands of miles to the top of a mountain and now some people feel that I should run down the other side of the mountain immediately when I am physically and mentally exhausted. No, that is not going to happen. I need time to deal with the past two years and especially the past 8 months. I don’t have the luxury to just walk away now, as others apparently do, because my ancestors CHOSE ME to be their unified voice to articulate their pain, loud and clear, with my head held high…just like they showed us all when they walked towards freedom. It was a burden I willingly carried and I did it to protect my ancestor’s burial site and elucidate their RADIANT lived history that should NEVER be erased. I need time to breathe clean air again and re-charge my batteries. I would like to think that I’m like Timex and can take a lickin and keep on tickin,” but I’m not. Vegatron does have her limits. Don’t worry. I will be just fine in the end. His eye is on the sparrow and I know he watches me.
Both The Stewarts and The Town’s Law Department put my family under tremendous, unnecessary stress. The Stewarts knew it was a cemetery from the beginning. The Town did not follow proper procedures in acquiring abandoned cemeteries. Both entities threw The Stewarts’ wealth in our faces like hot bricks just out the fire. The “no disparagement clause” in the settlement is for their mutual benefit. At no point, have they even offered an apology to my family —not privately, not publicly. Though that is something I know they would never do and I am not holding my breath for, it’s those little things that sometimes matter most.
My family and I worked out our issues with The Town in early April and this has allowed us to move forward. From the beginning until present, The Town said, and now will do, what they said they would do when they actually acquired the abandoned cemeteries. Our family will be active partners with the Town going forward to create a historic “Colored Cemetery”. However, The Stewarts are another matter. As of today, there will be NO Kumbaya moment. I want nothing to do with people who have no integrity and show no respect for the sacred resting spaces of others.
There are NO Statutes of Limitation on Historic Trauma/Historic Erasure
Desecrating an ancestral burial ground for greed is traumatic. Arguing that we must excavate our ancestors to satisfy that greed and morbid curiosity is traumatic. Denying that our ancestors ever existed and trying to erase their physical presence in this world is traumatic. It is traumatic because you KNOW that slavery was never designed for Native-and African-American family reunification. It was designed to sever the ties that bind. And then, here we were in 2016 and just as we located our oldest ancestors, we found out that the couple, who made our ancient burial ground into their front lawn, tried to use us against The Town. You realize that had you not had Guardian Angels in Greenwich who immedately notified you of The Town’s actions, they would have gone with the photos you sent them, selfies included, with the letter you unknowingly wrote in their favor to the Town of Greenwich meeting on 9/22/2016 and act like they had secured the approval of the descedants of the enslaved/formerly enslaved buried there. Duplicity in action!
I strongly feel that The Stewarts need to be held accountable for their actions that led them to desecrate our burial ground. Two years ago, I wrote that no one should expect us to be neutral on this matter and we meant it. Since Section 34 was part of their lawsuit— though the “Colored Cemetery” has been in existence for centuries as part of Byram Cemetery — and is now forever etched in our collective memory, we will continue to tell the truth that their lawsuit was an obvious land grab to increase the value of their waterfront property. It was also a racist lawsuit since they could have argued their case without mentioning race in the first place. They are the ones who DECIDED to go there and WENT there! We are the ones who always told the truth.
Jeffrey M. Stewart et. al. v. The Town of Greenwich
August 28, 2016 Is The Day Our Ancestors Decided This Very Outcome
The Stewarts made several wrong assumptions back in 2016. 1) That we would not know anyone in Greenwich because we didn’t live there. 2) That we weren’t educated and couldn’t detect the gaping holes in their story on Day1; 3) That we would never be united with our Lyon cousins. Our ancestors, on both sides of the color line, decided that would not be the case. They chose me on that day to repeatedly ask the all important question which was “If no one owns the land as you indicated by doing a deed history search, then why are you following a Cease and Desist letter?” Our ancestors chose my cousins Pat and Eddie to bare witness on that particular day, too.
I believe in many things. I believe that that my God is an awesome God who loves everyone unconditionaly. I believe that in my Father’s house there are many mansions. I believe that my ancestors are with me wherever I go. I believe that death is but a necessary happenstance. I believe that there is no shelf-life in the Hereafter and that, as descedants of originally enslaved people, family reunification happens automatically upon transitioning — even if it never happened during our years on Earth. I believe in the power of God to direct my path. Like Assata Shakur, ”I believe in living, I believe in birth, I believe in the sweat of love and in the fire of truth and I believe that a lost ship, steered by tired, sea sick sailors, can still be guided home to port.” On August 28, 2016, I KNOW my ancestors guided me to THEIR ancient burial ground here on Earth to help guarantee that our side of the family would be represented at the September 22,2016 meeting alongside our Lyon kin. A family UNITED will never be DEFEATED. My cousins and I will continue to make them proud.
We are the Lyon-Green-Merritts
My Research Is My Therapy: Next Up On the Agenda
I will be continuing my research to get state and federal recognition for the Green-Twachtman House — the house my 3rd great-grandfather built in 1845 at 30 Round Hill Road (Hangroot) —as a confirmed UGRR site. My 3rd great-grandmother, Mary Johnson, was a self-emancipated woman who arrived in Greenwich, CT in the mid-1820s from Virginia.
In Closing…His Eye Is On the Sparrow and I KNOW he watches ME
Let it be forever known that I am the daughter of Joyce Greene Vega, the granddaughter of Richard W. Greene, Jr., the great-granddaughter of Richard W. Green, Sr., the great-great granddaughter of George E. Green, the great-great-great granddaughter of Allen and Mary Green, and the great-great-great-great granddaughter of Anthony and Peg Green.
I’m going to leave this Walter Hawkins video right here so I can go back to singing amd shouting! We got the VICTORY!
This blogpost is dedicated to my 2nd great-grandfather, Juan Eusebio Bonilla Salcedo, who was assassinated in 1890 by the Spanish Civil Guard for being a member of the Puerto Rican Autonomous Party. Juan Eusebio pre-deceased his comrades, who in 1897, took part in La Intentona de Yauco, the last uprising against Spanish colonial rule. It is likewise dedicated to my 3rd great-uncle, Pedro Lajara Guerra-Mondragon, a captain in the Spanish Militia, who took part in El Grito de Lares — the first uprising against The Spanish in 1868. These men spoke truth to power about the conditions of the Boricua people. I am humbled to know that I descend from Puerto Rican revolutionaries who were truth-tellers. Me siento honrado de saber que su espíritu de resistencia está en mis genes. Que descansen en paz eterna.
Finally, this blogpost is dedicated to each and every one of my Boricua Branches. Like branches of a tree, we will continue to grow together. I have been blessed to have made all of your acquaintances. There are way too many names to list, but you know who you are. Besitos y un abrazo fuerte.
L Artist: Rosenda Alvarez, Old San Juan
On Becoming Comfortable with My Rice & Beans & Collard Greens Self
On December 27th, 2013, I wrote one of my first blogposts about what it meant to find my Boricua Branches — my father’s side of my family. I will always say, without an ounce of hesitation, that the best part of taking my DNA tests was finding my Puerto Rican cousins. My father’s absence for 20 years of my life — from the age of 3-years old until 23-years old — resulted in a critical disjuncture in how I saw myself. While I always knew I was half-Puerto Rican, my pre-23 year old self did not know what that meant having been born and raised in Brockton, MA, a suburb of Boston. Brockton was not the diverse community it is today when I was growing up. It was a predominately white community with a small African-American and Cape Verdean population. We were often seen as Black and sometimes as Cape Verdean. Pre-23-year old Teresa was definitely Black culturally-identified. Though I always knew I had a diverse maternal extended family and equally diverse ancestors, having been raised by my maternal grandparents, I grew up within the confines of an African-American community.
I arrived in New York City in the Fall of 1990 to attend graduate school in a city that had one of the largest populations of Puerto Ricans outside of Puerto Rico. With a name like Teresa A. Vega, I had a hard time convincing anyone that I was anything other than a Latina. People assumed that I was either in denial about being a Latina or had some sort of hangup about speaking Spanish. It never occured to most people that maybe I didn’t grow up with my Puerto Rican father, that maybe Spanish wasn’t my first language, or maybe I was raised in a place that didn’t have a Latino community.
Two months after my mother passed away in December 1990, my father walked back into our lives. Boom! There he was. It was nothing short of an earthquake that shook up our lives. My siblings and I had different reactions to his re-emergence. None were more valid than the others. Our reactions were what they were. As I stated in another post, I left graduate school in the Fall of 1991 and moved to Cordoba, Spain, where my father retired, to get to know him. That is a decsion I will never regret. For all his faults — he had many — I learned what I inherited from him and, more importantly, what I didn’t.
Though I had 10 years (1991-2001) with my father before he passed away, he was always a step away from Puerto Rico for me. There was only so much I could learn from him about Puerto Rico as he left the island when he was a child and was raised in New York City. Even though I had been to Puerto Rico before, I felt disconnected to the island because I didn’t know anyone who was related to me and he didn’t remember any relatives there either. When I thought of Puerto Rico, there was always a sadness present due to the loss of family. Sometimes we mourn for that which we know we should have received automatically, but we didn’t. We are just left with a bottomless void…. so I thought.
23andme DNA Cousins in 2017
Receiving my first DNA test results in December 2013 was certainly a life-changing event. I went from having 1200 DNA cousins on 23andme in December 2013 to having 1933 in 2017. On AncestryDNA, I went from having 1800 DNA cousins to over 35,000 today and, on FTDNA Family Finder, I went from having 145 DNA cousins to having 1489. On all three of my DNA tests, the great majority of my matches are Puerto Rican. So, now I know that voids can be filled and hope should ALWAYS be kept alive.
My Boricua Branches, Global Family Reunion, 2015 My Boricua Branches, Global Family Reunion, 2015
DNA Cousin Gathering 2016
DNA Cousin Gathering 2017
DNA Cousin Gathering 2017
When I look back over the last 4 years, I realize just how blessed I’ve been in the company of my Boricua Branches. Just knowing and being among them gave me my birthright — my ancestral heritage — back. My cousins have always maintained ties to Puerto Rico. They were never one step away from the island, but always kept one foot there. Over the past couple of years, in addition to meeting my cousins here in New York from all over the country, I’ve also traveled to Puerto Rico and met my cousins there. Like I’ve said before, we are all branches on the same tree that is firmly rooted on the island. It has been my Boricua Branches who taught me what being Puerto Rican truly meant and there is nothing like two back-to-back hurricanes, Irma and Maria, that have brought that message home to me in stark terms.
Happy 100th Anniversary: American Citizens and Colonial Subjects
When Hurricane Irma and Maria hit, my Boricua Branches and I were frantic. Phones were ringing off the hook and FaceBook IMs and text messages were flying back and forth. All of us trying to locate our family and friends. Some of our kin were readily located and others went missing for weeks. For the first time in my life, I feared for my family and friends in Puerto Rico. My cousin Maddy and I called each other trying to find out about our relatives in Yauco and San Juan. So many calls were made to my cousins to find out if they heard from their relatives that I lost count. Every day we checked in with each other to see who had been located and who was still missing. Sometimes all we could do was pray as we waited. Tears flowed as the devastation became known bit by bit.
My Bonilla Cousins in San Juan
Theresa aka T2 and Ralph
Four years earlier, I didn’t know one relative in Puerto Rico and now I had so many to track down. One of the longest waits I had was for Theresa and Ralph to show up. It took a month. The two of them have the honor of being designated as my “First LIVE Puerto Rican cousins that I met in Puerto Rico.” The NYC honor goes to my cousin, Raul Cruz Delgado, who earned that title back in 2013. Though Theresa, Ralph and I are forever linked in the AncestryDNA commercial we filmed together, we are also spiritually-bonded through the libation ceremony — overseen by our primo Luis Sanakori Ramos — that we gave my 2nd great-grandfather that honored both his Taino ancestry and his Puerto Rican revolutinary spirit. Both were with me when I met my Bonilla cousins for the first time, an experience that is forever seared in my mind that is too precious to adequately put into words even today.
Libation Ceremony in honor of Juan Eusebio Bonilla Salcedo
The day I met my Bonilla Cousins on my dad’s 80th birthday
My Boricua Branches and I watched as the President of the United States sat by as both hurricanes devastated our beloved island and offered minimal help. As American citizens, we expected more. We did not ask to become United States citizens, it was a condition imposed on us by the United States in the form of the Jones-Shafroth Act of 1917which granted Puerto Ricans full American citizenship. A couple of months later, in May 1917, Puerto Ricans began to be drafted to fight in World War I. Over 20,000 Puerto Ricans served in the military then and continue to do so today.
Puerto Rico has been a colony of the United States ever since it was won as a result of The Spanish-American War of 1898. At no point ever have Puerto Ricans been able to control their island. Though Puerto Rico is self-governed through a local constitution whereby Puerto Ricans can elect their own Governor, Assembly and Senate, the United States government still oversees and controls the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. There is no President of Puerto Rico other than the President of the United States. We are not citizens of some other country. We are citizens of the United States of America. It’s a damn shame that I even have to say that in 2017, but I do.
When the current President of the United States, in a heinous, blatantly ignorant act of utter disrespect, threw paper towels at us and joked about about how Hurricane Maria was not that bad compared to Hurricane Katrina, my Boricua Branches — even those cousins who voted for him — and I cringed. It was as clear as day that we did not matter to HIM. We were seen as “The Other” because of the color of our skin and the language that rolled off of our tongues. It did not matter that we were American, that a lot of us were bilingual or only spoke English, or that we only had to move to the mainland for our votes to count.
We also sat by and watched as the Governor of Puerto Rico became politically impotent and agreed with the President’s shenanigans in early October. We were all shocked as both the President and Governor undercounted the death toll by the hundreds, if not thousands, and made light of our very real pain and denied what our own eyes were witnessing. The gaslighting of Puerto Rico’s hurricane victims was in full effect on every television network worldwide. Though the Governor now realizes his mistake, the damage was done. History will remember that it was the Mayor of San Juan who stood up with cojones and spoke truth to power in real time. She represented all Boricuas wherever we are found in the world. Her name is Carmen Yulin Cruz. Say HER name, Say HER name, Say HER name…
It was Carmen, along with many other Puerto Rican activists, who sounded the alarm about the compounded impact that the Jones Act of 1920 would have on Puerto Rican hurricane victims. Under the Jones Act, any foreign vessel must pay expensive tariffs, fees, and taxes to deliver goods to Puerto Rico. These taxes are then passed on to the Puerto Rican consumer. As a result, consumer goods are much more expensive. Of course, humanitarian aid was and has been hindered by this Act which was waived for a month after Hurricane Maria. The United States has since let that waiver expire.
There are many government officials and other Americans who look to blame Puerto Ricans for their current situation. It is far too easy to render blame to people who don’t look like you and who speak a different language than you. It’s so easy to also assign blame to others when you yourself are ignorant of United States history as well as the definition of what a colony is. Puerto Ricans are not responsible for their current situation when the US government calls all the shots, especially as they relate to the Puerto Rican economy. For example, when we look back to 1976, we see that Congress decreed that American companies could relocate to Puerto Rico and operate tax-free and many pharmaceutical and manufacturing companies did just that. However twenty years later, Congress then decided this was too costly and ended these tax breaks. Companies fled the island and took their jobs with them. This pullback ultimately led to the current debt crisis that existed before the hurricanes hit — a crisis that has meant that the Boricua people are at the whim of the United States government (e.g., PROMESA). As far as I am concerned, every president who has been in office has been complicit in the underdevelopment of Puerto Rico. Over the past decade, thousands upon thousands of Puerto Ricans have fled the island for the mainland and poverty has become deeply entrenched. Again, the Boricua people are victims of policies that are regulated by Washington by people who have no ties to the island. We are at the mercy of a President and government that believes that Puerto Ricans don’t matter.
How can you explain the fact that Puerto Ricans have been left to die by the hundreds, if not thousands, and the real body count will never be known? How do you explain that, 100+ days after Hurricane Maria, only half the island has power and may have to wait until Spring to get it —-in the “greatest” country in the world? How can you even look the world in the eye and claim that you want to “Make America Great Again” when the policies that you espouse have resulted in the PREVENTABLE death of innocent people? How can you sleep at night when you just passed a tax-reform bill that treats Puerto Rico like a foreign country and will further devastate and economically ruin American citizens of Puerto Rican descent? It is so clear that the United States is are being led by people who follow a false prophet and adhere to a false religion. Do not talk to me about a Christianity that is 1000% un-Christian. Talk to my hand because the God I KNOW would never let his flock suffer like we are now. NEVER! The devil is real, folks!
Anyone with a heart and soul knows that Puerto Ricans matter. We matter because we are human. How do you not recognize another person’s basic humanity? Throughout history, I know there have been those who walked among us and denied others the right to exist just because they were different from them. I will never understand that.
Some of us are brave though and we follow the ways and knowledge that our ancestors passed down to us. We will stay, resist and fight back against our intended demise, and aid our brothers and sisters by any means necessary in their time of need. We are here for the long-term. Puerto Ricans MATTER! We don’t need anyone’s pity and we are not asking for unjust handouts. We ask for that for which we are due for all 119 years of colonial subjugation. People and companies profited off of Puerto Rico and it is time that the Boricua people receive payment back. We want hurricane relief with no strings attached. We don’t want to be saddled with outrageous debt that we did not create. We want the Jones Act repealed as it has placed an unfair burden on the Boricua people. We want something that goes beyond the current FEMA programs whereby people are able to stay in their homes or are able to be resettled nearby. We want to live in a clean environment with toxin-free water…..among other things.
We are, without a doubt, the canaries in the coal mine. Just a thought, if the current US government does this to us, as American citizens, who else is next given all the forthcoming cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, the ACA, health organizations, etc.?
We Are RESILIENT!!!
“We Puerto Ricans are also a heroic people, because we resisted Spain for five hundred years, and now we have resisted the United States for a hundred and nineteen years. We are like trees that not even a hurricane has been able to uproot, because our roots grow so deeply. Our leaves may be torn off, but they will grow again. These are the fruits of what we have sown
-Heriberto Marin, one of the last survivors of the Jajuya Uprising in 1950
(The New Yorker Magazine, 12/27/2017)
I am proud of the Boricua Branches that I have because they prove time and time again just how resilient we are as a people. I can’t stop bragging about them. Here are just some of the cousins I have who have stepped up, before and after the hurricanes, and set an example to be followed.
Adopt Arecibo
In the days after they resurfaced, Theresa and Ralph started to immediately organize to not only help others in need, but also to coordinate hurricane relief donations from the mainland to their home. They then began distributing these donations to places that were not being reached by anyone and they have continued to do so ever since. They even created a Closed FB group, along with Dee Smalling, Rose Turner and others, where they keep track of donations sent, when they are received, and then they post where those donations ended up. This is the only Puerto Rican relief group that I am working with that I can 100% confirm are legitimate and do what they say they are going to do so. They have been delivering food donations, sanitary supplies, solar lights, water filters, tarps, and other items. They have also been working with our other cousins on the island and conscripting them into their great cause. Of course, our mainland Boricua Branches have also been sending supplies in earnest. Together, we are handling it BIG TIME.
Adopt Arecibo started out as a small relief organization, but is turning out to be a lot more. Adopt Arecibo now partners with the following organizations:
American Black Cross
Boondocks K-9 Search & Rescue Unit Inc. – CERT
Cajun Commissary
Caras Con Causa
Casa Bonuco
Casa Pueblo
Coalition of Hope
Coblian Med
Comedores Sociales
Commit 2 PR
Connect Relief
Coqui Nation
Cuerpo De Emergencias Medicas Estatal Base De Arecibo
Direct Relief
Disaster Relief Alliance – DRA
Empowered by Light
Familiares en Puerto Rico,Comunicate aqui,con tus fami
Flamboyan Foundation
Fundación Stefano Steenbakkers Betancourt
Fundacion Surfrider Rincon
Fundadacion Oye Aguadilla
Generate Some Love
H3 Tech Conference
Habitat for Humanity, PR
Heath Pro Med
Initiativa Comunitaria
Institute for Socio-Ecological Research
Levantando el Valle Relief
Mano A Mano Aydando Puerto Rico
MAP International
Mentes Puertorriqueñas en Acción
New York Disaster Interfaith Services (NYDIS)
Operation Agua
Operation Puerto Rico
Para La Natureleza
Parallel18
PECES, Inc
Power 4 Puerto Rico
Programa de Asistencia Tecnológica de Puerto Rico
Project Coqui_Puerto Rico Relief
proyecto esparciendo amor inc.
Puerto Rican Family Institute, Inc
Puerto Rican National Chamber of Commerce
Puerto Ricans in Action
Puerto Rico Diseña
Puerto Rico Distribución de Filtros de agua/ Water Filter distribution
Puerto Rico Love—Disaster Online Support Team
Puerto Rico Mercy Corps
Puerto Rico por Puerto Rico PRxPR
Puerto Rico Recovery Fund
Raices Cultural Center, A NJ Nonprofit Corporation
Raise Your Hands For PR, Inc.
RBC Maria Relief
Reconstruccion de Puerto Rico
Remote Area Medical
Rescate Playas Borinquen
Ricky Martin Foundation
Samaritan’s Purse
Shop+HirePuerto Rico
Texas United for Puerto Rico
Together Puerto Rico / Juntos Puerto Rico
Tree of Life Counseling Center & Foundation
U Mass Amherst
Unity Warriors Group
Veterans At Sea
Veterans For Puerto Rico
Warrior Angels Rescue
Water Filters for Puerto Rico
Water For Puerto Rico Foundation
Water Mission
Waves 4 Water
World Water Solar
Yonomequito
If anyone one has a charity organization that would like to deliver hurricane relief items to Adopt Arecibo, please feel free to contact me at rrbbgenealogy@gmail.com directly for further info.
Padre Jose Antonio Oquendo-Pabon
Padre Jose Antonio Oquendo-Pabon
What can I say about a cousin who truly lives according to the word of God and could teach those in Washington a thing or two (make that many things) about how to live a Christian life? What can I say about a man, who could leave Puerto Rico in a minute, but has chosen to remain in horrible conditions to minister to his flock despite his own medical problems? What can I say about a man who is keeping a Hurricane Maria Diary to bear witness to all he has seen and who is intent on telling the truth until the very end? This cousin of mine has my utmost respect. He is a true man of God and I KNOW God knows his name. I pray for him every day because the work he has to do is more than noble. I ask people to also send prayers, love and light his way to lift Padre Jose Antonio Oquendo-Pabon up because the work he is doing is not easy. May the blessing of the Lord be with him always. Amen.
Jesse Gonzalez
Me and my cousin Jesse Gonzalez
A big thank you goes to my cousin Jesse, the founder and CEO of Comelco, Inc., who stepped up and donated a 1-million watt generator to The Mennonite General Hospital in Aibonito, PR, an area that was heavily hit by Hurricane Maria. That act of generosity, not only saved 209 jobs, but will also save countless future lives. The generator left Jacksonville, FL last Thursday and will be received shortly. Jesse is one of the most generous people I know and I love that he has never forgotten where he came from. He is still that kid who grew up in the projects on the Lower East Side. Respect in the highest of the high!
Luis Sanakori Ramos
Me and my cousin Luis Sanakori Ramos
My cousin Luis is a treasure, not only to me, but to many of our cousins. We met almost 4 yeara ago. He is our cultural ambassador and educator who connects us to our Indigenous ancestors in very tangible ways. He guided Maddy, Theresa, Ralph and me as we sought to honor Maddy and my 2nd great-grandfather in the way that celebrated his Indigenous Tano roots. Luis has also aided many cousins on their own quests to connect with their Indigenous ancestors and has given them their Indigenous names in a beautiful naming ceremony. He is the founder of the Mobile Indigenous Library, a Fancy Dancer who connects with various Indigenous cross-cultural groups nationwide. Moreover, he also performs healing ceremonies and acts as an Indigenous educator throughout NYC. Luis is a member of theNaguake Indigenous Community in Puerto Rico/Boriken and is working on fostering greater ties with this community in the future.
Our Leaves May Be Torn off, But They Will Grow Again….And Again
It’s the very end of 2017 and around 300,000 Puerto Ricans have already left the island for the mainland and more are packing up ready to go. 2018 is now here. Because we are resilient and love our island, we will never forget those who left us to suffer and die in prime time. We will vote, as American citizens, this coming year, and in 2020, and our votes and voices will be heard nationwide. Make no mistake. Our votes will be our greatest form of resistance.
We WILL remember EVERY name on the lists below.
Here is the full list of Representatives that voted against disaster relief for Puerto Rico:
Justin Amash (R-Michigan)
Jim Banks (R-Indiana)
Andy Burr (R-Kentucky)
Joe Barton (R-Texas)
Jack Bergman (R-Michigan)
Andy Biggs (R-Arizona)
Mike Bishop (R-Michigan)
Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee)
Rod Blum (R-Iowa)
Dave Brat (R-Virginia)
Mo Brooks (R-Alabama)
Ken Buck (R-Colorado)
Ted Budd (R-North Carolina)
Steve Chabot (R-Ohio)
James Comer (R-Kentucky)
Warren Davidson (R-Ohio)
Scott DesJarlais (R-Tennessee)
Sean Duffy (R-Wisconsin)
Jeff Duncan (R-South Carolina)
John Duncan (R-Tennessee)
Tom Emmer (R-Minnesota)
Virginia Foxx (R-North Carolina)
Trent Franks (R-Arizona)
Mike Gallagher (R-Wisconsin)
Thomas Garret (R-Virginia)
Bob Gibbs (R-Ohio)
Louie Gohmert (R-Texas)
Bob Goodlatte (R-Virginia)
Paul Gosar (R-Arizona)
Morgan Griffith (R-Virginia)
Andy Harris (R-Maryland)
Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas)
Jody Hice (R-Georgia)
French Hill (R-Arkansas)
George Holding (R-North Carolina)
Richard Hudson (R-North Carolina)
Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana)
Walter Jones (R-North Carolina)
Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)
Trent Kelly (R-Mississippi)
David Kustoff (R-Texas)
Doug Lamborn (R-Colorado)
Jason Lewis (R-Minnesota)
Barry Loudermilk (R-Georgia)
Kenny Marchant (R-Texas)
Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky)
Mark Meadows (R-North Carolina)
Luke Messer (R-Indiana)
Alex Mooney (R-West Virginia)
Markwayne Mullin (R-Oklahoma)
Kristi Noem (R-South Dakota)
Ralph Norman (R-South Carolina)
Gary Palmer (R-Alabama)
Steve Pearce (R-New Mexico)
Scott Perry (R-Pennsylvania)
Robert Pittenger (R-North Carolina)
John Ratcliffe (R-Texas)
Todd Rokita (R-Indiana)
Keith Rothfus (R-Pennsylvania)
David Rouzer (R-North Carolina)
Mark Sanford (R-South Carolina)
David Schweikert (R-Arizona)
Jamex Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin)
Jason Smith (R-Missouri)
Chris Stewart (R-Utah)
Mark Walker (R-North Carolina)
Jackie Walorski (R-Indiana)
Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio)
Roger Williams (R-Texas)
Here is the full list of Senators that voted against disaster relief for Puerto Rico:
This is Part III of a blog series about my Malagasy ancestry. This time, I will be discussing my Malagasy ancestors who arrived in the Tidewater region of Virginia in the early 18th century. In Part I, I showed how one can still see the ethnic admixture that our Malagasy ancestors left our family with that show up in our DNA even today. Part II discussed how my NY Malagasy ancestors, now admixed with West African, Dutch, and Native American DNA, left New Amsterdam/New York in the late 1600s and ended up in the Tappen Patent in Bergen County, NJ.
This blogpost is dedicated to my VA Malagasy, West African, Native American and European ancestors whose lives were dictated and circumscribed by the institution of slavery in VA. I especially dedicate it to all those ancestors who were sold South as slaves out of Richmond, VA and whom will remain unknown to me forever. That being said, their DNA still lurks in my veins leaving a tie that still binds us together after all these years. I may not know my unknown ancestors’ names, but, thanks to DNA, I now know cousins who link me to them. May these ancestors all rest in eternal peace knowing that they are still remembered. We are because they were. I am a proud descendant of slaves indeed.
I would like to thank the following people for inspiring me to write this blog:
Wendy Wilson-Fall for writing her book, Memories of Madagascar and Slavery in the Black Atlantic, which detailed my 8th great-grandfather, Robert “King” Carter’s participation in the Madagascar to Virginia slave trade. More importantly, it detailed what my Virginia Malagasy ancestors faced once they arrived in Virginia and how their memories of Madagascar were passed down to their descendants in an oral form. From one Malagasy descendant to another, I want to say thank you for telling our ancestors’ stories.
Reber Dunkel, retired professor and sociologist at Randolph-Macon College, for his endless assistance in helping me find out more information about my 3rd great-grandmother Crittie Anna Lee, who was born on Shirley Plantation, in Charles City, VA, as well as her mother, Ann Perkins. They are my earliest known Virginia Malagasy-descended ancestors.
Fonte Felipe for his amazing blog, Tracing African Roots, in general as well as for him sharing DNA information that he has collected from Malagasy AncestryDNA tested individuals with me for this blog. Please click here to read his post on Southeast African DNA in the Americas. Fonte has been on the vanguard of analyzing African DNA throughout the African Diaspora.
Phillip Troutman, Assistant Professor of Writing and History at George Washington University, for his research on the domestic slave trade out of Richmond. His blog on the Virginia Slave Trade visually shows the numbers of enslaved people from Virginia who were sold South between 1790-1860. His current work on “crowdsourcing genealogy” is also very commendable as he has been re-creating family trees based on Information Wanted ads that were placed in newspapers after the Civil War by recently freed enslaved people seeking to locate their relatives.
Ana Edwards, Chair, Sacred Ground Historical Reclamation Project, for being a kindred spirit who has been speaking truth to power on behalf of all the enslaved people who were sold South out of Shockoe Bottom and their descendants wherever they may be. In words matched with deeds and alongside of Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality, Ana has been on the frontlines in Richmond,VA advocating for the preservation of Shockoe Bottom as an historic site.
Joseph McGill, Founder, The Slave Dwelling Project, for continuously and unflinchingly telling the stories of enslaved people and being the current voice for all those who lived and labored in houses/homes that weren’t built for them. The public outreach and education he has and is providing is a noble act indeed. I am thankful for his friendship.
‘ The Tidewater Virginia Region
On Truth Telling….
Within the past few months, two white supremacists marches have taken place in Charlottesville, VA — one where a true truth teller was killed — over the removal of Confederate statues. While the Confederate statue issue and the NFL #TakeAKnee protests have dominated national headlines, the issue of how this country has represented itself comes into view ever more clearly. How can we, as Americans, have a fruitful, productive conversation about race when we can’t even acknowledge the stain that slavery left us with centuries after the fact? Slavery is not a black issue. It is an American issue. At it’s root, the colonization of this country was built on Native American genocide and African chattel slavery. It was a long thought out process that led to the death, rape, and enslavement of people, including my ancestors. It was, by no means, a pretty process as portrayed by those in power then and now. On the contrary, it was a very ugly venture undertaken by those who laid claim to a land already inhabited by millions and who brought in enslaved people of African descent to meet their labor demands. The history of how this nation came into existence is now being contested by those of us who are intent on making sure historical truth matters. And it matters now more than ever.
The obligation that I have to my all my ancestors is to tell the truth. As their descendant, I have the benefit of historical hindsight which provides me with a lens whereby I can tell their true stories — the good, bad, and ugly. If this country is to be made GREAT(ER), then all of our diverse histories need to be told and not just the history of the majority. My Native American ancestors were here from the beginning of time and some of my Atlantic Creole African ancestors arrived at the same time as my European ancestors in the early 1600s. Make no mistake though, most of my ancestors were here before the mass migration of European immigrants arrived in this country starting in the mid-1800s. I am not alone as there are many, many African-Americans with deep colonial roots in this country. We, too, sing America and our ancestors built America — for FREE.
I want to point out that while this blogpost is focused solely on the enslaved Malagasy, who arrived in Virginia in the early 1700s, it details how the institution of slavery made them “African-American” over time and led to their dispersal all over the Deep South.
[For a discussion of the enslaved Malagasy who arrived via the illegal slave trade or came as indentured servants, please consult Wendy Wilson-Fall’s book]. Because of the oral histories passed down by our Malagasy ancestors and now because of the availability of mtDNA/Y-DNA tests, many African- and Euro-Americans have been able to discover their Malagasy roots. I hope this blogpost helps people with Malagasy ancestry to understand how their ancestors arrived in Virginia and then ended up elsewhere. The migration of enslaved Malagasy people can be traced —even without a known Malagasy ancestor — because of the genetic map they left behind in our DNA.
Pre-1700 Tidewater Virginia: We Were Here From the Beginning
The invented history of Europeans being solely responsible for making this country what it was, or came to be, is based on lies. The success of European colonization was built on the subjugation of Native Americans and Africans. Native Americans provided their colonizers with the skills they needed to survive in a land that was “new” to them as they were original occupiers of this country. When Europeans did arrive in the Tidewater region of Virginia in the early 1600s, there were around 14,000 Native Americans — the Powhatan, the Pamunkey, the Chickahominy, the Patawomeck, and the Rappahannock — residing there. Their interactions with these Native Americans resulted in a vicious land grab that ultimately led to Native American genocide within the first 100 years of contact. By 1700, the Native population declined to 1,900 individuals, an 85% decline in population, due to slavery, disease, and non-stop warfare which ended in their deaths, according to Anthony Parent.
The first Africans to arrive in the Tidewater region of Virginia in 1619 were Atlantic Creoles. They were part of the transatlantic exchange of cultures that resulted from the initial contact between Europeans and Africans on the West Coast of Africa, starting in the 15th century , which was transported to the Caribbean and the Americas. Atlantic Creoles had already mastered the languages and cultures of diverse European colonizers, were familiar with their trading ventures, and utilized this knowledge to better their circumstances when they were able. They arrived in VA as both indentured servants and as enslaved persons. Some were freed after their indentured service ended and became property owners. Others were enslaved for life. With the English discovery that this “new” land supported tobacco growing, the rush to settle the colony and profit from it became greater. Between 1619-1697, 13,000-20,000 Africans were brought to VA to begin a lifetime of perpetual servitude. The number of Africans dramatically increased with “blackness” alone becoming associated with slavery. From 1698-1774, 96,000 Africans were imported into the Virginia colony as slaves.
The Europeans — primarily the English, Scots, and Irish — who arrived in Virginia in the early 1600s, were a hodgepodge mix of characters, including sons of elite English gentry, merchants, adventurers, ex-convicts, etc. The Virginia Companydeveloped a “headright” system to encourage immigrants to settle there. Starting in 1617, elite planters who sponsored an indentured servant received 50 acres of land for paying their fare to VA. Indentured servants then had to labor for a period of 7 years under strict terms. These indentured servants saw their service as a means to an end — one in which they became landowners as well. It should also be noted that these indentured servants routinely worked along side of, intermarried and had children with, and ran away with enslaved people and Native Americans.
From the beginning, the elite class of planters controlled the governing branch of the Virginia Company and later the House of Burgesses. This enabled them to exploit the headright system to their advantage which led to the ownership of large tracts of land for themselves and their families. Land speculation soon surfaced and had devastating consequences for those indentured servants who completed their service terms. Faced with not being able to purchase land, they were forced to become tenant farmers or move to frontier areas that were considered dangerous due to Native American incursions. In 1676,Bacon’s Rebellion became the first uprising in VA. It was a rebellion that saw white indentured servants uniting with enslaved Africans against the ruling class in power. In response to the Rebellion and, in recognition that the supply of white indentured servants was drying up, numerous laws were enacted to codify the institution of slavery in Virginia and forever separate the poor from aligning together in the future.
A timeline of laws codifying slavery in Virginia can be found here.
The Importation of Enslaved Malagasy (1719-1721)
http://www.slavevoyages.org/assessment/intro-maps
Between 1719-1721, there were seven slave ships that arrived in the Tidewater region of Virginia with enslaved Malagasy in their cargo holds. These vessels were the Prince Eugene and the Henrietta, which both sailed twice, the Mercury, the Gascoigne Galley, the and the Rebecca Snow. As I previously noted in my Part II blogpost, the voyage from Madagascar to the East Coast of the US was 4-6 months long and most likely included a stopover on the island of St. Helenato replenish supplies. I can only imagine the horrors that enslaved people went through during this Middle Passage. That they even survived is a miracle in itself as well as a testament to the resilience of the human spirit. It’s no wonder that the average mortality rate was as high as 31% on these voyages. Part of the mortality rate was due to the fact that the enslaved were already slaves in Madagascar having been captured by other ethnic groups before being sold. The rest had to do with the despicable, inhumane conditions inherent on any transatlantic slave ship voyage. One of the most harrowing accounts is that of the Gascoigne Galley slave ship that arrived in VA in 1721 from Madagascar with 133 slaves, out of 192 individuals purchased. The slaves on this ship had contracted a disease that caused their eyes to come out of their sockets. There were roughly 1,300 enslaved Malagasy who ended up in Virginia during the 1719-1721 time period.
Please note that there was also an unknown slave ship that arrived in Virginia from Madagascar in 1686 that had 210 Malagasy onboard. This would mean around approximately 1,500 enslaved Malagasy survived the Middle Passage and took up residence in Virginia.
From Kevin P. McDonald’s Book, Pirates, Merchants, Settlers and Slaves (2015)
It should also be noted that the Carolinas received an unknown number of enslaved Malagasy as Charleston was settled by planters from Barbados. Enslaved Malagasy were imported into the Carolinas for their rice production skills. By 1700, half of the slaves — roughly 16,500 individuals — in Barbados were of Malagasy descent. Between 1679-1718, there were 27 voyages from Madagascar to Barbados. Likewise, Jamaica also received 2,000 slaves between 1685-1719.
Robert King Carter: My Slave Owner 8th Great-Grandfather and Major Importer and Purchaser of The Enslaved Malagasy in VA (1719-1721)
As Wendy Wilson-Fall discusses in her book Memories of Madagascar and Slavery in the Black Atlantic,Robert “King” Carter was the major investor in the Madagascar to Virginia Slave Trade as well as the major purchaser of the enslaved Malagasy who arrived in the Tidewater region of Virginia. He also was my slave owner 8th great-grandfather. No one chooses their ancestors and I, in no way, shape, or form, will ever condone his abhorrent behavior as it relates to slavery. I just can’t as long as the blood of people he enslaved still runs through my veins. However, I will tell the truth about his life.
When Robert “King”Carter (1663-1732) died, the inventory of his 40 page will was a testament to his status as “King” of colonial Virginia. His will stated that he owned 300,000 acres of land, 57 plantations and quarters, around 800 slaves (click here for a list of names of the enslaved) and £10,000 of cash. He added a codicil in his will that forever linked the enslaved and their descendants to a particular plantation or quarter. An enslaved person could be relocated to a different plantation if a Carter daughter inherited those slaves as part of her dowry and they would become part of husband’s property. Of course, enslaved people could be sold at any time.
Over the course of his lifetime, Robert “King” Carter amassed great wealth from the tobacco trade and other businesses which led him to become one of the wealthiest men in Virginia. He also was very much a part of the elite ruling class and served in the House of Burgesses for years. His sons followed in their father’s footsteps and later maintained the family’s wealth and political dynasty for generations. One of the ways he increased his family’s wealth was to form alliances, via the marriages of his sons and daughters, to other“First Families of Virginia.” The Byrd, Burwell, Randolph, Armistead, Page, Fitzhugh, Harrison, Braxton, Wormeley, Mann, and Berkeley families, among others, were all affiliate families to the Carters. His extended family and businesses were completely intertwined. Wealth begat wealth.
Carter and affiliate family plantations from Memories of Madagascar and Slavery in the Black Atlantic
While Robert “King” Carter was certainly a man of great wealth, that wealth came at the expense of my enslaved ancestors and others. In order to harness this free labor force, Carter employed several methods to exert his control. One of the ways was for him to strip these saltwater Africans of their ethnic/tribal identity by giving them English first names only. He also separated members of the same ethnic group into different quarters where they could not communicate with each other. Within a generation or two, we can easily see how enslaved Africans became “African-American” as they began to lose knowledge of their own African cultures though not entirely.
Robert “King” Carter also used violence to manage his enslaved population. Whippings, beatings, and the killing of the enslaved were routine during slavery. The Carter Papers provide us with a goldmine of information in HIS words. In these papers, we learn about a runaway slave named Madagascar Jack — whose name clearly reflected his Malagasy roots — who on August 22,1722 was returned to Robert “King” Carter as a runaway slave. Carter then sought permission to have him mutilated in order to cure him of his runaway habits. Despite having his toes amputated, Madagascar Jack apparently continued to runaway. Five years later, on October 10, 1727, Carter wrote about how he didn’t want Madagascar Jack to go to his new Corotoman Plantationthoughmany other enslaved people ended up at there. In one letter, Carter also mentioned mutilating another slave named Ballazore. Back in1710, he mutilated Bambara Harry and Dinah. These mutilations were a form of torture that my 8th slave owner great-grandfather boasted of “having cured many a negro of running away by this means.” I can’t help to wonder if any of my Malagasy-descended ancestors were the subjects and victims his abuse.
Robert “King” Carter’s letter dated October 10, 1727
Most of the enslaved Malagasy that Robert “King” Carter purchased in the early 1700s were women and children. These women would have been coerced into mating with men of West African or European descent when they first arrived —most likely not of their own choosing considering they had no control over their fates or bodies. The formation of somewhat more stable families would only come later. Such was the nature of slavery. The children born from these enslaved Malagasy women would have been first generation ”African-Americans.” As you will see from the admixture charts later, African-Americans are truly a diaspora population. But, some of these children would have also “passed” as Euro-American with their African-American and Malagasy roots being totally obscured.
I want to add here that Robert “King” Carter did have a grandson, Robert Carter III (my 1st cousin 8XR), who became known as “The Great Emancipator.” In 1791, Robert III signed a Deed of Giftthat led to the emancipation of 500-600 enslaved people over the course of 30 years. This was one of the largest number of enslaved people being emancipated prior to the Civil War. Nomini Hallis the plantation that he inherited from his grandfather and where his enslaved people labored. Robert III was clearly influenced by his Baptist religion. He was one of many slave owners who began to question slavery and start to embrace abolitionism. John Pleasants III, a Quaker, also emancipated his slaves in his will. When his son, Robert Pleasants started to execute his wishes after his death, other family members sued him to prevent these emancipations from going forward. He was successful in court and went on to free hundreds of enslaved people. He then hired his formerly enslaved back as paid laborers and provided schooling for them. Robert went on to become an ardent abolitionist. Curles Neck Plantation, which was owned by the Pleasants, was only 8 miles from Shirley Plantation and the Pleasants no doubt owned enslaved Malagasy and their descendants.
Me and my 8th Carter cousin, Erika Kirsten Holder, proud cousins of the “Great Emancipator”
My Family’s DNA Trail From Madagascar to VA
I have five colonial lines that can be traced to Virginia on my maternal African-American side. One line is from my 3rd great-grandmother Mary Johnson, on my maternal grandfather’s side, from Greenwich, CT who was born in VA in the early 1800s. She somehow ended up in CT, but we have no idea where in VA she was born. My maternal 2nd great-grandparents on my grandfather’s maternal side, William H. Jackson and Katherine Davis Jackson, were born in VA, but they moved to Newark, NJ sometime by 1880. My Jackson/Davis/Thomas/Brookins line was from Charlottesville, Fork Union (Fluvanna County) Fredericksburg, Lynchburg, Waynesboro, and Farmville, VA. On my maternal grandmother’s side, my great-grandmother’s Lee/Carter/Mitchell line was from Charles City, Petersburg, Richmond, and Dinwiddie County, VA. My 2nd great-grandfather, James D. Mitchell, moved to Boston, MA after the Civil War and married a first generation Irish-American woman named Julia Lennihan. It is his maternal line that was of Malagasy descent. I have every reason to suspect that some of my grandfather’s VA ancestors also included people who had Malagasy roots as we shall see.
My Virginia Ancestral Towns
On my Lee/Carter/Mitchell line, we have oral history that was passed down indicating that my 3rd great-grandmother, Crittie Anna Lee, was born on Shirley Plantation and that she was the daughter of Charles Carter Lee, an older brother of Gen. Robert E. Lee, and an enslaved woman named Ann Perkins. She was married to Mortimer Mitchell, another mulatto. We had a male Mitchell tested amd hie has a Euro Y-DNA.We don’t know much about how she met Mortimer or where he came from. His background may have been similar to hers. Our Mitchell ancestors found their way to Union troops where Crittie and Mortimer worked as a nurse and cook until the end of the war. After the Civil War, they resided in Namozine, Dinwiddie County, VA until their deaths. They were farmers who owned their property. Five of their children ended up moving to MA, PA, and NY by the late 1800s.
My slave owner 4th great-grandfather, Charles Carter Lee
Number of Slaves at Shirley Plantation over time
We were told that Crittie was Black and Native American on her mother’s side. This was quite plausible since African-Americans with colonial roots in Virginia were known to have intermarried with Native Americans in the area. Her son James was also referred to as “The Old Indian” in the Stoughton, MA where he owned a farm and a store in the early 1900s. My aunt Helen also told me of how many people thought that James’s son, my Uncle Bill, was of Asian descent as well (see photo below).
P Rev. James William Mitchell aka My Uncle Bill
In her book, Memories of Madagascar and Slavery in the Black Atlantic, Wendy Wilson-Fall points out that the oral history of Malagasy descendants often includes mention of their phenotype. The physical descriptions of enslaved Malagasy includes references to their yellow skin, hair, and eyes. Because Madagascar was settled by people from East Africa and Southeast Asia, their phenotype was probably similar to those enslaved people who were of African and Native American descent. Again, Native Americans and Africans were slaves who labored together in the early years of colonization. Generations after the first Malagasy arrived in VA, some of their descendants may have forgotten their family origins and chose to remember what their ancestors looked like. Hence, many people may have oral history of ancestors being Black and Native American when they were in fact of Malagasy descent or, more likely, were of West African, Malagasy and Native American descent like my family.
An example of the Black/Native America oral history from a Malagasy-descendant
People of Madagascar
Returning to Crittie’s death certificate, her age at the time of her death was 69 years old. However, on US Census records from 1870-1910, her birth year ranges from 1825 to 1846 so it is hard to confirm her exact age. Reber Dunkel, retired professor of Randolph-Macon College, has been helping me locate Crittie and her mother at Shirley Plantation. He believes her first name is unique and uncommon for the time so it may have been a first name that was passed down. In his research, he has found 2 Critties listed as slaves at Shirley Plantation’s sister plantation, Hickory Hill in Hanover County. Ann Butler Carter (my 1st cousin 6XR), daughter of Robert Hill Carter, received 1717 acres of land and 70 slaves from Shirley Plantation from her father, a brother of my 5th great-grandmother Anne Hill Carter, as a dowry when she married William Fanning Wickham. Her sister, Lucy Carter (also my 1st cousin 6XR), received a similar dowry when she married William’s brother, Edmund Fanning Wickham. It has been documented that the first enslaved people employed at Hickory Hill came from Shirely Plantation. It is quite possible that my Crittie may have descended from one of these two Critties. Likewise, Reber is also exploring the possibility of an ancestral link with the Hickory Hill Critties and Critta —Crittie is the diminutive form of the name —Hemings, sister of Sally Hemings. John Wayles, their father, owned The Forest plantation which was located in Charles City County where Shirley Plantation is located. I’m still searching for more info on Crittie, Ann Perkins, and her Perkins slave owners. I expect to take more trips to Virginia to do more family research.
What we do know about Crittie is that her line connects to known Malagasy descendants like the Raglands, Dickersons, Parhams, Carters, Lees, etc. via our DNA cousins. Given the fact that Robert “King” Carter tied his enslaved people to the properties where they were born, coupled with him being the major purchaser/importer of enslaved Malagsy, and our oral history as well, we can assume that her matrilineal line may be a Malagasy one. Crittie has an elderly great-granddaughter in NYC, who also has a daughter, that we can administer a Full Sequence mtDNA test to confirm definitively. We are tracking them down now to test as I write this blog post.
The major goal of FTDNA’s Malagasy Roots Project is to identify people who have Full Sequence mtDNA or Y-DNA haplogroups that are found in Madagascar and connect them to their cousins who are of Malagasy descent. These particular DNA tests offer the most conclusive evidence of Malagasy ancestry. That being said, there are indicatorsof Malagasy ancestry that can be found by looking at autosomal DNA test results in combination with local history, Malagasy entry points into the US, oral history, etc. I want to be very clear that admixture tests alone are NOT an indicator of Malagasy ancestry. There needs to be more corroborative proof. My fellow blogger Melvin Collierdocuments his discovery of his Malagasy roots in his blogpostdoing exactly what I have always recommended. Through his analysis of his family’s autosomal results, he has been able to confirm his Malagasy roots and connect with a Malagasy DNA cousin.
Detecting Indicators of Malagasy Ancestry Using AncestryDNA
Fonte Felipe, a fellow blogger, has graciously shared some of the data he has been analyzing related to Malagasy people who have DNA-tested at AncestryDNA. He has documented the country backgrounds of Malagasy descended individuals. It is striking to note that most Malagasy-descended people who have tested at AncestryDNA are African-American and/or of West Indian descent followed by people of Euopean descent from the United States and Europe and the Spanish Caribbean. This is a testament to just how large the Madagascar Slave Trade to the Caribbean and the Americas was in the late 1600s to early 1700s.
Info on Malagasy AncestryDNA Matches/Fonte Felipe
For the past few years, I have been analyzing how Malagasy ancestry manifests itself across all DNA testing companies. Using my family’s M23 haplogroup — which is only found in Madagascar — as a control group, I have been documenting the geographical regions that may be indicative of Malagsy roots. On AncestryDNA, we definitely see a combination of East/South/Central Africa geographical areas along with an Asian component which isn’t surprising since Madagascar was settled by people from SE Asia and East Africa. Regarding the African geographical areas, one of the things Fonte noted is that, in addition to SE Bantu as a region, one also sees that the Cameroon/Congo region is also somewhat high. The Cameroon/Congo admixture may be coming from Mozambique. This no doubt reflects how the Bantu Expansion spread from West to East Africa. Please note that the West African trace regions found in today’s Malagasy would not be the same trace regions as our Malagasy ancestors who arrived in the United States centuries ago though.
List of African regions for Malagasy DNA-tested individuals/Fonte Felipe
Historic Bantu Expansion
Map of Madagascar Ethnic Groups
Fonte also shared three Malagasy AncestryDNA ethnic admixture profiles with me. In the first chart, this Malagasy individual is probably Merina from the Highlands because of the higher percentage of Asian admixture. Fonte didn’t have much info on the 2nd Malagasy profile other than that person was from Southwest Madagascar from the Atsimo-Andrefana region, but you can see how this person has more East African admixture than Asian admixture.
Malagasy Profile 1/Fonte Felipe
Malagasy Profile 2/Fonte Felipe
“ Malagasy Profile 3/Fonte Felipe
Fonte has had the most contact with the 3rd Malagasy profile. This Malagasy person had a Makua ancestor from Mozambique. He is from Northeast Madagascar and is also part Antankarana and Antaimoro.
In general, looking at these three profiles, we can gather that the African components include SE African Bantu and Cameroon/Congo. I did notice that in Malagasy-descended African Americans, we also see South-Central Hunters and Gatherers. This designation may have to do with where enslaved Malagasy originated from centuries ago which is why we don’t see it in these present day Malagasy profiles. The Asian component could be any combination of Asia East, Asia South, Asia Central, and/or Pacific Islander (Polynesia and Melanesia).
Here are three profiles representing my family. My cousin Mildred is a direct matrilineal descendant of our shared 2nd great-grandmother, Laura Thompson who had the M23 haplogroup. Helen is my maternal aunt and reflects our two Malagasy lines from NY (Thompson/Pickett/Snyder) and VA (Lee/Carter/Mitchell line). Our cousin Barbara is on our Jackson/Davis/Thomas/Brookins line. As a point of clarification, any of the geographical regions included as main regions may reflect recent ancestry coming from other ancestors from those regions as well. Most of the Malagasy indicators would be found in “Low Confidence Regions” as this would reflect ancestry from those areas centuries ago. For a more detailed discussion of Malagasy admixture, please refer to my Part I blog post which can be found here.
AncestryDNA Admixture Chart for Mildred (M23)
My cousin Mildred has a DNA match whose family is from Edgecombe County, NC and has an ancestor from Madagascar.
A Madagascar ancestor of a DNA match
AncestryDNA Admixture Chart for Barbara
Here are 2 of my Mitchell 2nd cousins 1XR. We share the same 2nd great-grandfather, James D. Mitchell. They would be my aunt Helen’s 2nd cousins. Their grandfather was my great-grandmother’s brother, James W. Mitchell.
AncestryDNA Admixture Chart for SuzetteAncestryDNA Admixture Chart for EC
Please note that the profile below is of my 3rd cousin 1XR. Cyntania is a descendant of my 2nd great-grandfather’s brother George Mitchell. Notice how Cyntania admixture profile doesn’t show any Asian component. DNA is randomly inherited so this should not be a surprise. She is a perfect example of why it is best to test multiple people within a family. She is a direct descendant of our Crittie, but apparently she didn’t inherit her Asian DNA, according to AncestryDNA, and neither did I as a matter of fact though it does show up on my other DNA admixture tests.
AncestryDNA Admixture Chart for CyntaniaAncestryDNA Admixture Chart for TeresaTeresa’s DNA Tribes SNP Analysis
Though I have five colonial lines that begin and end in Virginia, my family never had any oral or written history that documented our ancestors in the Deep South. After taking several DNA tests, I now am acutely aware of the fact that I have VA ancestors who were sold South out of Richmond, VA. With their permission given, here are a few DNA cousins I match whose AncestryDNA admixture charts, surnames, and locations match my Virginia Malagasy-descended ancestors and other VA DNA cousins.
Ahmad is on my Lee/Carter/ Mitchell line via a ParhamShirese is on our Lee/Carter/Mitchell line via a MitchellNicole is related to us on our Lee/Carter/Mitchell line via a Franklin
Here are some of the DNA Malagasy-descended cousin matches that my aunt Helen and I have that reflect surnames on our family tree either via VA slave owners or their slaves of Malagasy descent who were sold South out of Richmond, VA.
A Lee descendantA Smith descendantA Hill descendantA Robinson descendantA Byrd descendantA Jackson descendantA Jones descendantA Davis descendantA Carter descendantA Franklin descendant
Surnames of Malagasy Descendants
Here is a list of surnames that are found among both my VA and NY Malagasy-descended ancestors AND NY and VA slave owner ancestors who purchased the enslaved Malagasy who arrived in NY and VA in between 1664-1698 and 1719-1721. Some of these surnames are found in both states. I have also added the surnames that Wendy-Wilson Fall compiled on her Ancestry.com Rootsweb page back in 2003. Click here to see her original list.
Not our Ann Perkins, but clearly a Malagasy-descendant surname!
Please note that Wendy Wilson-Fall has started a Mapping Memories of Madagascar site where she seeks to document both enslaved and free Malagasy-descended individuals. Please click on the red hyperlink above to add your ancestor’s name to her interactive map.
Ragland and Dickerson Connections: It’s a Small Colonial World After All
I want to mention the Ragland family in colonial VA as this family routinely purchased slaves of Malagasy descent. On our Carter and Lee side, my family is related to Evan Ragland, the “immigrant,” who arrived in VA from Somerset, England in the mid-1600s. The Raglands were of English and Welsh descent. Evan was 14 years old when he was kidnapped, along with John Davis, from Somerset and shipped out of Bristol, England to labor as an indentured servant for Stephen Pettus in colonial Virginia. He then married Stephen’s daughter Susana after his term expired and went on to inherit land. He also owned an unknown number of enslaved people. Evan’s personal history was indeed the stuff that indentured servants dreamed of when they arrived in this country.
Charles Ragland, a descendant of Evan, wrote a book where he estimated that between “1640 and 1680 up to 100,000 children may have been kidnapped in Britain and sold to the highest bidders in America.” As indenture servitude began to decline after the 1660s, abduction became a common practice. Ragland states, that “such protests (and increased interest in voluntary emigration) had brought the practice to an end around 1679, in which year a captain was hung for kidnapping an eleven year old boy.”
All Euro-descended Raglands in the US are related to Evan Ragland. Their extended family spread out from VA and ended up in West Virginia, the Carolinas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Alabama, Georgia, Missouri, and Pennsylvania throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. They took their enslaved people with them as they moved out of VA and purchased more enslaved people as they built their wealth off of the backs of the enslaved. The dispersal of these white planters and their slaves went hand in hand with Native Americans being subjected to both physical relocation to other parts of the country as well as policies that can be considered genocidal.
African-American Raglands are descendants of children fathered by Ragland men and Malagasy/West African/Native American women and those unrelated enslaved people who took their surname before and after they were emancipated. The Raglands lived in the same locations as my Carter ancestors — Charles City, Richmond, Spotslyvania, New Kent County, Dinwiddie County, Prince George County and other VA locations. The two families also intermarried. It should come as no surprise that my family shares a genetic tie with both Euro- and African-American Raglands who descend from the early Malagasy people, who were bought and sold, in Tidewater region of Virginia.
A European-descent Ragland
An African-American Ragland of Malagasy descentJill Ragland and Janine Colbert, our F3b1 Malagasy descended cousins
Although Jill Ragland has the Ragland surname, her mother Janine is the one we are related to via a distant Malagasy ancestor though her dad may also be a Malagasy descedant. They are part of the Malagasy Roots Project and her mtDNA haplogroup is F3b1 which is one of the Malagasy haplogroups that is found in Asia and Madagascar. Though for some reason they didn’t show up on her main AncestryDNA page, Janine also has Asia South and Asia Central admixture on the AncestryDNA phone app. Janine’s maternal Malagasy F3b1 ancestors probably arrived in Georgia from Virginia. It looks like her connection to my family is because of ancestor who was sold South.
It should be pointed out that the Ragland Plantation in Petersburg is now a Bed & Breakfast. The website is geared towards promoting the aesthetics of the place. However, there is a history of the Ragland Plantation on the site that mentions both Reuben and John Davis Raglands’ active involvement in the domestic slave trade out of Richmond as slave traders, bankers, and as part of the insurance industry that oiled the engines of slavery. It also appears that John Davis dropped his Ragland surname when he was a slave trader which was a great way to disguise his hideous complicity in the slave trade for future generations.
There was another Ragland descendant who owned Sylvie, a woman of Malagasy-descent, whom he later freed in his will along with their children and his other enslaved people. His name was William Ragland, Jr. (1780-1849) from Louisa County, VA who was a descendant of Evan Ragland via William, Sr. > Samuel> John > Evan. He died at the age of 69 of typhoid fever in 1849. Sylvia/Sylvie was 40 years younger than William. This type of situation was common among some slave owners and their relationship reminds us of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. From the newspaper below, we learn that in addition to emancipating his enslaved people, William had set aside $20,000 (which would be $617,000 in 2017) when he died and instructed his executers to buy land in Pike and Jackson Counties in Ohio. The executers related how they bought land and settled almost 100 formerly enslaved people between 1855-1860.
The Jackson Standard 10/19/1866
In the book Free Blacks of Louisa County Virginia, it’s worth noting that William Ragland, not only emancipated Slyvia/Sylvie and their children (Lousia, Martha, Lucy, Ellen, Betsy, Sylvia/Sylvie, Jr., William, Jr, and Samuel), but may have also emancipated her sisters, Mary (mother of Thomas, Margaret, Henry, David, William, Nathan, and Franklin) and Esther (mother of Nathaniel, John, Catherine, George, Polly, and Sally) and their children. Sylvia/Sylvie, Mary, and Esther were 34, 37, and 42 years old when they were granted their freedom. There was a 70-year old woman named Judith Ragland who may have been their mother or aunt. It seems like William Ragland was another slave owner, like Thomas Jefferson, who kept his very enslaved family close to him. I am certain that these African-American of Malagasy descent women exercised their own agency as they recognized the privilege they had relative to other enslaved people.
Another William James Ragland (1810-1876) who was a cousin of the William above and also a descendant of Evan Ragland via Fendall> Pettus> John > Evan, listed Mary Agnes Meriwearther (1829-1892) as a “friend” in his will and left his entire estate to her and his “natural” and “confirmed heirs” — Nannie James Meriweather, Mary Adeline Meriweather, James Edward Meriwearher and John Meirweather. In the 1880 census, Mary Agnes is listed as a widow and is living with her son Harry who is 14 years old. It’s uncertain if John’s middle name was Harry or if this is a son by a different father. We know very little about Mary Agnes and nothing about how she felt about her life other than what she wanted recorded on her tombstone for all to see. She simply stated “I fought the good fight.” Only she knew what that meant and the rest of us are left to wonder what she meant. Mary Agnes is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Richmond, VA alongside of many well-known African-Americans.
Mary Agnes Meriweather ….”I fought the good fight.”
Another colonial family that had ties with both the Carters and the Raglands was the Dickerson family whose ancestors resided all over colonial Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, DC. They then moved to other states as the United States expanded South and West as they cleared the land of Native Americans. Griffin Dickerson/Dickinson/Dickenson, the “immigrant,” arrived in Virginia in the early-1600s. The spelling of their surname changed over time and is found in the historical records spelled as Dickerson, Dickinson, and Dickenson. Like the Carters and Raglands, the Dickersons accumulated their wealth initially due to the tobacco industry that was predicated on slave labor. They also lived in the same exact areas as the Carters and Raglands and no doubt procured their slaves from the same sources as those two families. [As an aside, one of Robert Carter III’s 300-acre property in Richmond County was named Dickersons Mill].The Dickersons certainly received a share of the enslaved Malagasy who arrived in the early 1700s as well as their descendants over time.
A Euro-American Dickerson descendant
TB’s ancestor, Griffin Dickerson
My family is related to both Euro- and African-American Dickersons. I have several Malagasy-descended DNA Dickerson cousins. One of whom is Eugene Dickerson. His Dickerson ancestors were from Spotsylvania County, VA, a location that matches one of Robert “King” Carter’s plantations. It appears that there was a Hugh Mercer Dickinson. (1811-1888) in Spotsylvania who was a slave owner with 26 enslaved people documented in the 1850 and 1860 census records. There was also an Elisha Dickinson who was a slave owner in 1783 in Spotsylvania with 11 slaves. More research needs to be done to see if this family was the slave owners of Eugene’s ancestors. Eugene and my family also have other DNA cousins in common like Shirese Louie and her siblings. By the way, in following Hugh Mercer Dickinson’s tree, I noticed his grandmother was a Quarles— a surname that Shirese also has in her tree.
Eugene also has a grandfather, Thomas Frazier Dickerson (1872-1992), who married Hallie Sandidge (1892-1934). Hallie’s side has 2 other Malagasy-descendant surnames, Scott and Jones. The white Sandidge family, another early colonial family, are found in New Kent, Lousia, Spotslyvania, and Amherst counties which again are where the Carters, Raglands, and Dickersons lived. There are records in the book Free Blacks of Louisa County Virginia which contains the names of several Sandidge enslaved people who were emanicpated in Richard Sandidge’s will.
Eugene Dickerson
Nicole Dickerson, Eugene’s daughter
From the book Free Blacks of Louisa County Virginia by transcribed by Janice Abercrombie
Eugene and his family were unaware of their Malagasy ancestry. I truly hope that I have provided them with some clues to further investigate their Dickerson-Sandidge line. With the help of other DNA cousins, they may be able to find even more info. The next step for them should definitely be Full Sequence mtDNA and Y-DNA tests.
Another interesting Dickerson/Dickinson/Dickenson tidbit is Richard Henry Dickinson whose ancestors are probably related to Griffin Dickerson/Dickinson/Dickenson as well. R.H. Dickinson was one of the major slave traders in Richmond from 1840 up until the Civil War. He operated under the slave trading firms of Dickinson and Brothers and as Dickinson, Hill & Co. Between 1846-1849, he sold 2000 enslaved Virginians South annually. In 1857, his firm earned $2 Million in slave sales. Click here for a timeline of R.H. Dickinson’s slave trading years. I also found an ad that was placed in a Richmond newspaper where Dickerson was selling the slaves owned by John Wickham (my 2nd cousin 5XR), the son of Anne Butler (Carter) Wickham and William Fanning Wickham of Hickory Hill Plantation. That William Fanning Wickam used R.H. Dickerson’s slave trading firm attests to family ties that spanned generations. In the auction, 130 enslaved people were sold — some of whom may have been my ancestors as his mother was a Carter from Shirley Plantation. John was only 25 years old when he passed away and already was a man of wealth.
Estate Sale for John Wickham, including enslaved people
Richmond: The Epicenter of the Domestic Slave Trade (1790-1860)
A slave coffle…
A discussion of Richmond being an epicenter of the domestic slave trade, behind New Orleans, is essential if we are to understand the migration of African- and Euro-Americans with Malagasy roots to parts of the Deep South. After the African slave trade ended in 1808 in the wake of the Haitian Revolution, we see that the growth of the domestic slave trade coincided with the genocide and displacement of Native Americans from their lands and the rise of cotton and sugar plantations in the South and Southwest. Virginia was a tobacco growing state and, as the land became overworked and degraded over the years, the planter class looked for ways to harness and unload their surplus enslaved labor. They did this by first migrating to, and settling in areas, that had been cleared of Native Americans in the South and Southwest and they took their enslaved people with them. These VA planters also unloaded their surplus enslaved labor by selling these people South out of Richmond. As the cotton and sugar trade grew, the planter class were joined by others seeking to enrich their station in life by buying and trading enslaved people. The accumulative wealth of European-Americans in this country was built on the enslavement of millions of people of African descent.
https://virginiaslavetrade.wordpress.com/ Phillip TroutmanEyre Crowe, Waiting for Sale Painting, 1861https://virginiaslavetrade.wordpress.com/ Phillip Troutman
From 1790-1860, as Phillip Troutman in his Virginia Slave Trade blog makes abundantly clear, 45% of enslaved people sold South came from Virginia. According to Michael Tadman, an estimated 350,000 enslaved Virginians were sold South out of Richmond from 1820-1860. That number is probably a lot higher as we will never know how many enslaved people were sold between 1790-1820 or how many free Blacks were kidnapped and sold South as well. I should also add here that, in 1850s, there were a quarter of a million mixed race slave children in Virginia. This means that slave owners were making and selling their own children for profit, according to David W. Blight.
A list of slave adsA depiction of a slave auctionAnd obituary of a Nancy Carter from Richmond who ended up sold in TX/Shared with me by Sherri Thomas, a 3rd great-granddaughter of Nancy Carter Vining
Information Wanted Ad looking for Richmond,VA relatives
Slavery was never designed to promote Black family reunification. On the contrary, it was an institution that was hellbent on destroying the ties that bind. When considering the impact of the domestic slave trade on African-Americans, whose ancestors were from Virginia, we need to be aware that most of the enslaved who were sold were between the ages of 15-25 years of age. However, according to the historian Steven Deyle, two-fifths of antebellum slaves were younger than 15 and one-third were younger than 10 years old. The youngest of enslaved victims may not have known who their parents were having been taken from them at a very young age, housed in slave pens, sold a couple of times before ending up at auction houses before being transported South. Even with DNA testing, while we may locate some of our DNA cousins who are the descendants of our VA ancestors, there will be many more ancestors who will remain lost to us forever. Slavery caused a major disruption in our family trees and family history. Tears.
I Like My History Black…Hold The Sugar: Historical Trauma and The Sanitization of Slavery
University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Oct. 2017
I was blessed to have the opportunity to speak at a symposium on “Universities, Slavery, Public Memory & The Built Environment” at the University of Virginia-Charlottesville this past October 18th-20th and I sat on a panel on “Cemeteries, Slavery, and History.” Over the course of 3 days, panel after panel was devoted to serving up history that was the blackest EVER. The true history of how this country was founded; how slavery was experienced by people of African descent, how certain individuals and institutions profited off of Black bodies before and after death; the role that universities played in propagating slavery and the corrections being made now to rectify the mistakes of the past; the current state of Black cemeteries and the need to preserve them; the current excavations of slave sites at plantations today; and the on-going incorporation of the voices of the descendants of slaves at plantations, among other topics, were discussed at length. The history at this conference was100% SUGAR-FREE! The “sugar” that was left out can be compared to all the myth-making, lies, and omissions that have been left out of the historical record in order to make slavery more palatable to the masses. At the conference, I was among kindred spirits who are promoting a corrected, more inclusive view of history. One that, I strongly believe, can heal this country in time. A history built on lies is just that as it obscures truth; whereas a history that is based on truth — one that embraces our diverse histories — allows us to have an honest discussion about how we can learn from this country’s past. It was only appropriate that I wore Joseph McGill’s Slave Dwelling Project fundraising t-shirt “I like my history black…hold the sugar” because it spoke to me. I like my history, in its truest state, with NO added sugar.
DISCLAIMER: I’ve debated for months now on how to handle this section of my blog because it is all bitterness that is based on truth. I have decided not to go into great detail as it may trigger people, but have included articles and books in my reference section for people to read more info on their own, if they choose to do so.
Bitter Black History.. Truth Personified/Location unknown
When we consider the legacy that slavery left that is still with us today, it should come as no surprise then that African-Americans suffer from historic trauma. Historic trauma is a term that refers to the collective emotional and psychological wounding of an individual or group of people caused by traumatic past experiences or events. As descendants of enslaved people, African-Americans suffered repeated personal traumas due to slavery for centuries. Some of those personal traumas included physical abuse, torture, slave killings via dismemberments, burnings, lynchings, mutilation, male and female rape, incest (slaveowner/sons and daughter), male and female forced slave breeding, family separations, etc. This country has done a very good job at minimizing and whitewashing it’s history when it comes to people of color. Why? Because the ugly truth hurts and the coffee is bitter beyond belief. Acknowledging and reconciling our shared historical truths is a necessary act that has the potential to heal this diabetic nation. Too much historical sugar is very bad for you.
This historical trauma is still with us and can be seen in Malagasy-descended African-Americans today. I think about my friend Michael Twitty, who just came out with his book, The Cooking Gene. In the book, he recounts how his 3rd great-grandparents, Jack and Arrye Todd, and their children were separated and sold South out of Shockoe Bottom via Lumpkin’s Jail, the Devil’s Half Acre, one of the worst slave jails in Richmond. Arrye was of Malagasy descent and the Todd family — whom I descend from on my Carter side — mostly likely acquired Malagasy enslaved people as the Todds owned plantations in Gloucester County, which is near the York River, and were in-laws to my Carter ancestors. That Michael carries intimate knowledge of his ancestor’s forced separation because he is a family historian with VA roots, shows exactly how some of us still carry the burden of our ancestor’s lived experiences with us every day. That Michael’s middle name “William” is a tribute to his 3rd great-grandfather’s younger brother who was sold South is another testament to the ties that bind us to our ancestors. I attended one of Michael’s talks where he was asked if he ever considered changing his name to an African one since he now knew one of his West African lineage names. His response was that, although he didn’t really like his first or last name, his middle name “William” was handed down for generations to family members as a way of remembering one who was lost to slavery. This is a perfect example of how our oral history reflects a proven historical truth. In case you are wondering, I proudly claim Michael as a distant Todd cousin.
10,000 lbs. of sugar right here…
Another person I claim as a cousin on my Lee/Carter/Mitchell side is my friend Sam Lemon. He wrote a book, Go Stand Upon This Rock, a novel about his 2nd great-grandparents who escaped from Virginia, at different times, as runaway slaves. His book is based on the oral history that was handed down to him. Sam’s family history is one of victorius survival. I call it that because it is filled with enough bitter coffee that you can drown in it. Yet, his 2nd great-grandparents were able to survive slavery — if you can even call it that— and go on to produce descendants who excelled beyond anything they could have imagined. We must remember that, as descendants of enslaved people, we ARE our ancestors’ hopes and dreams….or at least we should be.
Sam’s Malagasy ancestors were from the Tidewater region of Virginia, including Hanover, Sussex, Surry, and Southampton counties. Some of these counties are close to Dinwiddie County where my Lee/Carter/Mitchell ancestors were located. Among his many surnames, two are definitely associated with Malagasy ancestry. They are Byrd (in-laws to my Carter ancestors) and Parham (who married into my Mitchell line). He is also genetically related to Thomas Jefferson/Sally Hemings descendants as I am, but via a Bowles ancestor. Critta Hemings married Zachariah Bowles. Sam’s paternal grandmother was Annie Byrd Mickens, whose mother was Ella Bowles (1854-1936) from Hanover County, VA and she lived in the same location as Zaxhariah in 1820. In addition, Sam also has admixture indicators of Malagasy ancestry. I feel pretty confident that one or both of his 2nd great-grandparents had Malagasy ancestry.
Below is a Facebook correspondence I had with Sam about his 2nd great-grandmother, Martha Jane Parham. Tears, tears….
Photo of Martha Jane Parham/From the collection of Sam LemonSam’s Uncle Washy who escaped with his mother Martha Jane. He doesn’t think Cornelius was his father./Photo from collection of Sam Lemon
Martha Jane Parham was ”a slave breeding” woman. That description of her is way too sugary sweet for me. She was an enslaved, repeated rape/gang rape victim for a decade between the ages of 14-24 years old. Her lived experience was a crime against humanity. It is no wonder she never spoke about it for speaking about it would have certainly caused her to relive such horrific experiences over and over again. I completely understand that. Her experience was a traumatic one that occurred in her formative years. Her silence was an act of self-preservation — a necessary act of erasure in itself. For her, it was better to concentrate on the future. Martha Jane was probably like other formerly enslaved people whose experiences during slavery were so hellish beyond belief that they made a conscious decision to try to forget the past. As slave descendants this means that we have two levels of historic erasure to deal,with when researching our ancestors. On a macro-level, we have to deal with the historical erasure that this country has in general about slavery as well as, on a micro-level, the historical erasure that formerly enslaved ancestors employed to save and preserve their very souls. We can call this survival skill simply “soul preservation” which is similar to Daina Ramey Berry’s emphasis on the “soul value” that enslaved people placed on their own lives.
Martha Jane Parham married Cornelius Ridley in Virginia. Cornelius was the mulatto son of his slave owner, Col. Thomas Ridley, III (1809-1875) and an unknown enslaved woman. Thomas Ridley, III was one of the wealthiest men in Southampton, VA and owned Bonnie Doon Plantation (also known as “Jerusalem”). The Ridleys also owned the Buckhorn Quarters. [As an aside, I was able to recently tell Sam that, on Thomas Ridley, III ‘s maternal Wright side, he is related to George Washington.] Cornelius and his sister Rosa were raised in Thomas’s household and were house slaves as so many children of slave owners were.
According to Sam, Cornelius met Martha Jane, who was enslaved at the neighboring Fortsville Plantation and was owned by John Y. Mason. Cornelius married her knowing that her primary job was to be forced mated with other enslaved men to produce children that would add to her slave master’s cumulative wealth and those children could be sold away at anytime. I can only imagine how much pain that brought him just knowing what Martha Jane had to endure. In the early 1860s, because he could pass for white with his very fair skin, red hair and green eyes, he walked away and ended up with Quakers who shepherded to freedom in Media, PA. Martha Jane, with the help of the United States Colored Troops and Quakers as well, was reunited with him after she escaped from Virginia during the Civil War. However, Rosa’s fate was very different. More tears..
Cornelius Ridley/From the collection of Sam Lemon
In looking into Cornelius’s family history, we learn that he had an older sister who was approximately 11-13 years older than him. He called her Rosa, but census records document her name as Mary Ridley. It is quite possible that her name was Mary Rose/Rosa Ridley. The oral history that was passed down to Sam and his family was that she was sold South never to be heard from again. A slave manifest lists her age as being 18 years old, born around 1826, and her skin was the color of “copper.” When she was sold, Cornelius would have been around the age of 12-13 years old. Surely, the loss of his older sister was seared in his memory at that age. Rosa may have been the closest person he had to a mother. Just looking at Mary Rose/Rosa’s full name among a list of other enslaved Virginians should break your heart. These were people who were separared from their own flesh and blood probably forever. They would now be known by their first name only —their prior identities submerged.
1844 New Orleans Slave ManifestRosa was shipped to New Orleans in 1844
Cornelius’s Rosa was sold to George Apperson, a Richmond slave trader who also owned a slave jail across the street from Lumpkin’s jail. Apperson sent 308 people South to New Orleans between 1844-1847. His New Orleans slave trading partner was none other than Solomon Northrop’s slave trader/owner, Theophilus Freeman, who was considered one of the most violent slave traders. Starting in the 1840s, Apperson and Freedman sent VA enslaved people South by ship rather than overland chained together in coffles. Apperson advertised his trips in VA newspapers thus guaranteeing a scheduled time whereby those interested in buying enslaved people could plan their trips. These ships would sometimes make port calls in Charleston, the Lower Mississippi (Natchez), and finally New Orleans. Enslaved people would have been destined for the cotton fields of the Deep South or Lousiana sugar plantations.
Ads George Apperson placed in newspapersFrom Michael Tadman’s book Speculators and Slaves: Masters, Traders, and Slaves in the Old South, p.232
Sam’s family never knew what happened to their Rosa after she was sold. Again, part of the generational historic trauma we suffer as descendants of enslaved people is not knowing what happened to the people we loved and lost due to slavery. If Rosa looked like Cornelius, she may have been sold South as “a fancy girl” which is to say sold to become a perpetual sex slave/rape victim. Fancy girls commanded very high prices. They were sold to the highest bidder to become sex slaves shared among slave traders themselves, forced into concubine arragements by sexual intimidation, or to become prostitutes in brothels. Many of these women appeared white in color which afforded those who bought them the right to live out sexual fantasies in ways that white women couldn’t because of cultural norms. There were cases when such “fancy girls” litigated their “whiteness” in court as a way to earn their freedom which I consider a form of resistance. It is a bit ironic that slave traders, who found people of African descent sub-human, would routinely engage in long-term relationships with “fancy girls,” have children with them, educate their children in the North, and emancipate them. A lot of those children later passed as white. Sam doesn’t know what happened to Rosa and it is this intergenerational grief that has kept him and his family in a state of mourning until today.
In the words of Sam Lemon in 2017
As a descendent of Crittie and her mother Ann, I pray for the day when I can learn more about them and the lives they lived. I only know what our oral history tells us. It’s only a very brief overview that was handed down in our family. I still want basic questions answered about them like did Crittie have siblings, did she have maternal grandparents, and where did Ann get her surname from, for example. Like many African-Americans, I live wiith the full knowledge that I have ancestors who will be forever unknown to me. Tears…But, I will always keep hope alive that someday, if I keep looking, I might just find something new about them. Hope is one thing I KNOW my ancestors had. You see, they hoped their descendants would do better than they did and we did.
As a descendant of slave owners whose lives were documented in prime time and whose words can be found in Carter Papers at various libraries and archives, I know more about them than I do about my own African-American Malagasy-descended VA ancestors. I struggle with acknowledging my slave owner roots simply because of the traumatic baggage this knowledge brings. I am the descendant of slave owners who became quite accomplished by benefiting from that evil institution called slavery. As part of the ruling planter class throughout the 17th-19th centuries, they were the architects of what the Virginia slave system came to be. It has taken me years to even put them on my family tree. Crittie knew who both her parents were. The oral history she passed down told us the story of how she came into being. She was a product of a slave rape. Because of that, I can’t drop the qualifier “slave owner” before naming my Carter-Lee ancestors. I’ve cried tears knowing that my 8th slave owner great-grandfather, Robert “King” Carter, took pleasure in mutilating, punishing his slaves, and stripping them of their original names; I was rendered silent when reading the words of my slave owner 8th great-uncle, Landon Carter, who portrayed himself as a “benevolent slave owner” while deeming his enslaved people —runaways — as ungrateful though he whipped, brutally punished, and sold their family members; and I was rendered utterly speechless when reading about how my slave owner 2nd cousin 7XR cousin, George Carter, who routinely purchased 13-15 year old virgins at slave auctions, wrote back to his sister Sophia that his business was between him and his God after she chastised him for his behavior.
Landon Carter’s letter from July 10,1777
George’s June 20, 1816 letter referenced here
Being the descendant of slave owners, like the Carters and the Lees, is mentally and emotionally burdensome. I have to remind myself often that they were products of their time and that slavery was just a fact of life for them. I have chosen to tell the truth though about how they accumulated their wealth off the backs of the enslaved, including my ancestors, and how they treated these people over time. I will continue to recognize those Carters and Lees who were on the right side of history. By the way, I have a distant cousin named Rev. Robert Lee whom I hear has been making waves down in Virginia. I hope to meet him one day. I am also more than willing to “Come to The Table” with any Carter/Lee descendant to have meaningful, productive conversations about our shared history. That is all that is required of me, as a descendant of Crittie and Ann, and that is all I am willing to do.
African-American Malagasy-Descended Slave Resistance: The Struggle to be Free
Though African-Americans of Malagasy-descent were enslaved, they did resist oppression in a number of ways in colonial Virginia. Despite having different levels of success or plain failures, these enslaved people engaged in acts of resistance and played an active role in trying to change the circumstances of their involuntary servitude. From escaping and ending up in maroon communities in The Great Dismal Swamp(much to the chagrin of my Carter and Byrd ancestors who were investors in the Swamp), to engaging in acts of abortion, infanticide and suicide, to seeking freedom on foot by running away, to performing every day acts of resistance to their very real oppression, the descendants of these first Malagasy enslaved exercised their right to self-determination. I don’t know if any of my ancestors were part of Gabriel’s Rebellion or Nat Turner’s Rebellion. What I do know is that my cousin Sam Lemon’s 3rd great-grandfather, Col. Thomas Ridley, III was in the Southampton Militia and took part in the capture and prosecution of Nat Turner and his followers. Four of his slaves at his Buckhorn Quarters took part in the insurrection. Curtis and Stephen Ridley were executed. Matt Ridley provided the evidence that was used against them all and his life was spared though he was banished from VA. The fourth unidentified Ridley slave was killed in the course of being captured. Curtis Ridley was worth $400 and Stephen was worth $450 at the time of their execution by hanging. However, their collective “soul value” was incalcuable. Did these four individuals have Malagasy roots? We can’t say for sure, but they were in the same places as others who did have Malagasy roots so I will proudly claim them as our own. As I said in my Part II blog, I would like to think that some of my Malagasy-descended ancestors stood up for themselves. Certainly, Black lives mattered to them then as they do to us now. I can only respect the decisions they made which no doubt did, or could have, resulted in their deaths. I praise their names for slavery was a hellish enough condition to be in that they chose to take a stand knowing full well the price they would pay if discovered. Respect!
Nat Turner’s Rebellion/Execution of 2 Ridley Slaves
Col. Thomas Ridley, III Slaves
Runaway Slave Ad
George O. Ragland’s runaway slave ad that came with a $500 reward. Washington, the runaway, was a descendant of a Ragland.
Erased No More: The Historical Truth About Shockoe Bottom
Kindred spirits, me and Ana Edwards
When I first started doing the research for this blogpost, I had no knowledge of Shockoe Bottom. For years, I shied away from researching my Virginia ancestors because the research seemed so daunting and it is. I had no idea that Richmond was second to New Orleans as an epicenter of the domestic slave trade. Shockoe Bottom was the largest slave trading district on the East Coast. It was a concentrated area that was home to 40-50 auction houses, slaves jails and pens, banking and insurance industries, law firms, hotels, shipping and railroad lines offices, apparel stores for slave clothing, a cemetery, etc. An estimated 350,000 enslaved Virginians were sold out of Richmond forever separated from their loved ones via coffles, ships, and railroads. Many died there as well. Click here for a visual map of the district produced by the University of Richmond. This site was built over in 1816 and it’s past erased.
In 2008, during an archaeological excavation, Lumpkin’s Jail was found and just like that darkness came to light. Those of us who believe that there are places that are sacred understood immediately what a gift we had received and knew that we had to preserve this site for the future. However, the mayor of Richmond at the time, along with a public-private Richmond revitalization group, started to develop a plan that would turn Shockoe Bottom into a baseball field with a hotel and stores around it. The plan to re-bury such a sacred, historical, and culturally significant site for millions of people of African descent is as wrong as it is unconscionable. Moreover, it is an attempt to deny us a space to honor our ancestors in a respectful way at a time when the city of Richmond continues to embrace it’s Confederate history. This historical erasure and denial must stop. The National Trust for Historic Preservation has listed Shockoe Bottom as an endangered sitebecause of this.
Reber Dunkel, having read about my battle to preserve our extended family’s burial ground in Greenwich,CT, introduced me to Ana Edwards. She is indeed a kindred spirit who matches my passion for preserving sacred historical sites. I can’t add anything else to what she has already stated about the significance of Shockoe Bottom so I am going to end with her written words. Please click here to read her statement on the significance of Shockoe Bottomto African-Americans in particular, but to all Americans in general. I support her and the excellent work she is doing in Richmond.
I would also encourage others to start writing about their family histories so that we do not contribute to our own ancestors’ historical erasure. There is power in our pens which is why I chose to have blog pages devoted to my African-American, Latino, Caribbean and Cape Verdean fellow bloggers. I want to share and celebrate their ancestor discoveries with them. Remember that the act of writing itself was a form of resistance that some of our ancestors were punished for in their lifetimes. Let us elevate the memories of our ancestors as we write them back into historical record.
In conclusion, when I took my place at the podium at the University of Virginia-Charlottesville for my “Cemeteries, Slavery & History” talk, the first thing I said was that, after spending a year alone telling the story of the desecration of our extended family’s Byram Cemetery/Byram African-American Cemetery all over NY, NJ, and CT, I was happy to be among kindred spirits. I can’t thank Joseph McGill enough for inviting me to speak there in the first place. Although the topics that were discussed were not for people who want to consume vast amounts of historic sugar, it was the best place for me to be at this time. To be among so many black history truth tellers was a great experience. I especially want to salute all the people below for making my trip a memorable one.
Dr. Lisa Goff, Dr. Lynn Rainville, Dr. Matt Reeves, Dr. Taj’ullah Sky Lark, and LAX,I LarkMy Lyon-Green-Merritt cousins, Barbara Walthall and Julie ShellMy Crew: Renate Yarborough Sanders, Kenyatta Berry, Tierra Cotton Kellow, and Shelley MurphyLeontyne Clay Peck, a distant cousinJoseph McGillDr. Lynn RainvilleDr. Ana Lucia AraujoDr. Phillip TroutmanDr. Daina Ramey BerryDr. Lucia StantonDr. Marcus MartinDr. Matthew ReevesMy distant Randolph cousin Prinny AndersonDr. Robert S. WolffMama MurphyDr. Ellen Fernandez-Sacco aka mi prima who was with me in spirit!
References:
Madagascar:
McDonald, Kevin P. Pirates, Merchants, Settlers, and Slaves: Colonial America and the Indo-Atlantic World. CA: University of California Press. 2015.
Platt, Virginia Bever. “The East India Company and the Madagascar Slave Trade.” The William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 26:4 (October 1969), pp. 548-577.
Wilson-Fall, Memories of Madagascar and Slavery in the Black Atlantic. OH: University of Ohio Press. 2015.
Colonial Virginia Slave Trade:
Berlin, Ira. “From Creole to African: Atlantic Creoles and the Origins of African-American Society in Mainland North America.” The William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 53:2 (April 1996), pp. 251-288.
Gomez, Michael A. Exchanging Our Country Marks: The Transformation of African Identities in the Colonial and Antebellum South. NC: The University of North Carolina Press. 1998.
Kulikoff, Allan. “The Origins of Afro-American Society in Tidewater Maryland and Virginia, 1700 to 1790.” The William and Mary Quarterly, Vol 35:2 (April 1978), pp. 226-259.
Lafoon, Florence. “Slave Life in Virginia Between 1736-1776 as Shown in the Advertisements of the Virginia Gazettes.” Honors Theses. University of Richmond: UR Scholarship Repository. 1940.
Morgan, Philip D. and Michael L. Nicholls. “Slaves in Piedmont Virginia, 1720-1790.” The William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 46:2 (April 1989), pp. 211-251.
Parent, Anthony S., Jr. Foul Means: The Formation of a Slave Society in Virginia, 1660-1740. NC: The University of North Carolina Press. 2003.
Stanwood, Owen. “Captives and Slaves: Indian Labor, Cultural Conversion and the Plantation in Virginia.” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 114: 5(2006), pp.434-463.
Tilson, Albert H. “Friendship and Commerce: The Conflict and Coexistence of Values on Virginia’s Northern Neck in the Revolutionary Era.” .” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 11:3 (2003), pp. 221-262.
Virginia Historical Society. “Slave Owners Spotsylvania County, 1783. The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 4:3 (January 1897), pp. 292-299.
Walsh, Lorena S. “The Transatlantic Slave Trade and Colonial Chesapeake Slavery.” OAH Magazine of History, Vol. 17:3 (April 2003), pp. 11-15.
Wax, Darold W. “Preferences for Slaves in Colonial America.” The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 58:4 (October 1973), pp. 371-401.
Carter/Lee Family Documentation:
“Carter Papers.” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 5:4 (April 1898), pp. 408-428.
Epperson, Terrence W. “Race and Discipline of the Plantation.” Historical Archaeology, Vol. 24:4 , Historical Archaeology on Southern Plantations and Farms 91990), pp. 29-36.
Isaac, Rhys. Landon Carter’s Uneasy Kingdom: Revolution and Rebellion On a Virginia plantation. NY: Oxford University Press. 2004.
“Lee Family of York County,” Virginia. The William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 24:1 (July1915), pp. 46-54.
Levy, Andrew: The First Emancipator: The Forgotten Story of Robert Carter, the Founding Father Who Freed His Slaves. NY: Random House. 2005.
Mapp, Alf, Jr. “ABright Thread of Virginia History: Notes on the Corotoman River.” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 52:2 (April 1944), pp. 104-114.
Morton, Louis. “Robert Wormeley Carter of Sabine Hall: Notes on the Life of a Virginia planter.” The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 12:3 (August 1946), pp. 345-365.
Quisenberry, A. C. . “The First Pioneer Families of Virginia.” Register of Kentucky State Historical Society, Vol.11:32 (May 19113), pp. 55-77.
Wyrick, Connie H. “Stratford and Lees.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 30:1 (March 1971), pp. 71-90.
Domestic Slave Trade:
Baptist, Edward E. The Half Has Never Bee Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism. PA: Perseus Books. 2014.
Bancroft, Frederic. Slave Trading in the Old South with New Introduction by Michael Tadman.SC: University of SC Press. 1996.
Deyle, Steven. Cary Me Back: The Domestic Slave Trade in American Life. NY: Oxford University Press. 2005.
Gudmestad, Robert H. “The Troubled Legacy of Isaac Franklin: The Enterprise of Salve Trading.” Tennessee Historical Quarterly, Vol. 62:3 (Fall 2003), pp. 193-217.
Johnson, Walter, Ed. The Chattel Principle: Internal Slave Trade in the Americas. CT: Yale University Press. 2004.
Johnson, Walter. Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market. MA: Harvard University Press. 1999.
Mann, AlisonT. “”Horrible Barbarity”: The 1837 Murder Trial of Dorcas Allen a Georgetown Slave.” Washington History , Vol 27:1 (Spring 2015), pp. 3-14.
Martin, Bonnie. “Slavery’s Invisible Engine: Mortgaging Human Property.” The Journal of Southern History, Vol 76:4 (November 2010), pp. 817-866.
McInnis, Maurie. Slaves Waiting for Sale: Abolitionist Art and The American Slave Trade. IL: The University of Chicago Press. 2011.
Schermerhorn, Calvin. The Business of Slavery and the Rise of American Capitalism, 1815-1860.CT: Yale University Press. 2015.
Sublette, Ned and Constance. The American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave-Breeding Industry. IL: Lawrence Hill Books. 2016
Tadman, Michael. Speculators and Slaves: Masters, Traders, and Slaves in the Old South. WI: University of Wisconsin Press.1996.
Trammel, Jack. The Richmond Slave Trade: The Economic Backbone of the Old Dominion. SC: The History Press. 2012.
Slavery:
Abercrombie, Janice. Free Blacks of Louisa County Virginia. GA: Iberian Publishing Company. 1994.
Araujo, Ana Lucia. Reparations For Slavery and the Slave Trade: A Transnational and Comparative History. NY: Bloomsbury Academic. 2017.
Araujo, Ana, ed. et. al. Crossing Memories: Slavery nd African Diaspora. NJ Africa World Press. 2011.
Berlin, Ira. Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America. MA: The Belkap Press of Harvard University Press. 1998.
DeWulf, Pinkster King and the King of Kongo: The Forgotten History of America’s Dutch-Owned Slaves. MS: University of Mississippi, 2017.
Gutman, Herbert G. The Black Family in Slavery & Freedom, 1750-1925. NY: Pantheon Press. 1976.
Hunter, Tera A. Bound in Wedlock: Slave and Free Marriages in Nineteenth Century.MA: The Beknap Press of Harvard University press. 2017.
Morgan, Philip. Slave Counterpoint: Black Culture in the Eighteenth-Century in Chesapeake & Lowcountry. NC: The University of NOrth Carolina Press. 1998
Ramey Berry, Daina. The Price For Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved, From Womb to Grave, in the Building of a Nation. MA: Beacon Press. 2017.
Resendez, Andres. The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America. NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2016.
Sandefur, Timothy. “Why the Rule Against Perpetuities Mattered in Pleasants V Pleasants.” Real Property and Trust Journal, Vol. 40:4 (Winter 2006), pp. 667-677.
Schwartz, Philip. “Emancipators, Protectors, and Anomalies: Free Black Slaveowners in Virginia.” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 95:3 (July 1987), pp. 317-338.
Williams, Heather Andrea. Help Me to Find My people: The African American Search for Family Lost in Slavery. NC: The University of North Carolina Press. 2012.
Slave Narratives/Slave Sexual Abuse/Interracial Gender Dynamics:
Baptist, Edward E. “Cuffy,” “Fancy Maids,” and “One -Eyed Men”: Rape , Commodification, and the Domestic Slave Trade in the United States.” The American Historical Review, Vol. 106:5 (December 2001), pp. 1619-1650.
Bardaglio, Peter W. “Shameful Matches”: The Regulation of Interracial Sex and Marriage in the South Before 1900″. In Martha Hodes, ed. Sex, Love Race: Crossing Boundaries in North American History. NY: New York University Press. 1999.
Blight, David W. A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped To Freedom. NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2007.
Block, Sharon. “Lines of Color, Sex, and Service: Comparative Sexual Coercion in Early America.” In Martha Hodes, ed. Sex, Love Race: Crossing Boundaries in North American History. NY: New York University Press. 1999.
Brown, Kathleen. Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs: Gender, Race, and Power in Colonial Virginia. NC: The University of North Carolina Press. 1996.
Derbes, Brett Josef. “Secret Horrors: Enslaved Women and Children in the Louisiana State Penitentiary, 1833-1862.” The Journal of African American History, Vol 98:2, Special Issue: “African Americans, Police Brutality, and the U.S. Criminal Justice System: Historical Perspectives” (Spring 2013), pp. 277-290.
Foster, Thomas A. “The Sexual Abuse of Black Men under American Slavery.” Intersections of Race and Sexuality, Vol. 20:3 (September 2011), pp. 445-464.
Gross, Ariela. “Litigating Whiteness: Trials of Racial Determination in the Nineteenth-Century South.” The Yale Journal, Vol. 108:1 (October 1998), pp. 10-188.
Hartman, Saidiya. “Seduction and the Ruse of Power.” Callaloo, Vol 19:2 , Emerging Women Writers: Special Issue, (Spring 1996), pp. 537-530.
King, Wilma. “Prematurely Knowing of Evil Things”: The Sexual Abuse of African American Girls and Yong Women in Slavery and Freedom.” Journal of African American History, Vol. 99:3 (Summer 2014), pp. 173-196.
Perdue, Charles L., ed. et al. Weevils in the Wheat: Interviews with Virginia Ex-Slaves. VA: University of Virginia. 1976.
Stevenson, Brenda E. “What’s Love Got To Do With It: Concubine and Enslaved Women and Girls in the Antebellum South.” The Journal of African American History, Vol. 98:1 (Winter 2013), pp. 99-125.
White, Deborah Gray. Ar’n’t I a Woman: Female Slaves in the Plantation South. NY: W. W. Norton & Company. 1999.
Resistance:
Allmendinger, David F. Nat Turner and The Rising in Southampton County. MD: John Hopkins University Press. 2014.
Camp, Stephanie M. “The Pleasures of Resistance: Enslaved Women and Body Politics in the plantation South, 1830-1861.” Journal of Southern History, Vol. 68:3 (August 2002), pp. 533-572.
Diouf, Slyviane. Slavery’s Exiles: The Story of the American Maroons. NY: New York University Press. 2014.
Johnson, Walter. “The Slave Trader, the White Slave, and The politics of Racial Determination in the 1850s.” The Journal of American History, Vol. 87:1 (June 2000), pp. 13-38.
Lee, Deborah A and Warren Hofstra. “Race Memory, and the Death of Robert Berkeley: “A Murder…of…Horrible and Savage Barbarity.” The journal of Southern History, Vol. 65:1 (February 1999), pp. 41-76.
Perrin, Liese M. “Resisting Reproduction: Reconsidering Slave Contraception in the Old South.” Journal of American Studies, Vol. 35:2, Part 2: Warring America: Encounters of Gender and Race (August 2001), pp. 255-274.
Sayers, Daniel et.al. “The Political Economy of Exile in the Great Dismal Swamp. International Journal of Historical Archaeology, Vol. 11:1 (March 2007), pp. 60-97.
Schiebinger, Londa. “Feminist History of Colonial Science.” Feminist Science Studies, Vol. 19:1 (Winter 2004), pp. 233-254.
Snyder, Terri L. “Suicide Slavery, and Memory in North America.” The Journal of American History, Vol. 97: 1 (June 2010), pp. 39-62.
Black Cemeteries/Archaeological Artifacts:
Rainville, Lynn. Hidden History: African American Cemeteries in Central Virginia. VA: University of Virginia. 2014.
Valch, John Michael. “Afro-American Domestic Artifacts in Eighteenth Century Virginia. Material culture, Vol. 19:1 (Spring 1987), pp. 3-23.
I dedicate this blog to my grandmother, Mildred Fischer Greene, as she was always the proud older sister of my Uncle Jimmie. She never stopped wanting to tell his story. I want to thank my aunt, Helen Singh, for sending me the documents she inherited from my grandmother. James H. Fischer, was, and shall always be, our Golden Aviator.
“On freedom’s wings bound for glory these intrepid men roamed the skies in defense of liberty for all men. Before the Air Force shattered the sound barrier, the Tuskegee Airmen shattered the race barrier. Their deeds will be forever etched in the annals of those who sought freedom and justice.”
—-The Original Tuskegee Airmen (1941-1949)
1st Lt. James H. Fischer
Uncle Jimmie Front and Center, 332nd Fighter Group, 301st Squadron
I was going to blog about the history of The Tuskegee Airmen and tell you all about them, but I have chosen not to do so at this time. Their service to this country is legendary. There are books, movies, and anyone can google the name “Tuskegee Airmen” and learn about the battles they fought on two fronts — racism here at home and Nazism abroad. No, this blogpost is solely about my Uncle Jimmie, a scrappy kid from Stoughton, MA who wanted to fly planes as long as he could remember. It’s about a young man who became a most unlikely hero who happened to be in the right place at the right time. It’s about a man who had a dream deferred, that then exploded, and shattered to the ground. Finally, it’s about my Uncle Jimmie’s dream, once shartered into pieces, rose up like seeds that had been planted, and allowed others to become the pilot he always wanted to be. It is because of men like him that others were able to suceed. This is my Uncle Jimmie’s story and I am blessed to be able to tell it.
This poem always reminded me of my Uncle Jimmie
Prelude to Tuskegee: Hometown Roots in Stoughton, MA
Map of Southeastern Massachusetts
The Mitchells (from left to right: Standing is Frank, Bill, and Charles and seated my great-grandmother Helen, Anna, and Belle)
My Uncle Jimmie was born on March 11, 1924 in Stoughton, MA. He was the son of Helen Mitchell Fischer and Robert H. Fischer. He was born on the farm that my 2nd great-grandfather, James D. Mitchell, owned. James had been born in Petersburg, VA to two mixed race parents and moved to Boston where he owned a fish store. His wife, Julia Lennihan Mitchellwas a first generation Irish-American born in Boston whom he married in the mid-1890s. After Julia died of tuberculosis in 1905, James moved his family to Stoughton which is about 25 minutes south of Boston. It was a better place for them with plenty of fresh air and they wouldn’t have to deal with the racism that was prevalent in Boston at the time.
Uncle Jimmie as a toddler
My great-grandmother, Nana Fischer as she was known, met Robert H. Fischer in NYC while visting her aunt, Laura Mitchell Wilson, around 1921. She brought Robert back home to live with her side of the family. Robert was said to have been the son of Cuban woman, who lived in Ponce, PR, and a man named Fischer who owned several stores in the Spanish speaking Caribbean. All we know about Robert, is that his mother died in childbirth, or shortly thereafter, and his Eastern European Jewish father brought him to NYC and left him in the care of another family. We don’t know much about Robert because he would later suffer a traumatic brain injury, as a result of a Stanely steam car engine explosion. One day he walked away from home in Stoughton, MA and never came back. Rumors swirled that he made it back to NYC, but I can’t find anything to confirm that though. He is one of my genealogy brick walls that I cant get pass yet. Maybe one day I will.
My Nana Fischer had to have her husband declared legally dead. She was a widow with three children to support — my Nana Millie, Uncle Jimmie, and her youngest son, my Uncle Sonny. Life was certainly not easy for her. She had to leave her children in the care of others and commuted to Boston to work each day. She did what she had to do in order to provide for her family. She was not the most nurturing type of woman because of the hand that she had been dealt in life, but I have nothing but the fondest of memories of summers spent with her sewing, gardening, and cooking for us. I will always remember my Nana Fischer as being stoic in the most New England of ways, resourceful, and brutally honest. She was known to tell it like it was and my Uncle Jimmie was just like her in that regard.
Marriage Certificate of Helen and Robert Fischer
Helen Mitchell Fischer, Mother of James H. Fischer
At the age of 4 years old, my Uncle Jimmie contracted tuberculosis and spent 4-5 years of his life living in a sanatorium until he recovered from it. According to my aunt, he had been taken to Florida on a visit and had contracted it there. By the time, he returned home, he was coughing. Tubercuosis is what caused the death of his maternal grandmother Julia. In the pre-antibiotic days, it was a killer. No one was immune. Because Julia had TB, her husband and children had been exposed and had to undergo repeated chest X-rays to see if they had active TB. In those days, people were sent to a tuberculosis sanatorium if they had an active case. This was a public health policy as there was no known cure for this illness.
Article on TB in The Boston Journal on 4/18/1917
Uncle Jimmie was sent to the Rutland State Sanatorium. Rutland was in Central Massachusetts and was quite a drive from Stoughton, MA. My Nana Fischer didn’t drive so she didn’t get to see her son that often the 4 years he was there. She would visit him on his birthday and when her sister Anna could drive her there. Though a postcard image makes it seem to be a picturesque place, my Uncle Jimmie, of course, did not have pleasant memories of being there. He didn’t like to eat macaroni and cheese for the rest of his life because that was what he had to eat there. He also never got over how he had to share his birthday cake with the other children at the sanatorium. One slice of cake was all he got for his birthday. I can imagine how much that cake meant to him and the brief time he had to spend with his mother. Rutland State Sanatorium, by the way, was the first public tuberculosis sanatorium in the country and was opened in 1898.
Uncle Jimmie as a child
A postcard of Rutland State Sanatorium
Uncle Jimmie was about 8 years old and in 3rd grade when he returned home. He was a survivor to be sure having conquered a disease that killed so many people. He was just an average boy who went to school, did his chores, and got into trouble on occasion. Even as a child, it was said he was fiercely independent, had a short fuse, and loved playing with model airplanes.
Uncle Jimmie took a serious interest in planes around the age of 12 and 13 years old. By the time he was 16 years old, he was spending weekends at the Brockton Airport performing odd jobs so that he could secure a ride on plane and learn to fly. He would find a way to get to get to the airport by bumming rides or hitchiking. In one interview, Uncle Jimmie said that he would be at the Brockton Airport every chance he could get. Working all weekend earned him a 15-minute ride in a plane. Brockton was the next town over from Stoughton and is where I was born. I never knew there was an airport in Brockton located on the Southside of Brockton near the West Bridgewater line. The Brockton Airport was routinely advertised in all the Boson newspapers in the 1920s and 1940s. According to my Uncle Jimmie, the airport closed with the advent of World War II and later re-opened afterwards.
Uncle Jimmie as a teenager
1932 Ad for the Brockton Airport
Ad for Brockton Airport Ad for Brockton Airport
Answering Uncle Sam’s Call
Uncle Jimmie graduated Stoughton High School in June of 1942 and World War II had already begun the December before. He volunteered to join the Army Air Corp after he graduated. He took a physical and went through all the Army Air Corp tests. He was then told that there were only a few spots for Blacks in the Air Force and that they would pass his name on to Washington. He was told to go home, with a 6-month deferment, and wait to be called. He never got the call. One day he was strolling through the town and saw someone who was on the draft board. That person was surprised to see him still around so my Uncle Jimmie explained that he was waiting to hear back from Washington. Ten days later he was drafted into the Army. He sent the letter below to the Army Air Corp Headquarters in Washington, DC asking for further clarification.
02/01/1943 1942 letter to US Army Air Corp Headquarters
02/01/1943 Letter to US Army Air Corp Headquarters
His letter was to no avail. In an interview, Uncle Jimmie remembered that a colonel, a doctor, typed on his record “Qualified Aviation Cadet.” But, the other officers looked at it and stamped “Infantry” on it. Segregation was not going to make an exception for him. So, off he went to Biloxi, MS for basic training in the Army. Uncle Jimmie was lucky though, because 8 month later, he finally got into the Army Air Corp. He said that you had to have two years of college to get in, but, if you passed a test, they would send you to Tuskegee University in Alabama for a 6-month university and flight training program. Needless to say, he passed the test. It was always his dream to be a pilot.
Heading south to Alabama was not his first time being in the South though. Growing up in Stoughton, MA made him a little naive about segregation. He was only one of 4-5 black kids in his high school and was treated like all the rest. When he was 14 years old, he ran away for a couple of months and ended up in Georgia which was an eye-opener for him. He would tell the story of how he hopped on a train and rode to New Orleans and worked for a few weeks. He then hopped back on a train and ended up in Georgia. He found work at a salad pantry and was told to get some suet at the butcher’s shop nearby one day. The butcher, who was cleaning chickens, told him to cut the suet off of a side of beef which he did, but Uncle Jimmie ended up placing the suet too close to a pile of chicken intestines. This set the butcher off and he started to call my uncle names, including the N-word. Uncle Jimmie ended up whacking the butcher in the face with a bunch of chicken guts. In Stoughton, MA, calling someone the N-word led to fist fights, but, in the South, he said that the N-word was used way too often. Whacking a White man in the face could have also led to my Uncle’s death though. When he was told to run, he had sense enough to run and kept on running. He ended up having to call his mother and have her wire him the $15 for a bus ticket home.
On Becoming A Tuskegee Airman: The Making of a Legend
Uncle Jimmie ended up at Tuskegee in the Spring of 1943. He was in the second or third class (44-G) of Tuskegee Airmen trained there. The Tuskegee Airmen included, not only pilots like my Uncle Jimmie, but also bombardiers, navigators, ground crews, medical staff, cooks, ambulance staff, and administrative staff. Most of the other Tuskegee Airmen were like himself — 18 and 19 years old.
All the flight training Uncle Jimmie received was done at the Moton Field (Tuskegee Army Air Field) at Tuskegee. In addition, Uncle Jimmie and the others took college courses at Tuskegee University which was a couple of miles away. As a Certified Aviation Cadet, Uncle Jimmie had a leg up on some of the other pilots. He had been hustling around the Brockton Airport for a couple of years by then. He was able to pay $3.50 for 15 minutes of flight time when the going rate was $12 an hour for flight instruction. He also bought aviation books in his quest for knowledge. His whole Brockton Airport experience taught him how to fly. But, at Tuskegee, he learned how to be a fighter pilot. Make no mistake about it, the Tuskegee Airmen knew they were up against the twin evils of racism and Nazism and they knew that they had to prove their naysayers wrong. They were Black excellence at its best and became the stuff that legends are made of during World War II. Failure was not an option for them and neither was it for the scrappy kid from Stoughton.
I also remember my Nana Fischer telling me the story of how she could only afford to buy a third class train ticket in the Colored section of the train to visit Uncle Jimmie at Tuskegee. She would tell the story of how the White train conductors would automatically assume she was White and tell her that a mistake had been made on her ticket. They would upgrade her to a First Class ticket and make sure she was in the White section of the train. She would always laughed because she felt she she pulled a fast one on them which she did. While my Nana Fischer could have “passed” as White, she never did.
Got My Wings Telegram sent to Uncle Jimmie’s mother
Uncle Jimmie was part of the 332nd Fighter Group, the first black military aviators in the history of the United States Armed Forces, and a member of the 301st Squadron. The 332nd Fighter Group was deployed to Italy in early 1944 and their job was to fly heavy bomber escort missions. Uncle Jimmie arrived in December of 1944 and remembered flying P-51 planes. By this time, the planes the Tuskegee Airmen flew were named “Red Tails” as they painted the tails of their planes red and were easily identifiable because of that. I will never forget going to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC and seeing one of those rinky dink planes. I called Uncle Jimmie from the exhibit and asked him if he really flew one of those planes. He just talked about how cutting edge they were at the time and I just stood there in disbelief. Just seeing a plane similar to the one he flew gave me a greater appreciation of just how important the Tuskegee Airmen were to this country during a time of need.
332nd Fighter Group
Uncle Jimmie and friends
A member of the 332nd Fighter Group Officers’ Club
My Uncle Jimmie was awarded a Purple Heart, 3 Bronze Stars with Two Oak Leaf Clusters, and a Distiguished Unit Badge for his service in World War II. He fought in the Battles of Rhineland (Germany), North Appennines (Italy) and Po Valley (Italy). He became well-known for having been shot down over Yugoslavia, an event that earned him a Purple Heart. In John B. Holway’s book, Red Tails Black Wings:The Men of America’s Black Air Force, Uncle Jimmie recounted his experience:
From the book Red Tails Black Wings, p. 264 From the book, Red Tails Black wings, p. 265 From the book Red Tails Black Wings, p. 266
The son of a single mom, a tuberculosis survivor, and a teenage runaway, who managed to graduate from high school, my Uncle Jimmie had the deck stacked against him, but he was determined to live his dream of becoming a pilot—– fighting for a country that still saw him, and his people, as unequal before the law. Uncle Jimmie would tell stories of how Axis Sallywould taunt the Tuskegee Airmen. He said he would laugh at the things she would say because they were true in terms of the overt racism that existed back then. Even so, he acknowledged that this country was the only country known to Blacks who have fought for it from the beginning. With roots in Boston, Uncle Jimmie had no problem reminding people of the bravery of Crispus Attucks.
Flight Officer James H. Fischer in 1945
Pittsburgh Courier article from 04/07/1945
James H. Fischer’ Certificate of Valor
301st Fighter Squadron Accolades
Uncle Jimmie was given a week off at a R &R camp in Naples after his plane went down over Yugoslavia in April of 1945. World War II ended a month later. He spent the Summer of 1945 attending the University of Florence. Uncle Jimmie returned home in October of that year thinking he would stay in Air Force. He went back to Tuskegee and then to Lockbourne Air Force in Columbus, OH working various military jobs. In the Fall of 1946, he left the Air Force for good hoping to get a job as a commercial airline pilot.
In 1948, President Harry Truman issued Executive Order 9981 which led to the desegregation of the United States Armed Forces. The Tuskegee Airmen were no doubt one of the reasons that this order was issued.
The Executive Order 9981
Becoming Bitter: What Happens To A Dream Deferred?
My Uncle Jimmie came home and started applying for jobs at the major airlines at the time. Everything would be fine until he showed up for an interview. Then, he would be politely told that there were no jobs. Uncle Jimmie always said that getting into civilian aviation was harder than getting into the military because of racism. It would be in the 1970s before there would be Black pilots flying for the major airlines. The only pilot jobs he was able to get was a job as an instructor at the Brockton Airport, a pilot who towed advertising banners for a chain of drive-in theaters in Brockton, and as a crop duster flying pesticides over New England from Maine to Massachusetts. He was employed as a pilot for 3-4 years. And then his dream died a slow festering death before exploding into a sea of bitterness.
Pittsburgh Courier, 10/27/1945
Uncle Jimmie left Massachusetts in the mid-1960s and went to California where his younger brother Sonny and his aunt Belle lived. He took on a variety of jobs to eek out a living without any government help. There is nothing spectacular to tell here about his life. His bitterness at not being able to be an airline pilot lingered for almost as long as he lived. He tended to look upon his WW II experience as somethimg that he did. But, at the same time, he would say that The Tuskegee Airmen were “just niggers who flew planes.”Those were HIS words and I will not sanitize what he said or how he felt. Now, he didn’t actually believe that because he knew what they had done and how important they were to this country. This statement was his way of describing how The Tuskegee Airmen were treated when they came home to this country meaning that they were good at being pilots only when the United Stares needed them otherwise they were just “n*****s,” a derogatory term that was, and unfortunately still is, commonly used to refer to Black people. He would often tell a story about how some Tuskegee Airmen were denied entrace to an American restaurant, but White servicemen allowed some captured Nazis to accompany them to the restaurant. It was not lost on him that, if he had been a White man with the military record that he had, he would have definitely been able to get a job working for a commercial airline.
We always heard about Uncle Jimmie from both Nana Millie and Nana Fischer. I remember meeting him for the first time in in 1981 at a family reunion. When my great-grandmother died in 1986, he came back East for her funeral. We had grown up knowing her youngest brother, my Uncle Sonny, because he brought his family back home often enough that we knew his daughters— two who were around my age. It was months after Nana Fischer died that Uncle Jimmie came home for good to help my grandmother settle her estate. By that time, he realized that he needed to be around family especially after he had a stroke in 1983 that left him with seizures. I always felt that my Nana Fischer sent him to us to ease the pain of her passing. We were also happy to have him back home with us.
For my siblings and cousins, Uncle Jimmie was a stark contrast to our grandmother. Whereas my Nana Millie was cautious with everything she said and was very proper, he was the exact opposite. He was very cantakerous. I usually refer to him as being a Black Archie Bunker in terms of his character. He spoke his mind and didn’t care how you felt. He was also that loving uncle who would give us lottery tickets at Christmas time, would celebrate his shared birthday with my cousin Mandi each year, would tell us the stories of his youth, and would send me subscriptions to The Smithsonian and National Geographic magazines. As a life-long bachelor with no kids, his nieces and great-nieces and nephews were surrogate children to him.
Once An Older Sister, Always An Older Sister
My Uncle Sonny, Nana Millie, and Uncle Jimmie
My Nana Millie was my Uncle Jimmie’s biggest and loudest cheerleader. She always looked after him. When he came back to Brockton in 1986, she made sure he got what was due to him from the Veteras Administration. She was also able to get him into a senior citizens apartment complex a few streets over from her house. She would take him shopping, take him to his,doctor appointmemts, and would cook for him on occasion. As the years went on, Uncle Jimmie came to rely on her memory of Word War II and her recounting all of his escapades because the stroke he had affected his memory. My Nana Millie loved telling his story and always added how she and others felt about the Tuskegee Airmen. She would also add her memories of the war as my Grandad also served in the Army in France. I am so lucky to have two transcripts of interviews they did together for a couple of books on the Tuskegee Airmen as well as for the Tuskegee Airmen Oral History Project. When I read the transcripts, I can visually see them talking to each other the way they always did.
HBO’s The Tuskegee Airmen movie
When HBO premiered The Tuskegee Airmen movie in 1995, Nana Millie, Uncle Jimmie, and other relatives watched it. Though a fictionalized account, the movie brought The Tuskegee Airmen story to a much larger audience. Uncle Jimmie had no idea just how inspiring the Tuskegee Airmen were to many people until the movie came out. Caught up in his own bitterness, he didn’t know, or certainly didn’t realize, that the seeds he and the other Tuskegee Airmen planted took root and grew into a field of new dreams for others. Even if Uncle Jimmie didn’t become the pilot he wanted to be because of racism, he and the other Tuskegee Airmen were heroes to the generations that came after them who had full knowledge of the battles they went up against and how they still suceeded despite the odds.
I was lucky enough to be surrounded by my elders growing up. I was that fly on the wall who listened to their stories over and over again so that they became etched into my memory. I heard Uncle Jimmie’s story enough times from enough relatives that his story became OUR family story. We were proud that he was a famed Tuskegee Airmen. I also remember the pain, anger, sadness, and bitterness he felt at being denied the future he so wanted for himself. I couldn’t imagine what it must have felt like to have society dictate how far you could go in life and to have dreams that went unrealized because of the color of your skin and not because you didn’t dream big enough or bold enough. But, just because you were born Black in America. As a child born after the Civil Rights Movement of the mid-1960s, it was our generation that was the first generation that our elders placed their hope in for a better future that was unencumbered by the constraints of racism as they knew it. I’ve always been cognizant of the price my ancestors paid for me to live the life that I live today. They sacrificed so many dreams of their own hoping that their descendants would be able realize theirs. I have always felt that I couldn’t let them down because they were counting on me to do better than they had in life.
In March of 2007, I called my Nana Millie as I routinely did a few times a week. I was raised by my grandmother and had her around longer than I did my own mother who died at the age of 47. She was a second mother to me and we were very close. She didn’t sound like herself when she answered the phone that day so I asked her what was wrong. She said that Uncle Jimmie had received an invitation from Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) inviting him to the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor Ceremony in Washington, DC because The Tuskegee Airmen were being awarded the Gold Medal. She had told him about it and he said he wasn’t going. His bitterness still festering even after all these years. I immediately told her not to worry and that I was going to call him. He was going to go no matter what because this honor wasn’t about just Uncle Jimmie now. It was about bringing honor to our family by celebrating Uncle Jimmie’s wartime record and the legacy of the each and every one of the Tuskegee Airmen. It was about correcting an historical wrong and making it right—- even if it did come sixty years after the fact. Uncle Jimmie NOT going to this event was never an option. My Nana Millie wished me good luck in trying to get him to go. I told her that I would call her back after I spoke to him.
So, I called Uncle Jimmie. The conversation went like this:
Me: Uncle Jimmie, what’s this about you not wanting to go to DC?
Him: We were just niggers who flew planes. That’s all we were before and after.
Me: Uncle Jimmie, I hate to tell you this, but this is not about you anymore. It’s about family honor. You’re going.
Him: I don’t have any money to go.
Me: Everything is being taken care of so you don’t have to worry. This is a family affair.
Him: I have epilepsy [He didnt actually have epilepsy, but had seuzures from the stroke he had.] and I can’t go alone.
Me: I am coming to get you so you don’t have to worry.
Him: I don’t have anything to wear.
Me: I think Nana and Auntie said they were going to buy a new suit.
Him: OK, I guess I can’t get out of this.
Me: No, you can’t. It’s about family honor and you finally getting your due! Now, I have to call Nana back and tell her your going.
Needless to say, when I called Nana Millie back, she made a joyful noise unto the Lord. That proud sister felt prouder than she ever had in the past. If anyone, other than Uncle Jimmie, had waited for this day, it was her and I am glad they both lived to see this blessed day come to fruition in their lifetimes.
Washington, DC Bound: On Our Way to the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor Ceremony
I flew up to Boston on March 28,2007 to pick up Uncle Jimmie and take him to Washington, DC. He hadn’t been on a plane in decades and the post-9/11 changes to airline procedures took him by surprise. When asked to remove his shoes, he had more than a few choice words for people to hear. I remember passing the restrooms and asking if he had to use them and he near cussed me out. Ten minutes later, he said, “Doll baby, where is that bathroom again?” I knew then and there that it was going to be an interesting trip. My grandmother had warned me in advance how he was and she was right.
When we arrived at the gate, I went up to a crew member and asked if the pilot would make a special announcement that my uncle was a famed Tuskegee Airman who was flying to DC to be part of the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor Ceremony. I wanted my uncle to feel anything other than a “N-word who flew a plane.” To my surprise, no sooner than I had said “Tuskegee,” she had upgraded our seats to First Class. When I told Uncle Jimmie that we were flying First Class, he was happy. The look on his face when we made our descent into DC and the pilot mentioned that there was a very distinguished passenger on board named James H. Fischer, who was a Tuskegee Airmen pilot, and that he was heading to the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor Ceremony, was priceless. Believe me, he felt special when everyone on the plane broke out in applause just for him.
We arrived at the hotel that day and immediately were surrounded by other Tuskegee Airmen. Some instantly remembered my Uncle Jimmie. Lt. Col Harry Stewart made a beeline for Uncle Jimmie who remembered him. For the most part, Uncle Jimmie remembered some, but not all of the Tuskegee Airmen who came up to greet him because of his stroke. Another pilot who Uncle Jimmie remembered was Lt. Col. Leo Gray, the other Tuskegee Airman originally from Boston. When they both saw each other, they gave each other a big hug and stood there beaming. Robert Lawrence was another pilot who Uncle Jimmie remembered as well. Though Uncle Jimmie couldnt remember all of them, they certainly remembered him. I enjoyed watching him converse with his old friends. I could see it meant a lot to all of them that they were reunited one last time for this event. Uncle Jimmie for the most part was really enjoying himself just taking everything in minute by minute.
Tuskegee Airmen pilots:Uncle Jimmie and Lt. Col. Harry Stewart
Tuskegee Airmen pilots from Boston: James H. Fischer and Leo Gray (Deceased-RIP)
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Tuskegee Airmen pilots: Uncle Jimmie and Robert Lawrence (Deceased-RIP)
Uncle Jimmie with Tuskegee Airmen
On the morning of March 29,2007, the day we had come to DC for had arrived. We started off going to a breakfast held in honor of The Tuskegee Airmen. At the breakfast, we watched a presentation about the history of The Tuskegee Airmen. It brought a lot of memories back to Uncle Jimmie and all the other Airmen. It was as if they were reliving their heyday. It was a great presentation with photos and interviews with Tuskegee Airmen, which featured Lt. Col Lee Archer and Captain Luther H. Smith. Captain Smith reminded me of Uncle Jimmie as he wanted to be a pilot in his teens.
Tuskegee Airmen Breakfast Celebration
332nd Fighter Group
Tuskegee Airmen Breakfast Celebration
Lt. Col. Lee Archer (Deceased-RIP)
Tuskegee Airmen Breakfast Celebration
Captain Luther H. Smith, A Tuskegee Airman pilot and POW (Deceased-RIP)
Capt. Luther H. Smith as a teen with a pilot dream
We arrived at United Stares Capitol Rotunda for the 1 pm ceremony early. Uncle Jimmie and I were separated as they wanted all the Tuskegee Airmen to sit together. I tried to get a wheelchair for Uncle Jimmie, but he proudly refused one. I wasn’t going to argue with him, but I knew he probaby should have used one as he would be on his feet for a long time waiting to be seated. Sure enough, I saw him walk in holding onto the back of seats for balance. He later complained how his feet hurt. I could only sigh at that point.
Congressional Gold Medal of Honor Ceremony
Uncle Jimmie on the way to his seat
Congressional Gold Medal of Honor Ceremony
Congressional Gold Medal of Honor Ceremony
The best part of the ceremony for me was when then President George W. Bush stood up and said, “I would like to offer a gesture to help atone for all the unreturned salutes and unforgivable indignities of the past. The Tuskegee Airmen helped win a war, and you changed our nation for the better,” the president said. “On behalf of the office I hold, and the country that honors you, I salute you for your service to the United States of America.” Almost immediately, hundreds of Tuskegee Airmen jumped up and saluted him back. They had waited a long time for this day to come.
President George W. Bush saluting The Tuskegee Airmen
Uncle Jimmie near Gold Medal replica (front)
Uncle Jimmie with Gold Medal replica (back)
Uncle Jimmie holding His Bronze Medal of Honor
After the actual ceremony, we went to the Library of Congress for the reception. We were able to see more of Uncle Jimmie’s old friends again. We met Lt. Col. George Hardy and Dr. Roscoe Brown. The press was out in full force because this was definitely an historic event. I could tell, by that time, that Uncle Jimmie was completely overwhelmed by everything.
Tuskegee Airmen pilots: Lt. Col. George Hardy and Uncle Jimmie
Captain Luther H. Smith (Deceased-RIP)
Dr. Roscoe Brown (Deceased-RIP) and Cora Tess Spooner, Past President of Tuskegee Airmen, Inc Library of Congress Reception At the end of a long day
After a long day, we returned to our hotel and the next morning headed for the airport. Once again, we were upgraded to First Class. This time, however, the pilot of the plane let us board before everyone in First Class. He came to our seats and explained that he was the ex-squandron leader of one of formerly all-Black desegregated Tuskegee Fighter Groups and considered himself to be a part of the Tuskegee Airmen history. He told Uncle Jimmie how proud he was of him and all the others. He also asked to take a photo with Uncle Jimmie holding his Bronze Medal. Uncle Jimmie obliged him, of course, and would only say,”Wow.” Like on the flight to DC, when we made our descent to Logan Airport, the pilot came on and gave Uncle Jimmie an awesome shoutout and told everyone about how special he felt about having Uncle Jimmie onboard his plane.
When we finally arrived home, I asked him what he thought of the ceremony. Never a man of many words, he said, “It was excellent,” as he held up his Bronze Medal of Honor. “It was one of those things, you know, it was about time. I’ll put it that way.”And I said to him, “You were always a hero and now everyone knows.”
I can definitely say that Uncle Jimmie never mentioned the N-word in reference to The Tuskegee Airmen after March 29,2007. Mission accomplished! I am so glad that I could accompany him to Washington, DC because it was an honor for me to witness history in the making.
While my great-uncle James Henry Fischer unltimately got his pension and due accolades at the end of his lifetime, I have to say that my heart still hurts for my 3rd great-uncle, James Henry Green, a 2nd Lieutenant who fought for the 29th Infantry from Connecticut during the Civil War. My other Uncle Jimmie applied for a government pension thirty years after his military service ended only to die in an unmarked grave somewhere in NYC before he received it. When I think of the Uncle Jimmie that I knew, I will always remember my other older Uncle Jimmie as well. God bless them both for their service to this country and may God bless each and every other veteran of color who fought and died for a country that did not honor them the way that it should have.
Arriving Home A Hero 60 Years Later
Four days after we arrived home from Washington, DC, Uncle Jimmie was featured on the front page of our hometown newspaper, The Enterprise. He had been interviewed the day before and held up his Bronze Medal of Honor proudly. In the last three years of his life, he would go on to reap more awards and acknowledgements for his WW II service this country. A salute long overdue indeed.
The Enterprise
The Enterprise
Our Last Goodbye: Honoring Our Golden Aviator
Uncle Jimmie passed away on May 26,2010 in Brockton, MA. He was buried with full Military Honors on June 4th, 2010 and is interned, with our other ancestors, in Maplewood Cemetery in Stoughton, MA. I wasn’t able to attend his funeral because of an illness, but I made sure my sister Lisa read a note for me at his funeral. I also sent a floral display to the funeral home for him. His funeral was a fitting end to a life lived.
1st Lt. James H. Fischer (1924-2010)
My brother Michael Vega placing flowers on Uncle Jimmie’s casket
My Golden Aviator flower display that I sent to his funeral
Memories of Uncle Jimmie
1st Lt. James H. Fischer Grave, Maplewood Cemetery
In closing, to the man I refer to as my Golden Aviator, you earned your wings on earth and now you can fly forever in Heaven. Say hello to all my ancestor angels and let them know that I think of them often. Fly on, fly on, fly on.. .
This blogpost is dedicated to both my Lyon-Green-Merritt African-American ancestors who left the Byram and Sherwood’s Bridge (Glenville) sections of Greenwich to settle the neighborhood of Hangroot. It is also dedicated to all those African-Americans who made Hangroot their home for 100 years. I pray that this blogpost leads their descendants to discover their proud Black Greenwich roots. Lastly, I dedicate this blog to all my extended Lyon-Green-Merritt family who are following me on my journey to uncover the truth about all of our Greenwich family history.
I would like to thank the following people:
The following Greenwich historians and archivists who have helped me locate documents relevant to Hangroot. All of them have been more than generous with their time and no doubt share the same passion for Greenwich history as me: Anne Young, Christopher Shields, Nola Taylor, and Carl White.
Jeffrey Bingham Mead, as always, has been a great resource for me. I am grateful for his pioneer research on African-Americans in Greenwich, CT. I hope that I am telling the true stories he wanted to finally read about over the years.
I am particulary indebted to my 5th 2XR cousin and fellow family historian, Dennis Richmond, Jr. He gifted me with a photograph that shows Hangroot through the eyes of our ancestors. The photo below, which features, John Sherman Merritt, Dennis’s 2nd great-grandfather and my 3rd cousin 2XR as a young boy, is the visual sum of all our combined family history research on Hangroot. Much love and respect to him. I am looking forward to writing a blogpost where we discuss our five year relationship that ultimately brought us together today. I know, without a doubt, that our ancestors are now finally smiling down on us knowing that there is power in numbers. I can’t wait to read the stories he will be writing soon.
Finally a message to Cheryl Henson, Heather Henson and John Nelson: Going forth, I hope the image below contributes to the joy that you’ve always felt in the house that Allen Green built. How awesome it would be if my research on Hangroot leads to state and federal recognition of 30 Round Hill Road as an Underground Railroad site. I pray this will be true one day.
Hangroot Was Our Hood, 1897/Collection of Dennis Richmond, Jr. and John Sherman Merritt
Defining Hangroot: A Colored Settlement
Hangroot is a geographically defined area in Greenwich, CT where formerly enslaved African-Americans sought to build a community of their own in the early 1800s.
1887 Driving Road Chart featuring the Colored Cemetery/David S. Husted bough Allen Green’s property in 1884.
The above 1887 Driving Road Chart indicates a “Colored Settlement” that shows the area that came to be known as the Hangroot of our ancestors. Hangroot, as a neighborhood, can be traced back to 1730 when the Town of Greenwich approved a bridge to be built over Horseneck Brook near Round Hill Road and, in 1757, when the Town also approved a sawmill to be built there as well (Mead:1857:122). As an FYI, the name “Hangroot” has been attributed to the fact that the homes there had root cellars where fruit/vegetables where hung from the ceilings to prevent rodents from reaching them. Well-off farmers, like the Husteds, were also known to have stocked their root cellars so that poorer farmers in the area could help themselves to produce in times of need. That being said, Hangroot was always connected to the area we still associate with being Hangroot today (i.e., the intersection of Round Hill Rd. and Horseneck Brook) but this area expanded over time to include the area we see in the 1887 map. There have been accounts that there were several Black rural settlements. I believe this is incorrect and that there was only one which is represented as this larger “Colored Settlement” area. Our Hangroot ancestors lived within all areas of the “Colored Settlement.”
Since no one has defined the actual boundaries of Hangroot previously, for the purpose of this blogpost, I am defining the boundaries of Hangroot as follows: the Eastern boundary is defined as being near Lake Avenue, the Western boundary near Pecksland Rd., the Northern boundary near Clapboard Ridge Rd., and the Southern boundary just north of Glenville Rd. These boundaries changed over time with the ebb and flow of the African-American population. By the late 1870s, Hangroot becomes restricted to the area around Round Hill Road and Horseneck Brook once again. It is important to note that Hangroot was never an all-Black area, but an area that had a higher concentration of African-Americans than other sections of Greenwich, CT. As someone who is also of Native American ancestry, I note that Hangroot was home to Native-Americans as well. That is a clear reminder that Native Americans were Connecticut’s first slaves. That fact must never be forgotten.
19th Century Residents of Hangroot: A Free Black Community For The Formerly Enslaved (1800-1900)
As a 7th+ generation descendant of pioneer African-Americans who settled Hangroot and gave rise to this community, I feel an urgent need to write this forgotten community back into existence. Many people are unaware of the early presence of African-Americans in the Town of Greenwich. My blog posts on TheByram African-American Cemetery detail the history of African-Americans in Greenwich going back to the 18th century. Though official records regarding African-Americans are not available for Greenwich because of slavery, it can be assumed that there were African-Americans in Greenwich going back to the 17th century as the earliest African slaves in Connecticut arrived at the same time as colonial white settlers. Our Black Greenwich ancestors were from Byram and Sherwood’s Bridge (Glenville) sections of Greenwich and they left those neighborhoods to make Hangroot their home for a little over 100 years.
I often ask myself the following questions: If a community isn’t documented, did it actually exist? Who gets to define a community and from what/whose perspective? In doing genealogy research, does one have an obligation to correct historical ommissions and the historical record itself, on behalf of their ancestors, when given the benefit of historical hindsight? Such questions motivate me to continue to always dig deeper and to provide a different view of Greenwich history that is an unapolegetically African-American one. It is the view of people who lived on the margins of recorded history whose lives were not remembered as they should have been. The more I learn, the more I want to make visible this Black Greenwich history. This blogpost is my attempt at defining the Hangroot community and a start at reclaiming it’s past. It is by no means perfect, but it is the foundation on which I will write future blogposts and a book. It is nothing less than a work in progess that focuses on an intrinsic part of 19th century Greenwich history that is Black Greenwich history.
The methodolgy I used to compile this list is based on 100 years of census records indicating the presence of African-Americans in the area known as Hangroot within the geographical boundaries specified above. I also cross-checked some of these names with emancipation records found in Jeffrey Bingham Mead’s book, Chains Unbound: Slave Emancipation in the Town of Greenwich, CT. Articles in various newspaper archives were also reviewed. Finally, I was able to secure documents regarding Hangroot from both the Greenwich Historical Society and the Greenwich Library.
Below are the names of African-Americans who owned homes in Hangroot from 1800-1900. I have also listed the approximate population of African-Americans who lived in Hangroot as this number also includes African-Americans who were living in white households at times as slaves and/or servants and farmhands/laborers.
NOTE: When I refer to “Black Greenwich,” I am specifically referring to only those African-American residents below who have the surnames listed and their descendants. They are people who either were born in Greenwich, CT or resided there before the Civil War. These African-Americans constitute the founding African-American population of Greenwich, CT.
Possible 1800-1809 Residents: Isaac Negro* (Carpenter), Ned Negro, Jeffrey Negro ** (Felmetta) York Negro (Mead), and Anthony Negro (Green)
*All African-Americans recorded in the first three census records for Greenwich, CT were given the surname “Negro.” I added the correct surnames of these individuals in parentheses when possible so that their descedants may one day be able to locate them. They are “Negro” no more.
** The surname Felmetta seems to be unique to Greenwich, CT. No connection to a white Felmetta has been uncovered yet. There is the possiblity that this surname was chosen by Jeffrey Felmetta himself. It was not unusual for former slaves to take on a surname of their own choosing as an act of self-determination. This name has many spelling variations and include Filmetta, Fellmote, Felmette, Felemetta, Fillmeter, Fillimetta, Felmestra, Felmetty, and others. I used the spelling Felmetta throughout this blogpost for consistency.
***Update: My cousin Dennis Richmond, Jr. on 8/19/17, found a 1947 obituary for Sarah Banks Green that indicated that the Felmettas were part Native American. Sarah’s father was William Banks, who is listed in the 1860 Greenwich census, and he was a Mohawk Indian. Her mother was Loretta Felmetta amd she was said to be part Native American (Mohawk)
In the 1800 census, 84 free African-Americans were recorded as living in Greenwich along with 39 enslaved people. The only free Black property owners listed were an Isaac Negro (Carpenter), Ned Negro and York (Mead). However, Jeffrey Negro (Felmetta) is not listed in the 1800 census, but we know via property records that he owned property as early as 1784 and he is listed in the 1790 census as being a free Black along with 8 other free Black heads of households. My 4th great-grandfather Anthony Negro (Green) and his wife Peg, who was freed in 1800, moved to Hangroot sometime before 1810.
Population: Approx 80 individuals
1810 Residents: Isaac Negro (Carpenter), Henry Negro (Seymour), Horace Negro (Watson), Jeffrey Negro (Felmetta), George Negro (Moore), Ned Negro, Obid Negro (Davenport), Anthony Negro (Green), Cull Negro (Bush), and Frank Negro (Husted).
Population: Approx. 126 individuals
1820 Residents: Harry Brown, John Indian*, Anthony Green, Isaac Carpenter, Jeremiah Mitchell, Frank Husted, Charles Negro (Merritt), Cuff Brown, Jeffrey Felmetta, Henry Seymour, Henry Santes, Allah African**, York Mead, Aaron Felmetta, Sarah More, Catherine Felmetta, and John Ellis.
*A Hardy Indian, who may be a possible descendant of the John Indian, is recorded on the 1850 census as being “mulatto” and working as a farmhand. It is important to note that the category “mulatto” actually erases Native-Americans in the historical record by conflating them with other people of color. We also see the surname “Indian” being given to people of Native American descent. Hardy Indian is considered to be one of the last Native Americans in Greenwich and is buried west of Round Hill Road in an unmarked grave.
John Indian in 1820 Greenwich, CT Census
Hardy Indian in 1850 Greenwich, CT Census
**Allah African is the only African-American whom I found whose place of birth is listed as “Africa.” Given his first name, it can be assumed that he was born a Muslim somewhere in Africa. He was also the wealthiest African-American in Greenwich during the 1800s.
Population: Approx. 147 individuals
1830 Residents:Anthony Green, Sr., Anthony Green, Jr., Henry Green, Charles Merritt, James Mills, Sarah More, Ichabod Purdy*, John Ellis, Jeffrey Felmetta, Sam Carpenter, Robert Treadwell, Morris Mead, George Peck, Jacob L. Anderson, Henry Seymour, John Indian, York Mead, Wdw. Rose Felmetta, Thomas Carpenter, George Barker, Harry Bounds, Allah African, and Edmund Thompson.
*When Ichabad Purdy died in 1878 in Hangroot, at the age of 96 years and 8 months, he was considered to be one of the oldest residents. In various census records, his surname is listed as being Lars, St. Lair, Lair, and Lan for reasons unknown. The variations in these spellings may be a result of a mistake on the part of the census taker.
Death Notice of Ichabod Purdy in Port Chester Journal on 5/23/1878
Population: Approx. 174 individuals
1840 Residents: Allen Green, Solomon Green, Henry Green, Charles Merritt, Isaac Carpenter, Floyd Mills, Henry Merritt*, Robert Merritt*, George Watson, Horace Watson, Henry Felmetta, Allah African, Henry Belcher, Joseph Brown, Horace Mead, James Felmetta, Emmeline Brown, Ichabod Purdy, John Lyon, Edmund Thompson, Charles Porter, and Joseph Davenport.
*Please note that Robert and his son Henry Merritt are not related to our Merritt line. They are the descendants of Whitman Merritt who was born around 1720. Whitman’s son Robert Merritt was born in 1737. This is the oldest African-American Merritt line from Greenwich that we know of at this time.
CT Town Birth Records/ Pre-1870 Barbour Collection
Population: Approx.182 individuals
1850 Residents: Allen Green, Solomon Green, Henry Green, Charles Merritt, Anthony Green, Henry Belcher, Ichabod Purdy, Edmund Thompson, Floyd Mills, Charles Brown, Isaac Merritt, Henry Felmetta, Horace Watson, George Watson, William Peterson, Henry Merritt, Allah African, Robert Merritt, and George Peck.
Population: Aprox. 113 individuals
1860 Residents: Allen Green, Solomon Green, Henry Green, Charles Merritt, Henry Brown, William Purdy, Ichabod Purdy, James Purdy, Joseph Carpenter, Charles Brown, Abraham Merritt, Samuel H. Merritt, Allah African, Henry Merritt, Robert Merritt, Caleb Webb, Delilah Bush, Theodore Anderson, William Peterson, Grace Belcher, Polly Merritt, George Felmetta, Charles Meyers, Robert Felmetta, Susan Green, Henry Felmetta, William Banks (Native American), William Mead, and Amos Carpenter.
Population: Approx. 134 individuals
1870 Residents: Allen Green, Samuel H. Merritt, Tempy Green, Theodore Mills, William Carpenter, Charles Brown, William Belcher, William Purdy, William Brown, William Peterson, Solomon Green, Samuel Merritt, Henry Husted, Abraham Merritt, Samuel Green, Isaac Merritt, Henry Merritt, Horace Treadwell, Charles Meyer, George Peck, Allah African, Henry Felmetta, Robert Anderson, Charles Banks, and Robert Peterson.
Population: Approx. 125 individuals
1880 Residents:Solomon Green, Henry Felmetta, Joseph Purdy, Maria Purdy, Joseph Carpenter, Charles Banks, Samuel H. Merritt, Theordore Mills, Charles Green, Isaac Merritt, Thomas Green, Harry Merritt, William Peterson, Joseph Purdy. Charles Merritt, and Robert Peterson.
Population: Approx. 53 indivduals
1900 Residents: Thomas Green, Joseph Merritt, James Banks, Samuel H. Merritt, Edward Merritt, Willis Merritt, Victoria Peterson, Charles Merritt, Alonzo Merritt, Adeline Merritt, Cornelius Purdy, Aaron Felmetta, and Maria Merritt.
Population: Approx. 58 individuals
Our Lyon-Green-Merritt Hangroot Connection
My 4th great-grandfather, Anthony Green, Sr., only 4 years after he was legally emancipated by the widow of Captain John Green, was included in an 1820 $5,000 land deal that was signed on April 17,1820. He went in as an equal partner along with Thomas Green (the nephew/son-in-law of John Green, Anthony’s former slave owner), Samuel Lyon (a Lyon relative of Anthony’s wife Peg who was emancipated by Benjamin Woolsey Lyon, her uncle), Zophar Mead, Isaac Mead, Jabez Mead, William Robbins, Carr Robbins, Samuel Pine, and Elisha Belcher. All of these men were neighbors either in Sherwood’s Bridge (Glenville) or in Rye, NY. This land deal included several pieces of land which included Anthony’s land in Hangroot near Round Hill Rd. and Horseneck Brook as well as his land near the Green family which was at the westernmost border of Hangroot near today’s Pecksland Rd. As previously stated in another post, Anthony and Peg were both mulattos and were slave descedants of both the Green and Lyon families and their interactions and those of their children and grandchildren are indicative of close kin ties. As will be seen, at no point in the 1800s did our Lyon-Green-Merritt ancestors NOT live near or interact with their former slave owners and their descendants.
Greenwich Land Records, Volume 19 (1814) p. 402
The 1858 Clark mapbelow indicates where my 4th great-grandparents, Anthony and Peg Green, were living in 1810 which was right beside Anthony’s former Green slave owners. They owned their own property. Although Anthony wasn’t formerly emancipated until 1816, he was living with Peg and their three youngest sons (Allen, Solomon and Henry) probably earlier than 1810 as Peg was emancipated in 1800. It is a matter of pride to learn that, through their hard work, they were able to accumulate enough money to buy even more land of their own — land that they were able to then passed on to their descendants.
Clark Map of Fairfield County in 1858/ Library of Congress
The 1820 census was enumerated on August 7th, 1820 which means that Anthony and Peg moved to their new home in Hangroot at the intersection of Round Hill Rd. and Horseneck Brook soon after he obtained his share of the land deal. In other woods, in true Jeffersonian fashion, they moved on up to “the East side (i.e., Round Hill)” and got a piece of the pie”—- initially speaking. Looking at the 1820 census, we see that they were living next to the Husted family which included Amos, Caleb, and Aaron as well as their father, Peter. As you will see, various members of the Husted family, who intermarried with our Lyon ancestors, lived alongside of Anthony and Peg and their descendants for decades.
1820 Greenwich, CT Census Record
According to the 1830 census record, Anthony, Jr. is living in the home that his father used to live in the 1810s. Our Green ancestors are still living next to their Green kin. Meanwhile, Anthony, Sr. is now living next to his sons Henry and Charles Merritt in a different section of Hangroot. His sons, Allan and Solomon, both moved to Hangroot’s Round Hill location in the late 1830s.
1830 Greenwich, CT Census Record
In 1837, one year after Anthony, Sr. died, his 5 sons (Charles, Allen, Henry, Solomon and Plato) sold part of his land to Henry Merritt, another African-American man. From the 1840s until the early 1900s, our African-American ancestors made Hangroot their home. They intermarried with the Watsons, Mills, Pecks, Petersons, Felmettas, Purdys, Banks, and other Hangroot families. They went to the same churches and socialized together. Throughout the 1800s, one can see how people in Hangroot took care of each other by taking in relatives and neighbors when required. Although our ancestors were farmers, stone masons, laborers, coachmen, and servants, they were part of old Greenwich from the beginning. As to not rehash what I have previously written, a more detailed account of our family history in Hangroot from 1850 onward can be found here.
The decline of our Hangroot community was the direct result of several factors. First, immigration starting in the early 1840s resulted in the Irish, Scottish, and other white immigrants moving to Greenwich and taking the jobs held previously by African-Americans — jobs like farmhands, laborers and servants. Second, industrialization brought the railroad and woolen mills (e.g., Hawthorne Woolen Mill and American Felt Company) to Greenwich in the mid-1800s. The jobs in those industries went to the English, Irish, Scottish, Polish, and other Eastern European immigrants. Perhaps the biggesr reason though had to do with the arrival of the Rockefellers to Hangroot which dramatically changed Greenwich by ushering in the NYC leisure class who then started to build massive country estates.
1870 Greenwich Census showing Irish immigrants working on then railroad.
In regards to Hangroot, William Avery Rockefeller, brother of John D. Rockefeller and co-founder of Standard Oil, started purchasing property in the area in 1870 and his descedants continued doing so up until the early 1900s. As indicated in the 1887 map above, one sees how the Rockefellers had a dramatic impact on Hangroot that had been a home to our ancestors for decades. When the Rockefellers moved next door to them, it was hard for our ancestors to continue to exist as they had in the decades prior. I am also certain that other low and middle-class white farmers were equally displaced by the Rockefellers. According to its very definition gentrification is a process of renewal that occurs when there is an influx of middle-class or affluent people into deteriorating areas that often displaces poorer residents. In the case of Hangroot, it resulted in a loss of of an historic African-American community and the erasure of its history.
The Green-Twachtman House: The House That Allen Green Built in 1845
My 3rd great-grandfather, Allen Green, lived in Rye, NY, in 1830. As you can see from the 1830 Rye, NY census record, he was living near Samuel Lyon and Samuel Pine, two of the people who went in on the 1820 land deal with his father Anthony in 1820.
Rye, NY (Byram) 1830 Census
Allen purchased property at 30 Round Hill Road from Walter Avery on April 8, 1839. It was Allen who built his house in 1845 — a house that is now affiliated more with John H. Twachtman. Walter Avery had lived in Hangroot as early as 1810 and resided in the same area as the Husteds. However, it was in the 1830s when he bought this particular property.
Walter Avery in the 1810 Greenwich, CT Census
In 1990, Nils Kerschus, an architectural researcher at the Greenwich Historical Society, compiled the deed title search for the Green-Twachtman House. As Allen’s descedant, I quickly noticed what a genealogical goldmine this document was in terms of our own family history. Allen bought the property in 1839 and owned the property up until his death in 1878. A year later his estate sold his 3 acres of land with buildings to a Franz Stuba.
Deed Title Search/Nils Kerschus/Greenwich Historical Society
It was sold for $860. The Port Chester Journal on March 27, 1879 documented the sale as can be seen below.
Sale of Allen’s House
Franz Stuba in turn sold the property to Lawrence Green who then sold it to David S. Husted. It is interesting to note that both men have kin ties to our Lyon-Green-Merritt line. Lawrence Green was a descendant of my 4th great-grandfather’s former slave owner, John Green. His grandfather, Benjamin Green, was the nephew of John Green, whom Anthony lived next to in 1810. David S. Husted was the great-grandson of Benjamin Woolsey Lyon who emancipated my 4th great-grandmother in 1800. David’s grandfather was William H. Husted whose wife, Mary Lyon, was the daughter of Benjamin Woolsey Lyon. Moreover, William’s brother Drake Husted, along with his wife, Nancy Marvin Lyon, were the couple, who raised my 4th great-uncle Jack Husted, Peg and Anthony’s son — the only son who never lived in Hangroot though it is clear he visited family there. The administrator of Allen’s estate, Joseph B. Husted was the son of Drake and Nancy Husted.
Title Search, 30 Round Hill Rd., Nils Kerschus, Greenwich Historical Society
In this 1868 Town of Greenwich map, we observe that Mrs. Husted, David S. Husted’s mother, owned the property adjacent to Allen’s. In the 1887 Road map at the beginning of this blogpost, one sees that David S. Husted now owns Allen’s property having bought it in 1884. He sold Allen’s house to John H. Twachtman in 1890.
1868 Town of Greenwich map
By 1890, the year John H. Twachtman arrived in the Hangroot that was our hood, it was already in decline. Twatchman was an artist looking to purchase land that he could afford. I don’t for one minute buy into the myth, propogated by Goodwin, that he just happened upon my 3rd great-grandfather’s property while following the bends of Horseneck Brook, was touched by the natural environment, and just had to live there. I simply see his arrival in Hangroot as part of the larger process of gentrification begun by the Rockefellers.
Peters, 1995:290
Twachtman was fully aware that, if he purchased property there, it would be cheaper because it was considered an area where poor Black farmers lived, an area that was filled with “Connecticut potatoes (i.e., stones),” and very difficult to farm. Moreover, Twachtman knew that the property would eventually increase in value given the nearby presence of the Rockefellers. In addition, since he wasn’t a farmer, he recognized that he could further increase the value of his property by using his creative and artistic skills to make improvements that would highlight the natural landscape. Twachtman did what every struggling artist-gentrifier has done throughout the ages when moving into an up and coming area. I don’t begrudge him for doing that and I am grateful to be able to look at his art and know that some of his inspiration came from Hangroot. But, let’s not deny the historical fact that he went to Hangroot because that’s where he could only afford to buy land at the time.
Larkin, 1998:64
This gentrification of Hangroot continued. For example, in 1884, David S. Husted sold some of his land to William Rockefeller to satisfy a judgement against him as a result of a court case between him and Alexander Mead. Before he died, he sold the rest of his property to him as well. As noted below, he had to remove his family cemetery from the premises before he did. The Rockefellers would go on to buy more and more property so that, at one point, they owned about 400 acres of land. Later generations of Rockerfellers would go on to break up their large estates and sell off the smaller parcels of land. There was no way that our Hangroots ancestors could ever compete with this level of gentrification. No way at all.
Samuel H. Merritt was the only one of our Green-Merritt ancestors left, who owned a home, in 1890/Miller Robbins, Jr. & Co. 1890 Map/ Greenwich Historical Society
Sale of David S. Husted’s Property/ Port Chester Journal/10/15/1903
Sale of David S. Husted’s Property/Utica, NY Herald Dispatch/ 10/14/1903
A New Rockefeller Mansion Built/ New York Times/ 8/22/1906
Over one hundred years later, the Green-Twachtman House still stands for all to see. I was excited to learn about Sesame Street and The Muppets creator Jim Hensons’s ties to the Green-Twachtman House. As a child, who was born in the late 1960’s, and who grew up watching Sesame Street on PBS, I could not be happier. The affiliation with Sesame Street, I believe, was meant to be. Sesame Street always represented a world to me where everyone was accepted, diversity was celebrated, lessons were learned, and everyone was happy in the end. I have met members of the Henson family and I am looking forward to a guided tour of the house with the current owner, John Nelson, very soon. I look forward to having the Hensons and the Nelsons accompany our family on this journey of discovery that ultimately connects us all to the same house. I am blessed indeed.
Christine Varner, Cheryl Nelson, Patricia Bryant, and Teresa Vega on 5/02/2017 (Photo taken by Anne W. Semmes)John Nelson, Cheryl Henson, and Patricia Bryant on 04/05/2017
Hangroot Heroes: Members of the 29th Infantry United States Colored Troops
African-American Civil War Memorial in Washington, DC/ Our Hangroot heroes are listed here.
Please note that information for this section comes from the National Archives (Fold3). Previous accounts of the Greenwich men who fought in the 29th Infantry of the United States Colored Troops included men who enlisted from neighboring communities in Westchester County, NY. The list below is accurate.
The following are the names of the 18 Hangroot African-American men who fought for the 29th Infantry of the Connecticut Colored Troops during the Civil War. These men volunteered to fight in a war that ultimately led to the freedom of their enslaved countrymen. They were John Banks, Amos T. Carpenter, Silas M. Carpenter, Charles E. Green (my 3rd great-uncle) George E. Green (my 1st cousin 4XR) James H. Green (my 3rd great-uncle), William Green (my 1st cousin 4XR), William H. Hicks, William Meade, Isaac Merritt (my 1st cousin 4XR), Whitman Merritt, Floyd T. Mills, William O. Mills, Charles Moore, Robert Peterson (brother of Emily Peterson, wife of my 3rd great-uncle Thomas Green), George Porter, Charles E. Treadwell, and Horace Watson (father of Annice Watson who married William Green). Out of 18 men from Hangroot, 7 (a 39% death rate) paid the ultimate sacrifice. They were John Banks, William Mead, Floyd T. Mills, Charles Moore, George T. Porter, Charles E. Treadwell, and Horace Watson. May God bless them, and all the other Greenwich men, for their service to this country. They were all on the right side of history.
Greenwich Civil War Dead/ Note: Charles E. Treadwell is not listed./ Greenwich Town Hall
Charles E. Green, George E. Green, William Green, Isaac Merritt, and Robert Peterson are buried in Union Cemetery in Greenwich. Silas M. Carpenter is buried in the Gethsamene (African-American) Cemetery, in Little Ferry, NJ. Floyd T. Mills died at Lovell General Hospital in Portsmouth Grove, RI and is buried in Cypress Hills National Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY. During the Civil War, Horace Watson, William Mead, and Charles E. Treadwell died in Beaufort, SC, John Banks and George Porter died in Fort Monroe, VA, and Charles Moore died in Brownsville, TX. The burial places of Amos T. Carpenter, Whitman Merritt, William H. Hicks, and William O. Mills are unknown. As for my 3rd great-uncle, James H. Green, the only Sergeant 1st Class from Greenwich in the 29th Infantry, it can be assumed that he died and is buried in a pauper’s grave somewhere in NYC. I look forward to the day when I will write a blogpost just on these 18 Hangroot heroes because they were our own.
NY Herald article on James H. Green, 4/12/1896
NY Herald article on James H. Green, 4/12/1896
The Problem With The Perspective Of Outsiders: A Hangroot Descendant’s View
1890 Photo of my Hangroot ancestors at Horseneck Falls/Property of the Greenwich Historical SocietyPhoto taken by Henry Troth in Goodwin’s Country Life in America article, p. 625
Last week, I was directed to a photo taken behind the house that my 3rd great-grandfather built. I was made aware of three African-American people in the background looking down at the photographer taken this photo. According to Nils Kerschus, a former researcher at the Greenwich Historical Society who researched Hangroot between 1889-1902 before and after Twachtman arrived, the only ancestors we had left in Hangroot were: Samuel H. Merritt (my 1st cousin 4XR), his wife Catherine, sons Frank and Herbert (my 2nd cousins 3XR), and his granddaughter Sorelia (my 2nd cousin 4XR) in a house they owned; James Banks, his wife Josephine (Samuel’s daughter and my 2nd cousin 3XR), her brother Mandeville Merritt (my 2nd cousin 3XR) were in a 2nd house they owned, and Edward Merritt (Samuel’s son and my 2nd cousin 3XR), his wife Laura Green Merritt (my 2nd great-aunt) and their son Samuel (my 3rd cousin 2XR due to a cousin marriage) were in a 3rd house which they were renting. I should note that, in 1905, Samuel H. Merritt’s and James Banks’ properties were demolished by Frederic Maples, a real estate developer.
No one knows who the photographer was who took this 1890 photo. In any case, I can only imagine how our ancestors felt on that day. Our Hangroot community experienced an almost 50% decline in population from 1870 to 1900. When I saw the photo, I felt a sense of loss. I will never know who exactly those three individuals were just that they were our own. They are forever seared in my mind as three haunting spirits who were bearing witness to the loss of their land. However, I am glad to have this very poignant photo because it is a historic reminder of the displacement that our ancestors experienced. Between 1905 and 1910, our Hangroot community disappears as people have to relocate elsewhere as they become priced out of their neighborhood and work becomes hard to find. Hangroot then becomes the Hangroot of today and it’s history as an African-American commutity is erased. It is now a place more associated with the Rockefellers, Twachtman, and other individuals who came later. The “Allen Green” part of the “Green-Twachtman House” for all intensive purposes has been forgotten and is only mentioned in a footnote in the title deed history of the house and mentioned in a newspaper when it was sold in 1879.
A Footnote in the Title Deed Search of 30 Round Hill Road/Greenwich Historical Society
In his often cited Country Life in America 1905 article, Alfred Henry Goodwin, seeks to detail all the improvements that Twachtman made to his property, but, in the process, makes elitest statements about the house before Twachtman bought it. He refers to the house that Allen built as being “ugly” and how this house “desecrated” the land. Of course, Twachtman is portrayed as the man who arrived to “beautify the property” and made it harmonize with the natural environment as only he could. Likewise, Susan G. Larkin in her article, On Home Ground: John Twachtman and the Familiar Landscape, not only quotes Goodwin, but even juxtoposes the 1890 photo of the back of 30 Round Hill Rd. featuring the Horseneck Falls above with a 1905 photo of the same Horseneck Falls that Goodwin presented in his article. While the 1890 photo was taken seemingly in the Winter and shows a barren landscape with my three ancestors present in the background, the 1905 photo was obviously taken the in the Summer and shows a much shadier, lush, and cultivated environment. They are meant to be Before and After photos clearly. Both Goodwin and Larkin see Twachtman as the “Great White Hope” who rescues the property from its poor Black farmer past. Clearly, they admire what Twachtman has done to the environment and his house. There is no need to elaborate on those who owned the property before or who still lived next to his property then. Unlike me, they are either unaware or not concerned with how their words negatively taint the community of Hangroot because they don’t see this community though they are right in the midst of it. All the focus on Twachtman’s “beautifying the property” obscures and renders invisible the community that was Hangroot. Defining Hangroot as “a Black settlement” or indicating that “poor Black farmers” lived there says nothing actually about this community itself. But, of course, people assume that they know everything when they hear such designations.
Goodwin, 1905:625
Goodwin, 1905:625
Standing Up For My Ancestors By Reclaiming Hangroot and Black Greenwich History: We Shall Be Erased No More
As a descendant of Hangroot ancestors, I am acutely aware of how our Black Greenwich family history has been lost, erased, and forgotten. In researching my own family history, I came across an article by Christine McKay titled African Americans in 19th Century Greenwich:Notes on New Research. It was published in 2001 in conjuction with a Greenwich Historical Society exhibit on African-Americans in Greenwich. Other than Jeffrey Bingham Mead, McKay is the only other historian that I know of who has sought to factually present a portrait of Black Greenwich. However, even she recognized that, although she had researched African Americans in Greenwich, the Abolitionist movement, and Underground Railroad for her article, there was much more research yet to be done.
Needless to say, my blogposts on Greenwich will eventually lead to a book on my family’s history as the descendants of both Lyon slaves and Lyon slave owners that traces back to the 17th century. I will be defining and reclaiming both the Hangroot and Byram sections of Greenwich as our home. I will be giving a “bottom up” perspective, rather than a “top down” perspective, that defines and accurately portrays my ancestors and their community. Our Lyon-Green-Merritts family history is nothing less than an African-American success story that was born of slavery personified in Greenwich, CT. I began this blogpost with the photo that was taken in Hangroot in 1897. This is the Hangroot that my family was part of for 100 years. It is a visual reminder of just how vibrant this community was even in the midst of being erased from history. This is the Hangroot that I will be researching for years to come. We shall be erased no more.
For the past couple of years, I’ve been kneep-deep in genealogical and family history research that I know has been guided by my Greenwich ancestors. I may not be a religious person, but I am a spiritual one. For almost a year, I have also been trying to get justice for my ancestors in the fight over the Byram African-American Cemetery where my ancestors reside in a peace that has been disturbed. When I first learned about my 4th great-grandparents, Anthony and Peg, I called their names and let them know that they were found and would never be lost to history or their descendants again. And I meant every word that I said when I said them. They have never left my side since then and they keep visiting me in my dreams — visitations that guide me and push me to continue telling their true stories.
What happened to my ancestors in Hangroot, when gentrification came, is just a continuation of gentrification that is still happening in Greenwich today, but on an even grander scale — a gentrification that originally included 19th and 20th century millionaires, now includes 21st century millionaires AND hedge fund billionaires. Historic homes and places are being demolished and replaced with larger homes and McMansions today. When this happens, local history is lost and family history is lost as well. If you are a person who has a long family history in Greenwich which was well documented, you may not feel the same impact as those of us, who also have long family histories in Greenwich as well, but our family histories were barely recorded in historical records because our ancestors were born slaves. When the places we occupied, in life and death, disappear, our family history disappears as well. The fight over the Byram African-American Cemetery is a fight, not only about whether or not the residents of 11 Byram Dock Rd. own and have a right to “beautify the property,” but, it is also a battle that I am engaged in to defend my ancestors’ burial place AND to prevent the loss of our larger family history in Greenwich itself. To be clear, when Twachtman arrived in Hangroot in 1890 and “beautified the property’, he made improvements on property that he owned. The couple at 11 Byram Dock Rd., however, don’t own — but are claiming to own — a burial ground that had always been a part of the Byram Cemetery of our Lyon ancestors. They acknowledge the two white cemeteries in our extended family, but want to deny the existence of our Black one so that my ancestors are now buried in what looks like someone’s front lawn. I remain resolute and steadfast in standing up for my ancestors and reclaiming and defending our family history. Why one may ask? Because of our Anthony and Peg, our esteemed slave ancestors. When the light of a freedom certain came, they crawled down that path to emancipation and stood up and took some steps so that their children and grandchildren could walk so that their descendants could run on and keep running so that their descedants today could fly. I know that they are counting on me to be the sum of their Byram and Hangroot hopes and dreams and to be their voice from beyond their Byram graves. I will be representing them for as long as I live with pride. I am a proud slave descendant who comes from good stock indeed.
On Documenting the Underground Railroad In Greenwich: Why These 5 Places Matter
While the role that Greenwich white abolitionists and anti-slavery activists has been researched in regards to the Underground Railroad, the role that the free Black population in Greenwich played in shepherding enslaved people to freedom has never been studied. Because of this, I have been complelled to first define the free Black community in Greenwich that existed in the 19th century. That community was Hangroot. At the end of my previous blogpost, I wrote about the direction of my current research which will also look at the history of the White anti-slavery activists/abolitionists in our extended Lyon family and their social networks as well. As I said then, it can’t just be a coincidence that our Hangroot Greens and Merritts have a cousin named Hawley Green, who along with his wife Harriet Peterson Green, were stationmasters on the Underground Railroad in Peekskill, NY in the 1830s. Its can’t be another coincidence that our Hangroot ancestors have ties to the free Black populations of Westchester County, NY that extend back to the late 1700s and early 1800s. Below are the places that matter in Greenwich to our Lyon-Green-Merritt family.
Proposed Underground Railroad route that may have started in Greenwich by the free Black population there
This house is the oldest house in Greenwich built by my 9th great-uncle. It is an historic house that is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and is also on the CT Freedom Trail list. This is the house where a distant cousin, Seth Lyon, harbored a fugitive slave named Peter John Lee for six years. As I documented in my blogpost Coming to The Table in Honor of Jack Husted, Seth and his cousin Gilbert Lyon were anti-slavery activists and members of the Whig Party (Northeast), an anti-slavery party. Their social network included known Greenwich abolitionists like Deacon Jonas Mead, a neighbor of Gilbert Lyon, a stationmaster on the Underground Railroad, and Vice-President of the Fairfield Anti-Slavery Society.
2) Our Byram Cemeteries : The Lyon, Byram and Byram African-American Cemeteries
These three cemeteries link our Lyon, Green and Merritt ancestors to both the Thomas Lyon House and to the Green-Twachtman House. Our family ancestors, on both sides of the color line, were born and bred in Byram and are buried there. The Lyon family is one of the 17th century founding families of Greenwich. It was our Lyon ancestors who created a section of their Byram Cemetery for their slaves and former slaves. The Byram African-American Cemetery is where our Anthony and Peg are buried. Lyon-Green-Merritt descendants trace their ancestry back to Peg, who was the mulatto daughter of Daniel Lyon, who is buried in the Byram Cemetery.
I am a proud member of the Greenwich Preservation Trust (GPT) an organization that stood up three years ago to defend the desecration of the Byram African-American Cemetery. Along with our Lyon cousins, we are now united in restoring The Thomas Lyon House and backing the Town of Greenwich’s acquisition of all three of our ancestral cemeteries and making all of them historic ones. I will continue to support this organization any way I can. I want to also take the time here to thank Jo Conboy, State Rep. Michael Bocchino, the GPT Board and members for advocating for the passage of a new law that will protect abandoned cemeteries in the State of Connecticut in lieu of our current battle to save the Byram African-American Cemetery. The new law passed the legislature last week and is now on to the Senate for final approval.
3) Union Cemetery (Lot 23)
Second Congregational Church opened Lot 23 for the poor and Colored people in 1851. Half the people buried in that lot are our Green, Merritt, Husted ancestors along with other Hangroot families like the Banks, Felmetta, Watsons, Petersons and others. Five members of the 29th Infantry are buried there as well. In addition, some of our white Lyon and Husted ancestors are buried in other sections of Union Cemetery.
4) Little Bethel AME Church
Little Bethel AME Church was founded in 1882 and was the first Black church founded in Greenwich, CT. It is also listed on the CT Freedom Trail. The founding members of this church included Charles E. Green, Allen Banks, George Treadwell, Augusta Felmetta, Ellen Banks, Caselia Merritt, Catherine Merritt, Mandeville Merritt, Ruben Belcher, Mr. and Mrs. Belcher, Cornelia Bush, and Esther Bush. All were originally from Hangroot. Later church members included the descendants of these families.
5) The Green-Twachtman House
This landmark house was built in 1845 by my 3rd great-grandfather, Allen Green, the 5th son of Anthony and Peg Green who settled in Hangroot in 1820. Allen arrived in 1839 when he bought property at 30 Round Hill Rd. His wife, Mary Johnson Green may have been born a fugitive slave from Virginia who made Hangroot her haven when she married the Allen. Allen and his extended family were cousins to Hawley Green and his wife Harriet Peterson Green, who owned an Underground Railroad House in Peekskill, NY in the 1830s.
If I can prove that Mary was in fact fugitive slave and/or I can prove a more definitve link between our Hangroot Greens and Merritts and Hawley and Harriet Peterson Green, then I will then make it my new mission to apply for state and federal recognition so the house that Allen built is recognized as an Underground Railroad House and the community that was Hangroot will be known as a confirmed depot stop on the Underground Railroad. One day soon I will proudly stand in front of 30 Round Hill Rd. and hold up a sign that says THIS PLACE MATTERED MORE THAN ANYONE KNEW. I already know in my heart of hearts that it does and always did.
May my ancestors continue to be my guide on my mission to seek their historical truths.
References
Goodwin, Alfred Henry. An Artist’s Unspoiled Country Home. Country Life In America. Vol. 8 (October 1905), pp. 625-630.
Larkin, Susan G. On Home Ground: John Twachtman and the Familiar Landscape. The American Art Journal, Vol. 29, No 1/2 (1998), pp. 52-85.
McKay, Christine. African Americans in Nineteenth Century Greenwich. Greenwich History. Vol 6 (2001), pp. 56-74.
Mead, Daniel. A History of the Town of Greenwich, Fairfield, CT. NY:Baker and Godwin Printers, 1857.
Peters, Lisa. John Twachtman (1853-1902) and The American Scene in the Late Nineteenth Century: Frontiers within the Terrain of the Familiar. 2 Vols. PhD Dissertation. City University of New York, 1995. (Ann Arbor, Michigan: University Microfilms International, 1996).
This blogpost is dedicated to all my Lyon, Green and Merritt ancestors and their descendants who are our cousins. I would also like to thank Jo Conboy and her family as well as the Greenwich Preservation Trust for all of their support.
Lyon Cousins United
On The Lyon Moral Compass That Was Inherited
For the past six months, my family and I have had to deal with our ancestors’ burial ground being desecrated and our ancestors’ peace, above and below the boulder, being disturbed in Byram Cemetery. Though I am not an overtly religious person, I am a spiritual one. My mother, Joyce Green Vega, instilled in me a faith that anything was possible with God on our side. I was raised in Messiah Baptist Church in Brockton, MA and I have never forgotten the seeds of faith that were sowed in me there. If there is anything I’ve learned in the past six months, it is that my faith and connection to my ancestors have never been stronger. I know without a doubt that my family’s quest for justice for our ancestors is on the right side of history and that we can’t lose with God and all our ancestors are on our side.
Byram Cemetery
Last August, my cousins and I visited our ancestral burial ground in Byram Cemetery in Greenwich, CT. We were all set to settle for a plaque on a tree commemorating what used to be called “The Colored Cemetery.” I’ve written about that visit in another post so I won’t rehash it here. I am now certain that God and our ancestors, above and below the boulder, were sending us a message on that day. That message was a simple one and it was that they gave us the same moral compass that they gave all their Lyon descendants. That moral compass was what led our Lyon ancestors to reserve a space in Byram Cemetery for their slaves, slave descendants and free blacks in the first place. It’s the same moral compass that they also gave Henry S. Lyon and all the other Lyons in Byram back in 1890 when the was first desecration of the Byram Cemetery occurred. Back then, the Lyons stood up for the people who were buried in “The Colored Cemetery” — some of whom they no doubt knew and remembered —-when they said that the land was consecrated and not meant for personal use. It’s the same moral compass that our Lyon cousins had almost three years ago when they, too, decided to take a stand against the current desecration of Byram Cemetery along with members of the Greenwich Preservation Trust and other concerned citizens. They, too, stood up for our ancestors in our family’s absence over these past three years. On September 22, 2016, I spoke on behalf of our ancestors buried in what is now known as the Byram African-American Cemetery as well as our Lyon ancestors who created that sacred space for them to rest in peace. In less than a month, I discovered that my cousins and I had also inherited that same moral compass. I considered it a gift that I hope will never stop ticking.
We Still Are United: Now More Than Ever
On March 26, 2017, I spoke, as part of the Greenwich Preservation Trust Heritage Speaker Series, at the Garden Education Center of Greenwich in the Cos Cob, NY. It was the first time I had ever spoken in Greenwich, our ancestral hometown with roots going back to 1600s. That my family, the descendants of Lyon slaves, was joined by our Lyon cousins, the descendants of our family slave owners was epic. I would never have predicted this day to happen six months earlier. It wasn’t even a thought. But, our ancestors willed it and so it came to be.
Teresa Vega
My cousins and Me
Lyon Cousins and Friends
Teresa Vega and Jo Conboy
Lyon cousinsLyon CousinsGreen and Merritt cousinsLyon cousins
Lyon cousinsLyons cousinsCarolyn Antonik and Teresa VegaTeresa VegaTeresa Vega and Jo Conboy
We Will Be Coming to the Table Again and Again
In my blogpost on my 4th great-uncle Jack Husted, I wrote about how my Lyon cousin Julie Pollock helped me discover what happened to Jack who was sold as a slave in 1796 at the age of 3. Julie later told me that her 3rd great-uncle, Seth Lyon, who along with his first cousin Gilbert Lyon, harbored a fugitive slave, Peter John Lee, for 6 years until he was recaptured and taken back to VA in 1836 and re-enslaved. It was Julie who led me to investigate what else our Lyon cousins were doing besides harboring a fugitive slave. This led to the discovery that they were members of the Northeast Whig Party which held anti-slavery views, socialized with a Greenwich Underground Railroad stationmaster, Deacon Jonas Mead, and may routinely interacted with people who attended one of the three known abolitionist churches in Greenwich. I am currently investigating the social networks of our Lyon ancestors as well as other Greenwich abolitionists and anti-slavery advocates. Likewise, I am also researching our Green family and their ties to other free black communities in Westchester County, NY and our family link to Hawley and Harriet Green of Peekskill, NY, both stationmasters on the Underground Railroad. That our Greens have ties to these people is very significant. I believe it is critical that we look at the unsung role of free blacks in Greenwich and in Westchester County, NY and how these free blacks may have aided their enslaved brothers and sisters in their quest for freedom via a route that cuts across Westchester County, NY and potentially ends up at our ancestors’ UGRR House in Peekskill, NY.
I am looking forward to telling the story of my Lyon, Green, and Merritt ancestors and how they came to the table in the early 1800s. I rejoice in knowing that I will be aided in some of my research by my Lyon cousins as well. Our joint history came out of the darkness of slavery personified in Greenwich, CT that was born and bred in Byram. It is my ultimate goal to render visible and bring to light all those good Greenwich people who worked together to make this country far greater than it was before. They may have been considered ordinary then, but history should remember them as anything but.
UGRR Westchester County, NY Route to Freedom
Hangroot Was Our Hood: Reclaiming Black Greenwich History will be my next blogpost. Stay Tuned……
Please note at the end of this blogpost I included a primer for those people who have DNA cousins of color. This blog is dedicated to all my Euro DNA cousins who have embraced me as a distant cousin and who are consistently working on finding our common ancestor. I consider all of you, and there are many, to be my distant cousins without hesitation.
There Sure Was Some Pepper Up in All That Salt: An Ode to Those Who Would Say Otherwise”
Oh DNA, the truth you revealed was received like a 75% off sale,
That which was hidden has been brought to light,
The darkness now gone with pure delight,
Oh DNA, the pepper you have exposed has led to salty souls,
That which is being denied has wounded someone’s white pride,
Our family will always proudly represent all our black, brown, red and white ancestors’ sides,
Oh DNA, the real history you discovered has led to a complicated situation,
That our family, from the start, was baked-up in a US mixed-race oven,
Our genes playing the historical dozens on all those who felt the need to racially govern,
Oh DNA, the overall message you represent will always be one of diversity and genetic unity,
That which is factually-based can never be destroyed,
By those who seem to be pumped up on family falsehoods and antagonistic racial steroids.
Oh DNA, the pepper in all that salt has been passed down to the present,
That which was inherited still remains,
A beautiful testament to all our ancestors in our veins.
DNA Doesn’t Lie: The Denial of the Pepper in Salted Histories
As a descendant of enslaved people and enslavers, I am always amazed at how my family history is often denied by some Euro DNA cousins or by descendants of my family’s slave owners despite DNA proof. Over the past 3-4 months, I’ve had a couple of individuals take issue with some of my blogposts that mentioned their ancestors or family surnames. The problems they have are rooted in the fact that I have shined a light into the dark closets of their own family histories. You know, the places where all the skeletons hang out and history is miraculously erased or revised.
Slavery was a very nasty, dehumanizing, ugly, and messy institution that lasted for centuries and impacted everyone. I’ve spent over a decade trying to break through all of my family’s genealogical brick walls that slavery left in its wake. My cousin Andrea and I turned to DNA testing to see if DNA would break down some of these walls. I’m happy to say that it has helped break down some walls as well as lead us to a better understanding of our family’s origins. We now know that we have a rich colonial family history in this country and that we descend from the original inhabitants of this land as well as the West African, Malagasy and European immigrants who arrived in the 1600s.
While I am proud of my family history, some people apparently take issue with a person of color, like me, being related to them or sharing ancestors with them. Of course, the first thing they think is that their ancestors couldn’t possibility have had children with an enslaved person. Well, it seems that in my family that scenario was very common as it is in most African-American families. Black folks did not get their beautiful, varied hues — ranging from white to black— on their own. In my family, we also see some instances of consensual interracial relationships that happened centuries ago. For example, I have a Dutch 4th great-grandmother who married my mulatto 4th great-grandfather in the late 1700s. Going back further, some of my free Afro-Dutch ancestors also married Dutch women in the 1600s. Moreover, I am also a descendant of Irish immigrants who arrived in Boston, MA after the Civil War ended and Emancipation Proclamation was signed. My matrilineal haplogroup is H1ag1—European—by the way. It would be a failure on my part if I didn’t mention that my family also had ancestors who passed as “White” and whose descendants then became “White.” I am acutely aware of how different my family is from other African-American families. While being a slave descendant of an enslaver may be the primary way that I may be related to my Euro DNA cousins, there are other ways that I may be related to them other than via a slavery connection. In a nutshell, if I, or any of my relatives, show up on someone’s DNA Relative list, it is because we have an ancestor in common who shares a genetic tie to both of us. We are genetically related to each other regardless if that person considers us kin, related, or not. A DNA test is a great harbinger of truth and someone’s rejection of a genetic tie to me, or my family, doesn’t change that factIt just doesn’t. You can’t wish away DNA.
A few months ago I wrote my 2nd blogpost on my Malagasy ancestors who arrived in Manhattan in the late 1600s and ended up in the Tappan Patent with my other West African, Lenapi, and Dutch ancestors. In my blogpost, I wrote the following:
Excerpt from Part II: DNA Trail from Madagascar to Manhattan
DNA doesn’t lie. What I stated was and is the truth. My ancestors were related to the founding families of Bergen County, NJ and Rockland County, NY because they were either Tappan Patent land grantees, via the Manuel and De Vries Afro-Dutch families along with the Van Dunk family, or enslaved people of other Tappan Patent land grantees. The historical documentation on the formation of the Tappan Patent backs my claims up and our Euro DNA cousins further testify to our genealogical ties to the founding families of this area. Those founding families were the Blauvelts, Ackerman/Ackerson/Emerson, Demarest, Banta, VanBuskirk, Haring, Hopper, Zabriskie, Wortendyke, Van Winkle, Bogardus/Bogart, and others. They also intermarried among each other repeatedly. For example, Bantas married Blauvelts, Demarests, Ackermans, DeGroots and others. There are published Banta and Blauvelt genealogies onAncestry.com that serious researchers can access that documents these marriages.
Recently, I was contacted by a woman who initially portrayed herself to be a distant cousin of my 4th great-grandmother of Malagasy descent, Tun Snyder. This person was not a descendant of Tun at all. In fact, she was a descendant of people who had two surnames, Demarest and Banta, which were among the surnames I mentioned in my blogpost as well as just now. I spoke to her on 2 occasions and then received the email below from her.
Email from an individual with Banta and Demarest ancestors
It became apparent that she was phishing for information on my genetic ties to people who have the same surnames to the people on her family tree. She was looking for “proof” that I shared the same exact ancestors as her. She told me that she tested at FTDNA and if I wasn’t on her FTDNA Family Finder list, or matched her on Gedmatch, that I needed to follow her instructions above. I never responded to this person’s email as her claims are ridiculous. I never slandered or defamed her ancestors as I don’t even know who they are. Just because two individuals share the same surnames, does not mean they are even related to each other or share DNA with each other. The fact that I do have DNA cousins who have ALL the above surnames on their trees that go back to the same ancestors indicates that we have a genetic tie to someone in their family probably as a result of a Blauvelt marrying into their families. I may not be a DNA match to the above Banta/Demarest descendant, but several people in my family, myself included, have DNA Demarest and Banta cousin matches. In addition, her claims about me and CeCe Moore are totally unwarranted and baseless. And, no, she doesn’t have the right or privilege to take away my First Amendment right to free speech especially when I am discussing my own family history. Not today nor tomorrow.
On Demanding “Proof” from Slave Owner Descendants and Historical Amnesia: An Inconvenient Truth
The email reminded me of another Euro descendant and distant cousin related to my Lyon line from Greenwich, CT. That particular person not only demanded DNA proof of my DNA ties to the Lyon family, but also contacted a CT state archaeologist asking if it was even possible that I could be related to her ancestors via DNA and was asking around if I could make any claims in Probate Court to any thing related to the Lyon Family. Really? Do these folks even consider how offensive they are being? On both occasions, it became very clear that these two individuals hadn’t even read my blogpost or even considered how well-documented I intentionally make my blogposts, with included references, for people like them. They also have shown that they have no clue as to how DNA is inherited.
From Dr. Brian Jones, CT State Archaeologist
Both my Pickett-Snyder and Green-Merritt lines are enslaver descended family lines. It is well documented that my ancestors were owned by their enslavers, lived in the same households, and no doubt had mixed-race children with them or male relatives. All of my family’s DNA tests point, not only to our tri-racial ethnic admixture, but also to our genetic ties to the enslavers and their descendants that were inherited because of consensual or nonconsensual relations. My family has colonial roots in NY, NJ, and CT that go back to New Amsterdam under the Dutch so it is not surprising that Dutch surnames appear on my family tree. To the above names, you can also add DeGroat/DeGroot, Vanderzee, Van Riper, Van Ness, Tenbroeck, and others.
The historical amnesia that some people have regarding slavery is immense. For the record, slavery did occur in the North and the rape of enslaved women is well documented in every society that was based on slavery—worldwide. These are historical facts that can’t be disputed. If someone is touchy that I mention slave rape aka nonconsensual relations, that’s their problem and not mine. I’m not going to sanitize what my ancestors went through in this country. Sorry, someone doesn’t get to claim that their ancestors, distinguished or not, would never have a child with an enslaved person. How do they know that they didn’t? They weren’t around when their ancestors lived. When I can find my ancestors passed down in Blauvelt wills as property and listed as “slave servant” living with Ackermans, one can forever forfeit the right to ever claim their ancestors never owned enslaved people. Furthermore, it would really behoove people to research their own family history before trying to erase, or revise history, or critique my blogposts. When I provide references (i.e., books mentioning the NY-Madagascar Slave Trade) on, for example, Cornelius Van Horne, and can google a runaway slave ad that he himself placed in a colonial newspaper, clearly I did my research. They did not. The Van Horne family were well-known for owning slaves, as did most wealthy people of the time in NY and NJ, and they have been routinely written about in books on colonial New York history. No whitewashing will be done on my family history watch when I am trying to learn as much as I can about my family—the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Runaway slave ad placed by Cornelius Van Horne
Regarding my family’s matches to these Dutch founders of the Tappan Patent, though we do have some 4th cousin matches, a majority of these DNA cousins are in the 5th-8th cousin range. To ask a descednant of an enslaved person — when most people don’t have family trees going back to the 1600s and 1700s — for “proof” of the exact enslaver ancestor who raped her female ancestor, is insensitive and mindboggling given the very nature of slavery. The institution of slavery can be seen as an example of a rape culture where establishing paternity and parental legitimacy wasn’t even thought of— only the act of reproduction was seen as important. Trust me, though a few slave owners had long-standing ties to their slave children, like my ancesto,r Daniel Lyon, a majority did not. A majority of enslaver baby daddies weren’t rushing out to register the births of their slave children or leaving them inheritances though they were selling their slave children and willing them to others upon their deaths. The fact that someone can even ask for proof, despite a preponderance of other evidence along with DNA, smacks of privilege and entitlement. They do not own any historical narrative which includes my ancestors. My ancestors lives were valid and they lived during the same historical period as their ancestors. However, that doesn’t mean that my ancestors’ own history should be erased or denied because a slave owner descendant wants to close her eyes, twinkle her nose, nod her head, and shout, “History be gone.” Nah!
A Primer on How to Approach your DNA Cousins of Color
I came up with this primer because I think it is a topic that should be discussed. Many African-Americans have Euro DNA cousins which should come as a surprise to no one. There have been studies done that show African-Americans on average have 24% Euro DNA ( see http://www.cell.com/ajhg/fulltext/S0002-9297(14)00476-5 ). Southern white Americans have on average 1% African DNA. Once people accept the fact that slavery happened and DNA was shared between the enslaved and enslavers, we can have a real honest conversation, without judgement, about how we are related. African-Americans and other people of color, who have DNA tested, want to know what anyone else wants to know when they finally get their DNA cousin list. How are we related to these people? Given the nature of slavery, the separation of family members, the geographical dislocation of our ancestors, we are hungry for more info on our roots.
Here’s my advice:
1) Acknowledge that you DO have a genetic link with a person of color. DNA doesn’t lie. That link may be due primarily to slavery or it could be due to consensual interracial relationships, racial passing, white immigration not related to slavery, immigration of one Euro descendant to the US and their siblings/other relatives to other parts of the world like the Caribbean, Europe, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, etc. Keep an open mind as to all possibilities.
2) Don’t assume any guilt, or fear judgement, for actions that happened in the past. You are not responsible for the actions of your ancestors. That being said, don’t repeat the mistakes of the past by denying your DNA cousins in this day and age. While you can’t change the past, you can change the present. You are 100% responsible for educating yourself about all of your family history given the results of your DNA test and DNA cousin matches.
3) Don’t assume that your DNA cousins are looking for 40 acres and a mule, an inheritance, or any material gain from you. Your DNA cousins are looking for any info you can provide on your ancestors in relation to theirs. You may not be able to provide this info and that’s OK, too.
4) Share any info that you may have (e.g., names/surnames, family locations, names of slaves documented in family wills, cemetery locations, etc.). You never know what info may be valuable to someone. When you have nothing to go on, any info should be welcomed. Please be mindful that you may or may not share the same surnames. During slavery and after, African-Americans took on different surnames — either a slave owner surname or one of their own choosing. If you don’t match via a surname, then look for family records, like wills, that list slaves’ first names.
5) Don’t deny the other person’s family history. Don’t assume that because they provide you with new info on your family that what they are saying is a lie because it does not match up with what you’ve been told. Take seriously what has been relayed to you. Ask questions of your DNA cousins. Ask them where they got their info and then do your own research. You may just learn from a different perspective. It’s fine to be proud of your ancestors without denying historic reality. You may also find out more info on your family that expands your own view of your ancestors and the time period they occupied.
6) Take the time to learn about your local history so you can inform your DNA cousins about their potential ancestral geographic places of orgin(s). In addition, if you are related to an African-American from a different geographical location, remember that there was a Transatlantic Slave Trade as well as a domestic slave trade. Your ancestors may have lived in the Northeast, for example, but sold enslaved people South. If you share cMs with someone, you share a genetic tie. Don’t discount differences in geographical locations. You may have to dig deep into your family history.
7) If your family history included hearing “whispers” of your ancestors having Black children or other children of color, share that info with your DNA cousins as it just may be true. Not everything was recorded and oral history still counts as history. With DNA testing, that oral history may have been documented in someone’s genes.
8) Recognize that racial passing occurred whereby some African-Americans, especially Mulattos, passed as “White.” If you match an African-American or other people of color, it may be because one of your ancestors racially passed. Their descendants were later recorded as White and their racial/ethnic origins were forever disguised. Also, recognize that slavery was not a monolithic experience and varied over place and time. In the 1600s, in Virginia, for example, White female indentured servants did in fact marry enslaved and Free men. Their children took the status of their mother before the Black Codes came into being.
9) Recognize that you have an opportunity to celebrate your family’s diversity and that is a good thing. Consider that the results of your DNA test provide you with a chance to let go of the notion of racial purity. It’s highly overrated. The concept of race is a social construct and our DNA link to each other proves that.
10) At a time when our country is at odds with itself over issues of race, embrace the opportunity to be part of the solution to bring about racial healing. If everyone would stop and think about how DNA testing offers us the PROOF of how we are all inextricably linked to each other, then maybe we can start a new chapter in race relations.
For an example of how DNA cousins of different races can work together to their mutual benefit and joint family history , please see my last blogpost on Coming To the Table in Honor of Jack Husted. It can be done.
This blogpost is dedicated to Chris, Julie, and Charles. They are three of my Lyon cousins who have welcomed our family with open arms into the extended Lyon family. Today, we are unlocking the doors of our hidden shared family history together. This blogpost is an example of how “Coming to the Table” can benefit everyone. I would also like to thank Anne Young, a Greenwich historian, who has aided my research immensely.
Who Is Jack Husted?
Jack Husted is my 4th great-uncle, the 2nd son of my 4th great-grandmother Peg Green. Peg was a Lyon before she became a Merritt and later a Green. Peg was born around 1770 in Greenwich, CT and was raised in the household of Daniel Lyon (son of James, John, John and Thomas). Through our AncestryDNA Lyon cousin matches, we are connected to the Daniel Lyon line as well as other Lyon family lines. Peg was mulatto and it is highly likely that she was Daniel’s daughter by a slave. During slavery, it was quite common for slave owners to keep the children they had fathered with slaves around as house servants. Her actual relationship with her father may not have been publicly spoken about or acknowledged due to the nature of slavery. But, DNA doesn’t lie and there is an undisputed genetic link between our family and the family of Daniel Lyon. Peg was 5-10 years older than his other 4 daughters (Hannah, Lavinia, Elizabeth, and Loretta) and worked as a servant slave in his household. In 1790, Daniel sold Peg to Nathan Merritt, Jr. While she was in Nathan Merritt, Jr.’s household, she gave birth to Charles in 1791 and Jack in 1793. We know via our DNA cousins that Charles was fathered by a Merritt and we can assume the same now for Jack.
Peg’s 1790 Bill of Sale from Daniel Lyon to Nathan Merritt, Jr./Rye Historical Society
Jack’s birth record with name misspelled
On Peg’s Return to the Lyon Family
Peg returned to the Lyon family around 1794 and was living with Benjamin Woolsey Lyon in the James Lyon House near the Lyon Cemetery. Benjamin Woolsey Lyon was Daniel Lyon’s brother. In his household, she gave birth to Anthony Jr. in 1795 and Platt in 1798. These two sons were fathered by my 4th great-grandfather Anthony Green. Peg definitely met Anthony while she was in the Merritt household as Nathan Merritt, Jr.’s first cousin was John Green, Anthony’s slave owner. Peg and Anthony went on to have 3 additional sons together after she was emancipated in 1800 by Benjamin Woolsey Lyon. Their 5th son Allen, who was born in 1804, is my 3rd great-grandfather and he named one of his sons Benjamin Woolsey Green after him.
Birth records of Anthony, Jr. And Platt
Regarding Anthony, Jr., we know that he was mentioned in Benjamin Woolsey Lyon’s 1810 will. He was to stay in the care of Phebe Lyon, Benjamin Woolsey’s wife, until she died. If she died before his term was completed, then Anthony was to be set free. We know that Phebe lived until 1855 so Anthony was freed automatically under the 1784 Gradual Emancipation Act in 1820. We don’t know what happened to Platt as he is not listed in his will. We can only assume that he may have been sold and completed his gradual emancipation term with someone else.
In an 1894 Port Chester Journal article, John Brooks, the grandson of Daniel Lyon and son of Lavinia Lyon Brooks, who married Henry S. Brooks one of the founders of Brooks Brothers, mentioned Peg. He stated that Peg had grown a “little fresh” and so his grandfather gave her her freedom. This is factually incorrect as we know that Daniel’s brother Benjamin Woolsey Lyon is the one who emancipated her.
From the Lyon Memorial Book 3
Port Chester Article, May 17,1894
That being said, John Brooks may have given a reason though as to why she was sold. Was it to teach her a lesson? Had she forgotten her “place” in the family? Did the fact that she had given birth twice, probably as a result of a sexual assault by a Merritt male, make her Lyon family reclaim her? Did they regret selling her? Did they assume that she would have been well-taken care of in the Merritt household as they had taken good care of her? Who knows, but anything is plausible. Both Charles and Jack would have remained with Nathan Merritt, Jr., when she returned to her Lyon family, as they were considered his property until they were 25 years old. Under the 1784 Gradual Emancipation Act, they would be automatically freed after their terms were completed.
What I find interesting is that, in a Port Chester Journal article two years earlier, John remembered that his mother left him with Peg at his grandfather’s house when he was 3 years old. John was born in 1813 so that would mean that Peg was back with Daniel Lyon, in 1816, and was again working as his servant. We do know that in 1812, when the War of 1812 was going on, Peg and Anthony’s son Henry became a ward of the Town of Greenwich as his parents couldn’t take care of him. I often wonder what was going on that had such an impact on Peg and Anthony’s ability to take care of Henry. Did the War of 1812 have anything to do with it? Was it a bad year for farming? So many questions. In both articles, we see that Peg’s relationship with her Lyon relatives was long lasting and endured after she was emancipated. John mentions that when Peg visited NYC, she always stopped to visit his mother Lavinia and his family. The impact that Peg and Anthony clearly had on John is evident, as decades after their deaths, he still had fond memories of them and their family. I am also honored to be able to read about my Green-Merritt ancestors through the eyes of someone who actually knew them.
Port Chester Journal, March 17, 1892
The Sale of Jack at the Age of Three In 1796
Jack’s Bill of Sale/Greenwich Historical Society
I first saw Jack’s 1796 bill of sale last December at the Greenwich Historical Society. I had no words upon seeing his bill of sale. A slave at the age of three? My first thought was how much work could a toddler do? Tears. Who would be taking care of him in the absence of his mother? That he was born on Valentine’s Day only added another layer to my distress. It also made me wonder about Charles. Two brothers now separated from each other and their mother. No words. Right then and there, I was a silent witness to the bitter legacy of slavery that was all too real. My 4th great-uncle was sold for 15 pounds of New York money at the age of three.
After Anthony died in 1836, I came across an 1837 land sale record that listed all of his sons with the exception of Henry. Jack Husted and Charles Merritt were listed as his sons. It confirmed that Anthony had adopted Peg’s two oldest sons as his own. Jack married his wife Helen and was the father of 4 daughters — Jane Anne, Sarah, Nancy, and Lucinda. His wife Helen and daughter Jane Anne passed away in 1851 and are buried in Lot 23 in Union Cemetery in Greenwich. I was able to trace Jack up until the 1860 census when he is listed as being 67 years old and was still working as a gardener. He passed away sometime before 1870.
When Cousins Come to the Table From Both Sides of the Color Line, Historical Truth Reveals Itself
I met my distant cousin Julie Pollack a month ago upon first learning about the desecration of the Byram African-American Cemetery. Thanks to Jo Conboy of the Greenwich Preservation Trust, I was put in contact with several distant Lyon cousins who had been sent my blogpost about my Green-Merritt ancestors. Julie’s grandmother, Julia Lyon Saunders, was the last private owner of The Thomas Lyon House before the house was donated to the town as a museum in 1925. Julie was also one of my cousins who, along with other members of the Greenwich Preservation Trust, stood up for The Byram African-American Cemetery in 2014. This was a year before I even discovered our ancestors’ names. In our family’s 2-year absence regarding the whole cemetery issue, we are grateful to Julie and all our Lyon cousins for taking up the cause on behalf of our family’s ancestors — some who were also their cousins.
Julie, like me, is a family historian and genealogist. We are indeed kindred spirits and true kinfolk. I should add here that my Lyon line (Daniel, James, John, John, Thomas) included slave owners. Julie’s Lyon line were not slave owners, but did include abolitionists whom I will mention later. After Julie read my blogpost mentioning Peg, Anthony, and their seven sons, she made the connection to Jack whose bill of sale she had inherited. Simeon Lyon was the older brother of her 3rd great-grandfather Abraham Lyon. Julie told me that Simeon and his wife Mary Mills Lyon were childless and may have purchased Jack as a “proxy child” to take care of them as they age. Simeon passed away in 1807 and Julie had lost track of what happened to Jack. After she read my blogpost, she was happy to see that Jack went on to be reunited with his family and that he had a lived a productive life.
My Cousin Julie Pollock’s Family Tree
Julie was able to provide additional tidbits about Jack that gave me some sort of indication of the time he spent as a youth. In addition to giving me a copy of his 1796 bill of sale, she sent me a ledger page from Simeon’s book that showed what was spent on Jack in 1807. Jack was 14 years old and had been hired out, probably as a farmhand, which was quite common. I know from looking at my other Green-Merritt ancestors that boys, between the ages of 12-18, were often hired out as farmhands. Girls, at the same ages, worked as domestic servants. From the ledger page, we know that he was well-clothed, received some cash payments, and tobacco.
Simeon Lyon’s 1807 Ledger page on Jack
Jack’s Actual 1796 Bill of Sale
Jack’s Gap Years (1807-1820) and the Surname Husted
Julie and I both wondered what happened to Jack after Simeon’s death in 1807. We couldn’t locate Simeon or Mary’s will. Unlike me, she didn’t know until recently that he had taken the surname Husted as his last name. I recently went back to census records and looked for a Husted who owned a slave in 1810. Jack had to serve his 25 year gradual emancipation term until 1818 so he would have still been a slave in 1810. I was so happy to see that there was only ONE Husted who owned a slave and had one free black living with him. That man was Drake Husted. Looking at the 1820 census, Drake had two free blacks living with him and we can assume that the slave in 1810 was now free. That slave was no doubt our Jack Husted.
Jack Husted as a slave in 1810
Upon further analysis, I found that Drake was married to a Nancy Marvin Lyon who turns out to be the daughter of Daniel and Benjamin Woolsey Lyon’s brother James. After Simeon passed away, Jack was given to Nancy and Drake to complete his term. Did they buy him? I haven’t found a bill of sale yet, but he did end up with them for sure. This meant that Jack ended growing up in the household of a cousin of his. Peg and Anthony would have certainly been able to see him often as well.
Children of James Lyon (son of John, John, Thomas)
Nancy Marvin Lyon and Drake Husted
Julie and I have also been wondering where Simeon lived. In Benjamin Woolsey Lyon’s 1810 will, his homestead, which was the James Lyon House near the Lyon Cemetery, was listed. In addition, there were 8 other properties mentioned. Mary Mills, Simeon’s widow, is listed as living in one of his properties. Where Simeon’s house was probably the house that Benjamin Woosley Lyon’s son James occupied in 1830 near the Byram Bridge which was close to the Thomas Lyon House. It also appears that the wooden house may have burnt down between 1880-1900.
Mary Mills Lyon’s House In 1810
Benjamin Woolsey Lyon’s children were all underage when he died. In his will, he mentioned that they could not inherit the land until they became of age which would have been around the early 1820s. This meant that someone would have acted on their behalf until then. In his will, his wife Phebe was listed as his executrix, however, she declined and James Lyon, Benjamin Woolsey’s brother, and W.H. Husted were appointed as executers. Joshua Lyon, Benjamin’s cousin, was listed as being the person who appraised his estate inventory in his will. As stated before, James’s daughter Nancy took in my 4th great-uncle Jack when he was 14 years old.
Seth Lyon, Simeon’s nephew, bought Simeon’s home from Joshua Lyon, Jr., his first cousin, in 1823. This Joshua would be the son of Joshua Lyon, Sr. who appraised Benjamin Woolsey’s estate in 1810. Seth had a long, close relationship with both Simeon and Mary that lasted until her death. According to Anne Young, a Greenwich historian, Mary isn’t listed on the 1830 census at that location, but James Lyon, Benjamin Woolsey Lyon’s son is. This definitely points to a close relationship between all the Lyon cousins who lived in the Byram area. It must be also noted that there were multiple generations who lived at the Thomas Lyon House at one time.
From History of Rye (1660-1870) book by Charles Baird
Abolitionists in the Lyon Family: Seth and Gilbert Lyon
When Lyon cousins come to the table, so to speak, a wealth of collective family information is transferred. In the early 1800s, Seth and his brothers Fitch and Elias ran a family farm to market business. By the 1820s, they branched out to include owning the sloop William, named after Seth’s oldest son, that enabled them to sell their products (e.g., produce and apple cider) by taking advantage of new markets along the Hudson River as well as NYC. Later in the 1830s, they would transport Byram Blue Point granite stone from the quarries of Port Chester and Greenwich down to NYC. This stone ended up being used in the construction of the Brooklyn Naval Yard. Julie refers to these three Lyon brothers as being “farmer-mariners.” Gilbert Lyon was Seth, Fitch and Elias’s first cousin and the son of was Joshua Lyon, Sr. Like his cousins, Gilbert was also a “farmer-mariner” who owned three sloops — the Caroline, Jackson and New York. He also owned a lime kiln and vinegar business. Gilbert lived in “Lyon’s Point” which was a little over a mile down river from the Thomas Lyon House and the Byram Bridge. All four Lyon cousins would have required extra sets of hands to help them out with their farms and businesses.
Portrait of Seth Lyon
Captain Gilbert Lyon
Ad taken out by Seth Lyon/Stamford Advocate
The sloop “New York” owned by Gilbert Lyon/Stamford Afvocate
Ad placed by Gilbert Lyon/Stamford Advocate
Ad placed by Gilbert Lyon’s sons/Stamford Advocate
One of those hands was Peter John Lee also know as Henry. From 1830-1836, Seth Lyon employed Peter John to help him at home and with his family business. There is also some indication that he may have also been employed by Gilbert Lyon. Peter John Lee was a fugitive slave from Virginia who managed to escape to Connecticut as a young man between the ages of 16-24. In the six years he spent Lyon family, he married and had two sons. On November 26, 1836, he left the Thomas Lyon House, at the behest of a black acquaintance who was enticed by a $1.50 payment, and crossed over the Byram Bridge where he was apprehended by a group of slave catchers. His arrest was covered widely in the press at the time. Seth Lyon, who was also a Justice of the Peace, appealed to the Mayor of New York to no avail. But, it was Gilbert Lyon who first sounded the alarm about what happened to Peter John Lee just 2 days after his kidnapping when he walked into the office of The New York Sun, a conservative New York newspaper, and gave an account of what happened.
The NY Sun Article from November 28, 1836Anti-Slavery Almanac 1836
Peter John was then taken back to Virginia where he was re-enslaved. Seven years later, he escaped again and made his way back to NYC before he eventually ended up in Canada with the help of the New York Committee of Vigilance under the leadership of David Ruggles, a noted black Abolitionist and Underground Railroad Station master. We don’t know what became of Peter John Lee after he arrived in Canada or if his family were able to reunite with him. Given the fact that he was previously caught, he may have even changed his name when he arrived in there. In 2014, the Thomas Lyon Jr. Housewas placed on the Connecticut Freedom Trail due to the abolitionist activities of our ancestor Seth Lyon.
Map showing Byram Bridge, the Thomas Lyon House and the James Lyon House where Simeon, Mary, and Jack lived.
Julie was so kind to send me a photo of a table, called “The Slave Table,” that Peter John, his wife and two sons no doubt used during their time with Seth’s family. There is also the possibility that Jack used this table as well since he would have grown up with Seth. Julie and I both wonder if Jack had any influence on Seth’s future abolitionist ideals since they grew up together. Seth would have known Peg and Anthony who were well-regarded in the community as well.
Table used by Peter John Lee and Family
Close-up of “Slave Table”
I also wonder about how my free black Byram ancestors lived in such a precarious state. What did their closeness to the Byram Bridge mean to them? Was the Byram Bridge a place to be feared as a result of the Lee kidnapping? Did they themselves fear being kidnapped and sold into slavery in the South? I am sure they knew Peter John Lee and his family. They were also literate so they would have been able to read the newspaper accounts of his capture. The fear of being kidnapped was REAL for both free and enslaved people and the Peter John Lee case only magnified that fear.
The Lyon Circumstantial Case For A More Active Involvement in Anti-Slavery Activities Than Previously Thought
I visited the Thomas Lyon House a week ago for the first time and had a tour. I was lucky enough to be accompanied by my cousin Pat, Jo Conboy and Eric Brower, both of the Greenwich Preservation Trust. It was great being in a space that I knew my ancestors occupied. Both Jo and Eric were kind enough to explain the details of the house to us. The former location of the old James Lyon House, where Simeon, Mary and Jack lived, was pointed out to me. It was directly across the street from where the Byram Bridge still stands today.
My cousin Pat, me, and Jo ConboyByram Bridge in 2016
As I stood outside the Thomas Lyon House, my mind kept going back to Seth and Gilbert Lyon. There had to be a lot more to their story other than harboring a fugitive slave. I have many black abolitionists in my family from Newark, NJ. One of them was an Underground Railroad station master named Jacob D. King, who built his UGRR houses in Newark in 1830, so my gut reaction was that there had to be more info out there about the Lyon cousins. Were they just “farmer-mariners” who were benevolent to employ someone like Peter John Lee or were they more involved in the anti-slavery movement than previously known? Did the Lyon family’s Quaker origins have an influence on them? My inquiring mind wanted to know. I asked both Jo and Julie if they knew anything else about Seth and Gilbert and they said they didn’t know anything else about them. I also began wondering if they were involved in the transportation of fugitive slaves. They did have sloops, didn’t they?
What else could I dig up on the Lyon cousins? In order to understand the Lyon cousins, we need to look at the larger socioeconomic and historic context in which they lived. What follows below is just the beginning of my research on my distant Lyon cousins. I immediately asked my cousins Julie and Chris about where their Lyon ancestors went to church. Julie said she had no idea, but Chris immediately told me that her Lyon and Husted ancestors went to Second Congregational Church. So, that is where I decided to start looking.
In Chains Unbound: Slave Emancipations in the Town of Greenwich, Jeffrey B. Mead mentioned that there were no anti-slavery societies in Greenwich and that the abolitionism was to be found in The Second Congregational Church, the Stanwich Congregational Church, and the North Greenwich Congregational Church. Abolitionists were actively involved in anti-slavery and Underground Railroad activities in and around Greenwich, CT in the early 1800s. One of these abolitionists was Deacon Silas H. Mead who was a deacon at the North Greenwich Congregational Church and who routinely spoke out against slavery. Another abolitionist was Shubral Brush of the Stanwich Congregational Church who likewise took up the abolitionist call. Then there was Deacon Jonas Mead of the Second Congregational Church. Deacon Mead was a well-known Greenwich abolitionist and Underground Railroad station master who routinely hosted prominent abolitionists in his home. He was also the Vice-President of the Fairfield Anti-Slavery Society and lived in Byram. [ I should add here that, in 1829, Rev. Lyman Beecher, father of Harriet Beecher Stowe, an ardent abolitionist in his own right, preached at Second Congregational Church.] Clearly, this church believed in the anti-slavery cause. Regarding Second Congregational Church, this is the church of my Green-Merritt ancestors as well as many members of the Lyon family, including Drake and Nancy Lyon Husted.
Knowing that the Lyons and the Husteds went to this particular church made me wonder if sitting in the very pews of this church had a larger impact on the Lyon family. Did being exposed to abolitionist/anti-slavery sermons and lectures in church make them more likely to take up the cause of a fugitive slave? Did Gilbert march into the NY Sun office two days after the Lee kidnapping because he himself believed in the anti-slavery cause or was he just advocating on behalf of his cousin Seth to get his employee back? And what about our Jack and other black Byram ancestors who also sat in the very same church? Did they take up the abolitionist cause? Did they aid their Lyon cousins in their anti-slavery activities? Maybe. What we do know is that Second Congregational Church was indeed a beacon of light for those who stood against the evils of slavery. It was within the walls of this church that people found support for their anti-slavery positions.
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Deacon Jonas Mead/Fold3
One of the things that I was amazed to discover was just how close Gilbert Lyon lived to the abolitionist Deacon Jonas Mead. Gilbert lived directly across the Byram River from Deacon Mead. There is no doubt in my mind now that Gilbert would have been intimately acquainted with Deacon Mead and his beliefs both in and outside of church. Deacon Mead also hosted noted abolitionists like Dr. Erasmus Hudson, who was a member of the Connecticut Anti-Slavery Society and an agent of the American Anti-Slavery Society, at his home. For Jonas Mead to host him in his home meant that he had a ready anti-slavery audience waiting to receive updates on anti-slavery activities at both the state and national level. Gilbert and Seth may have known about and attended Deacon Mead’s anti-slavery meetings.
Map showing Thomas Lyon House, Gilbert Lyon, and Deacon Jonas Mead
Another discovery I made was that Seth, Gilbert, Gilbert’s son Alvah, and Thomas Lyon were members of the Whig Party. This is important because Northeastern Whig Party members were known to be businessmen who opposed slavery unlike their Southern counterparts. That the Lyon cousins were actively involved in Whig politics definitely posits them on the right side of history. Without a doubt, I believe that this is additional evidence that they did hold anti-slavery views and that they sounded the alarm about what happened to Peter John Lee because they were fundamentally opposed to the institution of slavery.
Hartford Times, April 15,1837
Hudson River Chronicle, August 14, 1838
Hudson River Chronicle, October 22, 1839
I should note that the Whig Party also included men like Deacon Silas H. Mead of the Stanwich Congregational Church— a man who was also a Greenwich Board of Selectman serving with Julie’s great-grandfather, Underhill Lyon. We can assume that Deacon Silas H. Mead also knew the Lyon family well because of their ties to the Whig Party. In addition, Greenwich was still a small community and most people knew each other. That both Seth and Gilbert Lyon were prominent members in their community makes this especially likely.
Hartford Daily Courant, September 9, 1840
The Whig Party fell apart in 1852 over the issue of the expansion of slavery in the newly acquired West Coast territories as well as the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 — a law that did not have the support of Northeast Whigs. After the collapse of the Whig Party, Northeastern Whig Party members became Republicans —the Party of Lincoln.
Now What About Our Greens?
Another research trail I am pursuing, which may or may not link to our distant Lyon cousins, is of a second Underground Railroad House in our extended family. This house was owned by Hawley Green, a cousin of my 2nd great-grandfather George E. Green. Hawley and his wife Harriet owned an Underground Railroad House at 1112 Main Street in Peekskill, NY. He bought this house from James Brown, a well-known Quaker anti-slavery proponent.
From Freedom Journeys: Black Civil War Soldiers and The Hills Community, Westchester County, New York by Edythe Ann Quinn, p. 27.
Hawley Green’s Underground Railroad House in Peekskill, NY Photo by John J. Curran in his book Peekskill’s African-American History: A Hudson Valley Community’s Untold Story
Mary Butler presented an affadavit in support of my 2nd great-grandmother in her Civil War Widow’s Pension Application. Mary offered sworn testimony that she had known my 2nd great-grandparents for 39 years and that they met at a church function in Sing Sing (now Ossining, NY). My 2nd great-grandmother, Laura Thompson Green, was accompanied by her family members at the time and that is how she met my 2nd great-grandfather. Mary and George Butler also ended up living in Newark, NJ in the late 1800s near Laura. The Peekskill Green connection is interesting. Hawley Green (1810-1880) was the same age as Anthony’s children. There is a Jack Green who fought in the Revolutionary War who was from “The Hills” which was a border region that linked Rye and Harrison, NY. The Byram section of Greenwich was also knows as Rye and the Lyon-Green-Merritt family has strong ties to that region. It may be that Jack Green is Anthony’s brother and an ancestor to Hawley. We also think that it is also quite possible that one of our Green female ancestors may have married generations later into Hawley’s line because Maria Louisa and my great-grandfather and his sisters have a very strong resemblance to her.
We are also looking into Harriet’s background. She was married prior to Hawley so Petersen is not her maiden name. Her first husband though may be related to our extended Green family. Thomas Green, son of Allen, married Emeline Peterson whose father was William Peterson. William may have been a sibling of Harriet Peterson Green. We believe their father may have been a Jacob Peterson.
Mary Butler’s 1900 Civil War Pension Affidavit
In 1860, George E. Green was living in Yorktown, NY, one town over from Peekskill, NY with a Solomon and Dinah/Diana Heady We have every reason to believe that there is a family relationship to the Headys because they were later buried in Union Cemetety as well. John Green and Charles Merritt also lived with Lazarus Heady, Jr., Solomon’s brother, in the 1850s and 1860s. There is no record of Peg ever having given birth to a daughter. The Headys were the mixed-race descendants of Thomas Hadden (1691-1761), a white slave owner from Scarsdale, NY who had a mulatto family whom he recognized in his will.
The Headys (Solomon, Lazarus,and Jacob) in the 1840 New Castle, NY census
Solomon Heady in 1840 New Castle, NY Census
1860 Yorktown, NY Census with Solomon Heady and George E. Green (son of Allen)
1850 Yorktown, NY Census with Lazarus Jeady and John Green (son of Thomas)
Death records, years unknown, of Solomon and Dinah/Union Cemetery, Greenwich, CT
To reiterate, slave ancestor research is very difficult as documentation is hard to come by before 1800. In the 1790, 1800 and 1810 census records for Greenwich, CT, African-Americans all had the surname “Negro.” Most African-Americans were first listed as people starting with the 1870 US census. My free black ancestors were listed as people way before that and I am grateful for that. And yet, the lack of surnames is a still a brutal reminder of the property status my ancestors had and I am left with a constant craving to find those who came before my oldest ancestors. That longing will never go away.
Below are two maps of Westchester County, NY and one includes Greenwich. The circles around the towns indicate where our Green-Merritt ancestors resided in the 1800s. African-Americans in Greenwich routinely traveled across the NY state border and took up residence in these towns. During slavery, they moved with their slave owners and, when freedom came, they moved on their own and set up residence across Westchester County. In her book, Freedom Journey: Black Civil War Soldiers and The Hills Community, Westchester County, New York, Edythe Ann Quinn discusses The Hills, an area where Harrison, North Castle and White Plains meet. In doing so, she had to also discuss Greenwich, CT as African-Americans in Greenwich shared ties with the USCT soldiers from the Hills. John C. Curran’s book Peekskill’s African-American History: A Hudson Valley Community’s Untold Story likewise discusses the African-American presence, not only in Peekskill, but also in Ossining, Yorktown, Cortlandt, and other Westchester towns.
Map of Westchester County, NY
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Map of Westchester County, NY and Greenwich, CT
Returning to Hawley Green, we see that he interacted with both black and white abolitionists at the time, including Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe and a radical abolitionist in his own right, and Harriet Tubman. Fugitive slaves, who found their way to his house, were sent on to Canada in the 1830s. Hawley and Harriet Green sold their home to William Sands, another abolitionist and Quaker, in 1839 who no doubt continued their Underground Railroad activities.
I find my Greenwich Green link to their Peekskill Green cousins fascinating because there may just be more to this story that links back to Greenwich. I also ponder what other anti-slavery activities my distant Lyon cousins were doing at the time to help other fugitive slaves. What other abolitionists did my Lyon cousins know? After the Lee kidnapping, did Greenwich become a place to avoid on The Underground Railroad? Or, did Greenwich’s anti-slavery advocates and Underground Railroad station masters adapt other means of shepherding fugitive slaves northward? Is it at all possible that Lyon sloops were used to transport fugitive slaves up the Hudson River? Were there African-Americans in Greenwich who helped on The Underground Railroad? Were their free blacks in Greenwich who took part in anti-slavery societies? Were their black abolitionists in Greenwich who worked in tandem with their white abolitionist counterparts? These questions and others are definitely valid research questions to pursue. I have a strong feeling that there is so much more documentation out there just waiting to be found.
The Town of Greenwich has taken steps to acquire three abandoned cemeteries, including The Byram African-American Cemetery. Our family supports the Town of Greenwich, Conservation Commission, Cemetery Commission, Greenwich Historical Society, and Greenwich Preservation Trust as they move forward in acquiring and preserving these three historic cemeteries.
As descendants of Lyon slaves and slave owners, our position is that any change to The Byram African-American Cemetery was and is a desecration to the cemetery and to the memory of everyone buried there. The Lyon Family specifically created this cemetery as a finally resting place for their slaves as well as free blacks, who were most likely their former slaves, so it is also disrespectful to the memory and original intentions of the Lyon Family who are buried above the Byram African-American Cemetery. There should be no expectations of neutrality on this issue from the descendants of the Green/Merritt family. None whatsoever
How Does One Respond When the Memory of Your Ancestors’ Burial Ground Is Denied by Greed?”
It’s 6 am on the morning on September 23, 2016 and I am bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and I may be even just a tad bit strident, too. I had the opportunity yesterday to make our public statement about the Byram African-American Cemetery — the place where our family’s ancestors are buried along with some of the other earliest Native – and African-American residents of the Town of Greenwich. It was the first time our family has ever stood up for our ancestors and others in public. Imagine our surprise when we heard someone give voice to those who had desecrated our ancestral burial ground by greed DENY the existence of the actual Byram African-American Cemetery. I remind you that this is the same cemetery that these same people offered to put a plaque on a tree for us almost a month ago. Yes, they tried, and epically failed, to sway us with a plaque in memory of a cemetery they now believe never existed. You heard me right. I visited the cemetery with two of my cousins and we all heard the same thing. Our hearing was fine then and is fine now.
I was grateful that I had my cousins with me yesterday from both sides of the Lyon color line. They were there with me in person and via the statements they wrote in support of the Byram African-American Cemetery though all of them refer to the place as the “African-American portion of the Old Cemetery.” The reason they all refer to this cemetery this way is because that was how their own Lyon family oral history recorded it. Because none of my ancestors were able to tell us about this particular cemetery, I now take comfort in, as well as full ownership, of my Lyon cousins’ family oral history regarding the Byram African-American Cemetery. A big thank you to Chris, Charles, Julie and all my other Lyon cousins who shared this history with me. Yesterday, we sat at the hearing knowing that our ancestors were just as proud of us as they were when our other Lyon ancestors stood up for what was right in 1890. We gladly followed in their footsteps. History matters. Truth matters. Our shared family history matters and it is hidden no more. Out of the darkness of slavery born in Greenwich, we are bringing our shared family history to light together.
Lyon Cousins United
List of 17th Century Founders of Greenwich, CT
A beautiful note to me from our new cousin Chris
I sit here and now marvel at how convenient it is to claim that the Byram African-American Cemetery never existed in the first place. The more they talk, the more questions we have. Does the denial of the very existence of the Byram African-American Cemetery, and the people buried there by extension, have anything to do with them increasing the value of their prime waterfront real estate by their front-lawn hijacking of our ancestors’ burial ground? Why make up unfounded claims that are easily disputed by the documented evidence about the Byram African-American Cemetery? Did not our Lyon ancestors, who originally owned the land, have the right to determine where the Byram African-American Cemetery was located? Why should it’s shape and location even matter? Why would our Lyon ancestors stand up for our Native- African-American ancestors in 1890, which was recorded in The Port Chester Journal at the time, if the cemetery never existed? Where is the proof that a barn was ever located on the cemetery grounds for decades especially since the owner of the home conceded to protecting “The Colored Cemetery,” which was also noted in The Port Chester Journal, at the time? Why would all those Byram Lyons sign a petition in 1890 to protect the “The Colored Cemetery” if the cemetery wasn’t an actual place? Did they even consider that the Lyons, who lived all around Byram in 1890, may have actually known some of the people buried there in their lifetime which is why they stood up for them in the first place? Why would the statements of two individuals in this century carry more weight than the documented, actual words and deeds of people who knew of “The Colored Cemetery” in the 19th Century? How did their Ground Penetrating Radar Survey — one that only detected metal — become a substitute for a professional archaeological excavation that searches for the presence of human remains? Is it now more politically expedient for them to blame a previous owner rather than admit that they did all the damage to the cemetery in the first place? Why did they admit to my cousins and me less than a month ago that they had in fact “beautified the property” if they are now claiming someone else did it? Does insinuating that the Byram African-American Cemetery never existed make them sleep easier at night after they desecrated it? Does “cooperating” with the Town of Greenwich really necessitate the denial of the actual existence of the cemetery and the people buried there? Did they even consider that we can clearly see this for what it is –an illegal land grab of an abandoned cemetery — for greed? Why did they even offer to put a plaque on a tree for us when they knew what the Town of Greenwich was proposing instead? Did they really think we would want a plaque on a tree that could be taken on and off as they pleased after hearing that the Town of Greenwich was considering making the cemetery an actual historic designated African-American one? Did they even consider how INSULTING it was for us to even listen to the nonsense they proposed yesterday? My inquiring mind would like to know. My ancestors buried in the Byram African-American Cemetery, Byram Cemetery and the Lyon Cemetery would like to know. Certainly, my Lyon ancestors, who are buried above the boulder, have a very vested interest in especially knowing since they intended to create a sacred burial space so that their slaves, ex-slaves, and their slave descendants, like our family, could rest in peace undisturbed.
The Byram African-American Cemetery
Ancestor Slave Research and The Issue of Historical Erasure
For those of us who are descendants of people who were enslaved, it is a constant battle to find our ancestors without the normal genealogical paper trails that others use with ease. We are left sifting through wills and inventories, digging through enslaver family papers, searching tax records of enslavers, researching newspaper ads and articles, etc. just looking for our ancestors’ names. And even then, if we are lucky, we only have vague traces of our ancestors existence. The lack of “proof of ancestor existence” is always out there reminding us of how our ancestors lives were minimized even in death. Our ancestors were considered property and their lives were not seen as being valid — of being worthy — of remembrance. Tears. The ancestral battles we have to fight are many. So, if you wonder why I repeatedly say this in my blogposts, it’s because people need to be constantly reminded that the historical erasure of African-Americans in this country, on so many levels, is real and ever present. Once you acknowledge how hard it is to find out any concrete information on any Native -A and African American ancestor, then you can also truly appreciate the information found because it wasn’t easy finding it in the first place.
Sometimes, we search for our slave ancestors to no avail. Our family lines, by historic design, become lost to us for eternity. But when we do find our enslaved and formerly enslaved ancestors, after looking sometimes for years and years, their presence on our family trees become all that much sweeter and richer. We find a piece of our historical selves that that no one can ever take away from us again. Finding our enslaved/formerly enslaved ancestors means that we can claim victory over that aspect of slavery which was designed to prevent this sort of family reunion in the future. When I found our Peg and Anthony a year ago, I won’t lie, I danced, screamed, shouted and I will continue to do so. We got the victory for sure.
On the Byram African-American Cemetery
Our family is an old Greenwich family with Euro, Native – African-American Lyon roots stretching back to the 1600s. Our Lyon -Greens-Merritts were part of Greenwich when Greenwich was just a town filled with “gentleman farmers,” as our cousin Chris says. We represent that old Greenwich that can’t be denied by any newcomer. Nope. Our Lyon-Green-Merritt line left a lot of information behind over their 400 year existence in this town. The memory of where our Peg, Anthony, our other ancestors as well as other early Native -African American residents of Greenwich are buried, will not be conveniently erased now by those who have alternate agendas, seek to profit off prime waterfront real estate or by those who believe that historical homes and places don’t matter in the present. The Byram African-American Cemetery, also known by its previous name “The Colored Cemetery,” was a real physical location that existed when our Lyon family created their two other cemeteries. It existed so that their enslaved, formerly enslaved, and enslaved descendants would have a sacred burial ground of their own. Shame on those who now suggest that it didn’t exist at all. Shame on you indeed. Their wishful thinking is futile.
It’s 7 am now and I am, more now than ever, adamant about protecting the memory and cultural legacy of my ancestors, who are buried in the Byram African-American Cemetery, as well as all of the other Native – and African Americans buried there. There is no time to be wary when so much work is yet to be done and battles yet to be fought. I thank all my ancestors and extended family for keeping me strong and steadfast in this regard. We stand united still. Our ancestors are no doubt smiling down on us.
Here is the complete Board of Selectman Meeting at Greenwich Town Hall. The full discussion of the cemeteries begins at the 51:00 mark. Please click on the link here.
Though the video below deals with the desecration of an Afro-Canadian cemetery, it certainly reflects the same sentiments we feel over the Byram African-American Cemetery and the denial that it never existed. Those people buried there are our ancestors. I will
Here is Our Green-Merritt Family Statement on the Byram African-American Cemetery.
We will continue to give voice to our ancestors as well as to all the other African-Americans who are buried there. May they continue to rest in peace.
Lyon Cousins (Ana Ortiz-Hopkins, Eddie Jones, Chris Varner, Pat Bryant, and Teresa Vega)
As descendants of Native- African-Americans buried in the Byram African-American Cemetery and as descendants of the Lyon family, our family applauds the efforts of the Town of Greenwich in wanting to preserve the Byram Cemetery, Lyon Cemetery and Byram African-American Cemetery. These three cemeteries are testaments to the presence of these early settlers and to the presence of African-Americans in Greenwich from the beginning. Certainly, the value of the historic preservation of these cemeteries is without question.
Regarding the Byram African-American Cemetery, our 4th great-grandparents, Anthony and Peg Green, are no doubt buried there along with other ancestors. Our 4th great-grandmother Peg was a slave of Daniel Lyon and of Benjamin Woosley Lyon. Peg’s son Jack was a slave of Simeon Lyon. Our genetic ties to the Lyon family start with Daniel, and go back to James, John, John and finally back to Thomas Lyon. Throughout Peg’s life, she maintained a long lasting relationship with her former slave owners, even after her emancipation in 1800, that was no doubt due to the family ties that they shared —- ties that were born out of slavery personified in Greenwich. The original intent of our Lyon ancestors was to build a sacred burial place for their slaves and ex-slaves— for people like Anthony and Peg. It was to give these people a final resting place where they could rest in peace for eternity undisturbed. If any one deserved to rest in peace, it was these people who spent part or all of their lives literally slaving away. This was hallowed and consecrated land from the beginning.
Our family is relatively late to this whole cemetery issue. It was only a year ago that we were able to locate our 3rd and 4th great-grandparents and less than a month since we first heard about the infringement to the Byram African-American Cemetery that occurred 2 years ago and our feelings are still raw. Who would have ever thought that our ancestors’ burial ground would now be someone’s front lawn? We certainly didn’t expect that. That being said, we are overjoyed that our Lyon cousins – cousins whose ancestors stood up for our ancestors when the same thing happened in 1890— and other members of the Greenwich Preservation Trust, sounded the alarm about what was happening to our ancestors’ burial place in our absence. I can’t state enough how much that meant to our family. Our shared history matters. That the Town of Greenwich and the Conservation Commission produced a documentary study that details their plans to preserve, redevelop, and further interpret the Byram African-American Cemetery is also commendable. That we are now here discussing the Town’s acquisition of all three cemeteries is laudable indeed.
As someone who is both a family historian and genealogist and who has a degree in anthropology, I am looking forward to sharing any historical information I have with the Conservation Commission, Cemetery Committee, Greenwich Historical Society and with the Greenwich Preservation Trust. I want people to know that there is a long history of African-Americans in this town. Our family has a long 250+ year history in Greenwich and Greenwich has always been our hometown. Our ancestors were emancipated in 1800 and 1816 and went on to become successful farmers and laborers. They were members of the Second Congregational Church, the Stanwich Congregational Church and the First United Methodist Church in the early 1800s. When the Second Congregational Church opened up Lot 23 in Union Cemetery in 1851, for the burial of the poor and people of color, our Green, Merritt, and Husted ancestors were among the first to buy burial plots. Half of the African-Americans, who are buried in Lot 23 of Union Cemetery, are our ancestors and their in-laws. When this country needed volunteers to fight on the right side of history during the Civil War, 18 African-American men from Greenwich proudly served in the 29th Infantry of the Connecticut Colored Troops. Out of the 18, 2 were my 3rd great-uncles, 3 were my 1st cousins 4XR, and 4 were their Peterson, Banks, Watson, and Mills in-laws. In 1882, 23 African-American residents of Greenwich came together and formed the Little Bethel AME Church, the first black church in Greenwich, and our Greens and Merritt ancestors were among the founding members. While we represent only one African-American family with deep roots in Greenwich and maybe the only family here to speak on behalf of the people who are buried in the Byram African-American Cemetery, please be aware that there are many more stories that remain to be told about the African-American presence in Greenwich. I, for one, will telling those stories in the near future.
Going forward, our family sees only positive outcomes. Once the Town acquires the Byram African-American Cemetery, we hope that we can all work together to restore the cemetery, discuss its historical significance as the burial place of the town’s earliest Native – African-American residents, to forever link it to the Lyon family whose original intention was to create this part of the Old Cemetery for their slaves and ex-slaves, and to add some sort of monument to the cemetery so that further infringement never occurs again. We also support any future excavation of the cemetery to yield any scientific information about the individuals buried there as well as have a proper re-burial ceremony afterwards. The African-Burial Ground in Lower Manhattan and the Schuyler Flatts Burial Ground in Albany, NY provide excellent examples of positive community involvement and education regarding found and excavated African-American burial grounds. Again, our family is looking forward to a brighter future for the Byram African-American Cemetery and likewise for the Byram Cemetery and Lyon Cemetery.
This is Part II of a blog series about how my Malagasy ancestors arrived in NYC in the late 17th century and ended up in NJ . In Part I, I showed how one can still see the ethnic admixture that our Malagasy ancestors left our family with that show up in our DNA even today.
I dedicate this blog to all my relatives who descend from our 4th great-grandmother, Tun Snyder, and our 3rd great-grandmother, Susan Pickett, as well as to our newly-found Full Sequence mtDNA M23 cousins whose ties to our family go way back to a shared Malagasy ancestor. I thank each of you for being part of our family history.
People of Madagascar
The Global Trade in Malagasy Slaves
Before we can even discuss the DNA trail from Madagascar to Manhattan, a brief look at the global trade in Malagasy slaves is needed. Prior to the arrival of Europeans in Madagascar, there was an internal slave trade within Madagascar as well as an external slave trade up the East African Coast. In addition, starting as early as the 9th century, Malagasy slaves became commodities in the Islamic Slave Trade in the Indian Ocean. Arab and East African slave traders routinely purchased slaves in Madagascar and then sold them to slave owners in East Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, India, and across Southeast Asia (see the Schomburg Center’s online exhibit The African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean). The Portuguese, Dutch, French, British, Spanish, and American slave traders, who arrived in Madagascar between 1500-1800, thus became part of this global trade in Malagasy slaves that brought these enslaved people westward to South Africa, St. Helena’s Island, South America (e.g., Brazil and Argentina), the Caribbean (e.g., Barbados, Jamaica, and Cuba), and North America (e.g., Quebec, Canada, Boston, New York/NJ, South Carolina, and Virginia).
[While the discussion below is centered on the enslaved Malagasy people who arrived in NY/NJ in the late 1600s and early 1700s, I would like to mention here that my friend Wendy Wilson-Fall has recently published her book Memories of Madagascar and Slavery in the Black Atlantic. Her book discusses the arrival of enslaved Malagasy in Virginia. I highly recommend this book to those people who do descend from these Virginia enslaved Malagasy.]
Madagascar to New York Slave Trade
Shady NY Merchants and Pirates: A Perfect Collaboration
A sloop ship carrying slaves and purchased goods
Slaves from Madagascar were directly imported into New York City and surrounding areas, Boston, and Virginia during two time periods–primarily between 1678-1698 and 1715-1721. In the early 1670s, New York and Boston merchants first dabbled in the trade in Malagasy slaves in the Caribbean, especially in Barbados and Jamaica. To give you an idea of how large the Madagascar to Caribbean slave trade was at that time, between 1682-1687, 11 slave ships carrying 1,741 Malagasy slaves arrived in Barbados and 345 Malagasy slaves arrived in Jamaica. The 1700 Barbados census showed 32,473 slaves and half were from Madagascar. While these NY merchants first started off buying and selling Malagasy slaves in the Caribbean, they would later periodically sell the slaves who were not purchased there, in slave markets in the United States, including Boston and New York.
I should add here that Malagasy slave also arrived in Charleston, SC during this same time period as planters from Barbados were among the original settlers of Charleston. They certainly would have brought their Malagasy slaves with them. We know that a form of rice called “Carolina Gold” originated in Madagascar and was brought to Charleston in the 1680s. These enslaved Malagasy would have arrived here with rice production skills that would have been valued in the South Carolina Lowcountry.
From the book Merchants and Empire: Trading in Colonial New York by Cathy Matson (p.198)
Given the ports of call that NY Merchants would make on their return trip from the Caribbean, it is possible that Malagasy slaves also ended up in all those places.
Why Did NY Merchants Go to Madagascar in the First Place?
New York merchants went to Madagascar for three reasons primarily. First, it was all about making an even larger profit off the trafficking of black bodies. A slave in Madagascar could be purchased for 10 shillings while a slave from West Africa cost £3 or £4. There are 20 shillings per £, so it was extremely profitable when you consider that, on the New York slave market, a Malagasy slave was worth between £30-£40. To put it in further perspective, 10 shillings would be the equivalent of $500 today.
Second, NY merchants took advantage of a legal loophole in buying slaves from East Africa. Although the Royal Africa Company had a monopoly on the West African slave trade, the East India Company controlled trade in the Indian Ocean, but they had no policy regarding buying Malagasy slaves and selling them elsewhere in the world. Thus, NY merchants were able to procure cheaper slaves from Madagascar and make a huge profit. This loophole, however, only lasted for so long.
Third, NY merchants were able to expand the trade in Malagasy slaves with the complicity of unscrupulous government officials and pirates. With the aid of Governor Benjamin Fletcher, these merchants worked in tandem with pirates to trade their goods at exorbitant prices for slaves in Madagascar and for goods purchased in the East Indies, India, China, and the Middle East. To give you an example of the price inflation of these goods, a gallon of rum in Manhattan would sell for 2 shillings, but in Madagascar, that same gallon of rum would be worth £30. Needless to say, both NY merchants and government officials would invest in the NY to Madagascar voyages. This trade was illicit at best as it meant that these merchants and pirates were smuggling in goods in flagrant violation of the British Navigation Acts.
While there are some records of the ships that entered NY waters with Malagasy slaves during this time, including 8 ships that arrived in the 1690s with approximately 1,700 enslaved Malagasy, the exact number of these slaves imported into NY will never be known due to the illicit nature of this trade. We do know that Malagasy slaves first arrived in New Amsterdam on the Wapen van Amsterdam as early as 1663 with 265 individuals, out of 345 purchased, still alive which was one year before the British takeover of New Amsterdam.
7 of the 8 Merchant/Slave Ships that entered NY. The 8th ship was from an unknown private trader
The NY merchants involved in the Madagascar to NY slave trade were among the wealthiest, politically connected NY residents at the time. They included Frederick Philipse, Stephen Delancey, Nicholas Bayard, Jacobus and Stephanus van Cortland, Abraham Van Horne, Robert Livingston, Caleb Heathcote, Peter Schuyler, Rip Van Dam, Ann Lynch, and others. These merchants built their vast estates, like Philipsburg Manor in Westchester, NY and Schuyler Flatts in Albany, NY, with a slave labor force that included Malagasy slaves. These families also intermarried with each other as a way of maintaining their concentrated wealth. In addition, they took advantage of the political turmoil that was happening in the American colonies during King William’s War (1688-97) and Queen Anne’s War (1702-13). Because of a weak British government, American colonial governments came to rely on privateers to take on the French. The privateers were commissioned to capture French ships on the high seas and then split the ship’s goods with NY merchants and government officials when they arrived back in New York City harbor. What started off as privateering turned into pirating as soon as the privateers realized that they could cut out the middlemen—the government officials. Thus, the pirates and NY merchants started to work together for their mutual benefit. By the way, the pirates were just as notable as the NY merchants and included, Captain William Kidd, Thomas Tew, Adam Baldridge, Samuel Burgess, Robert Culliford, and others.
The New York to Madagascar voyage took on average 4-6 months. The NY merchants would load up their ships with small arms, ammunition, food provisions, beer, wine, clothes, shoes, seeds, books, slave trading-items (e.g., shackles, beads, iron-bars, gunpowder), etc. They would first stop at Madeira, then head to either the Cape Verde Islands or the Canary Islands. Their last stop would be St. Helena’s Island in the southern Atlantic Ocean before heading onward to Madagascar and St. Helena was the first stop on the return trip. St. Helena was colonized by the British in 1659 and was considered an essential part of the East India Company’s real estate. Any ship trading in Madagascar had a tax levied against them in the form of payment of one Malagasy slave. Over the centuries, Malagasy people formed the great majority of the island’s slave population.
Now, just imagine being in the cargo hold of a slave ship sailing for 4-6 months on the return trip to NY. It’s no wonder that the average mortality rate on these ships averaged 19% with some voyages having mortality rates as high as 31%. Part of the mortality rate was due to the fact that the enslaved were already slaves in Madagascar having been captured by other ethnic groups before being sold. The rest had to do with the despicable, inhumane conditions inherent on any Transatlantic slave ship voyage. One of the most harrowing accounts is that of the Gascoigne Galley slave ship that arrived in VA in 1721 from Madagascar with 133 slaves, out of 192 individuals purchased. The slaves on this ship had “distemper in their Eyes,” of which a great many became blind and some of their Eye Balls come out (Platt, p. 568).” These slaves were practically unsalable. Who knows what became of them. It breaks my heart knowing what my Malagasy ancestors went through during this time. Yet, they somehow managed to survive. What a strong people they were. TEARS. There, but for the grace of God go I.
I should add here that the voyages from Boston to Madagascar also included Native Americans who would eventually be sold as slaves in the Caribbean and in Madagascar. The journey from Boston would have also been in the same 4-6 month range. Hence, the enslaved Malagasy would have taken the place of Native Americans who had been in the same cargo hold on the return trip to Boston. In 1678, 40-50 Malagasy slaves were brought to Boston and sold for £15-£20 each. Such was the vicious nature and horror of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. To know that two groups of my ancestors were taken from their original homelands and exported halfway around the world is heartbreaking. Sometimes words fail me.
From Pirates of the Caribbean to Pirates of Madagascar
Madagascar became a pirate’s haven after the Port Royal, Jamaica earthquake and tsunami in 1692. With the devastation wrought by the earthquake and the subsequent British crackdown on piracy in the Caribbean, these pirates set their eyes on Madagascar, especially St. Marie’s Island and St. Augustine’s Bay. Madagascar was an ideal place to set up shop as the Indian Ocean was a major international trading region. Ships were regularly traveling between the East Indies to India and then to the Arabian Peninsula. This meant that these ships would be easy targets for the pirates in Madagascar who became known as the “Red Sea Pirates.” It is estimated that 1,500 pirates were sailing in the Indian Ocean between 1695-1700 such was the call of pirate booty.
Map of Madagascar in the 1690s
Madagascar, in the 16th and 17th century, had no central government. There existed mini-kingdoms based on different ethnic groups. The pirates exacerbated ethnic divisions within Madagascar with their trading. They also created a Malagasy elite class as they fathered children, known as zana mulata, who became powerfully locally with Malagasy women. Its interesting to note that, at the beginning of the Indo-Atlantic Madagascar slave trade, the items exchanged for slaves were things like beads, copper wire, novelties, textiles, and silver coins. However, by the end of the 17th century, firearms, muskets, and gun powder were the preferred items to be exchanged for slaves. James C. Anderson, noted that, among the Sakalava in 1699, an able young adult slave man was worth 2 muskets, 5 small boxes of powder, 5 balls, and 5 flints whereas an able young adult slave woman was worth 1 musket, 10 boxes of powder, 10 balls and 10 flints. Malagasy women, of course, were valued more for their reproductive capacity. The local demand for firearms undoubtedly fueled political instability and further slave trading.
Map featuring different Malagasy ethnic groups
Why did the Madagascar to NY Slave Trade End?
Let’s be clear, the Madagascar to NY slave trade ended solely for economic reasons that had NOTHING to do with slavery. The pirates of Madagascar ended up raiding enough ships from India in the late 1690s that the Mughal rulers in India began to openly complain to the East India Company. They even went as far as to penalize East India Company officials by imprisoning them and threaten to remove the British from their trading network. That was enough for the British to crackdown on piracy in the Indian Ocean. The measure they took included installing anti-pirate colonial governors, like Lord Bellomont in New England and NY, to combat piracy and illegal trading, establishing military courts to try pirates, as well as undertaking military operations against pirates on the high seas. The East India Company also cracked down on NY merchants who were carrying supplies to the pirates in Madagascar as well as violating the Navigation Acts by selling NY goods for profit. The East India Act of 1698 effectively ended the Madagascar to NY trade, including the trade in Malagasy slaves. Whereas the number of African slaves in 1664 New Amsterdam was only 300, after the British takeover, that number more than doubled to 700 slaves no doubt due to the great number of enslaved Malagasy imported into the colony.
This ban only lasted until 1715 when the East India Company allowed trading with Madagascar to resume under certain conditions. The East India Company went ahead and granted licenses for trading, including slave trading. Only those ships with licenses would be allowed to trade with Madagascar. Each licensed ship, with £500 worth of goods exported from England, was also required to dock at St. Helena’s island and had to pay a tax levy of nine “merchanteable” Malagasy slaves. Slaves were expected to be between the ages of 16-30, two-thirds male and one-third female. The resumption of the Madagascar slave trade was different in some ways from the earlier period in that most of the slaves ended up in Virginia as opposed to NY. Some ships did enter NYC and surrounding areas though. NY merchants, given their earlier history, were still wary of the East India Company and often masked their Madagascar cargo as being from “Africa.” From 1715-21, over 500 Malagasy people were sold as slaves in NY. That being said, Virginia received over 1,400 Malagasy slaves during this same period.
I should add here, in deference to my Boricua roots, that Malagasy slaves entered the Spanish and French speaking Caribbean during the entire Transatlantic Slave Trade. France was complicit thoughout the slave trade which actually saw the first Malagasy slaves sent to Quebec, Canada as early as 1623. France also colonized Madagascar and enslaved Malagasy were also sent to the Indian Ocean islands of Mauritius, Reunion, and Seychelles, Southeast Asia and elsewhere. Spanish slave traders bought and sent enslaved Malagasy throughout the Spanish empire. Under Spanish colonial rule, Malagasy slaves were sent to Mexico, Central America, Southwest and Central United States, Spanish Florida, the Philippines and other Pacific Islands in addition to the Spanish-speaking Caribbean. Catalan slave traders were also sailing to Madagascar in the early-1800s and directly shipping slaves to Cuba. Those slaves may have also ended up in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.
By 1721, the East India Company again stopped trade with Madagascar. Like the earlier period, unlicensed vessels also headed to Madagascar and pirate activity continued as did the burgeoning trade in goods from the East Indies. In 1720-1721, there were reports that several unlicensed ships were again carrying supplies to pirates and buying slaves from Madagascar and selling them in Brazil, the West Indies, and Virginia. The East India Company effectively ordered any ships carrying slaves from Madagascar or goods from the East Indies to be seized. After 1721, there was no direct importation of enslaved Malagasy people to the US and by the 1730s, the age of Indian Ocean piracy ended. Pirates either returned to their countries of origin, died, or were absorbed into the dominant Malagasy culture.
Malagasy people continued to enter the United States in other ways after the importation of slaves from Madagascar ended in 1721. Some were brought in by the French in New Orleans and Quebec, some arrived as slaves from the English-, Spanish- and French-speaking Caribbean and Brazil, some arrived as free Black immigrants, and some of these slaves arrived on slave ships from West Africa after slave traders left Madagascar, headed to West Africa, and then smuggled them disguised as West African slaves into the States. Fonte Felipe, in his Tracing African Roots blog, discusses how “recaptive” slaves from Southeast Africa ended up in West Africa.
Malagasy Slave Resistance: The Struggle to be Free
Though Malagasy people were enslaved, they did resist oppression in a number of ways in the colonial era. Despite having different levels of success or plain failures, the enslaved Malagasy engaged in acts of resistance and played an active role in changing the circumstances of their involuntary servitude. From the founding of Malagasy maroon communities in Cape Hangklip, False Bay, South Africa and Jamaica, to Malagasy slave insurrections on the island of St. Helena, to the Malagasy taking over of the Meermin slave ship, to slaves of Malagasy descent taking part in the NY Slave Revolts of 1712 and 1741, to the runaway slaves of Malagasy origin in NY and NJ who sought freedom on foot, these enslaved Malagasy were exercising their right to self-determination. I would like to think that some of my Malagasy ancestors stood up for themselves. Certainly, Black lives mattered to them then as they do to us now. I can only respect the decisions they made which no doubt did, or could have, resulted in their deaths. I praise their names. RESPECT!
Africans in New Amsterdam in the 1600s and Our Malagasy Ancestors’ Melting Pot Origins
People of African descent arrived with the Dutch at the beginning of their colonization of Manhattan. Juan Rodriguezwas the first person of African descent to arrive in 1613 after the Dutch claimed the territory in 1609. By 1626, the Dutch began to settle Manhattan and were actively involved in the slave trade. They imported 11 slaves into New Amsterdam that year. Geni.com has a page devoted to Africans in New Amsterdam and they have listed the following number of Africans, arriving in small numbers, up until the British takeover in 1664.
Africans in New Amsterdam 1612-1664 from Geni.com
Not only does our family descend from the first Malagasy slaves to arrive in colonial NY, our extended family line also goes back to some of the first West Africans in New Amsterdam —to Emmanuel D’Angola, one of the 20 men who arrived in New Amsterdam in 1630, as well as Hilary “Swartinne” Criolyo, a free black woman from Brazil, who arrived in 1644 with her husband the Dutch Captain Jan De Vries I. Some of the first slaves in the early 1600s came from Angola, Guinea, and the Congo and their surnames reflect their countries of origin. The Dutch West Indies Company (WIC) captured a Portuguese slave ship and brought these slaves to work for for WIC in New Amsterdam. These slaves, and others, were the ones who built the infrastructure of New Amsterdam, including the buildings, bridges, fences, and roads as well as maintained the fort. In addition, they cleared land, planted crops, loaded and unloaded ships, and were trained to be stonemasons, bricklayers, blacksmiths, etc. They were also instrumental in protecting New Amsterdam from Native American onslaughts. I should also add that Native Americans in New Amsterdam were also among the first slaves as well. Our ancestors without question intermarried with them as both Africans and Native Americans made up the enslaved population.
Emmanuel D’Angola and Hilary Criolyo/mother of Jan De Vries II, and Augustine van Dunk lines
These first Africans were later joined by other West Africans, like the Akan-Asante, Popo, Moko, Ibo, Yoruba, Adra, Jon, Ibibio, Coromantines, and others, as well as seasoned slaves from Brazil, which the Dutch controlled at that time, and the West Indies (i.e., Jamaica, Barbados, Antigua, and Curacao). The WIC also brought in “Spanish Negroes” and “Spanish Indians.” These were free blacks and Native Americans, from the Caribbean and South America, who were captured on Spanish or Portuguese ships by the Dutch and then sold as slaves in New Amsterdam. With their darker skin, the Dutch assumed that they must have been slaves.
The diversity of slaves in New Amsterdam meant that the descendants of these original Africans would have interacted with all of the above populations, including the Malagasy who would arrive decades later, as well as the white indenture servant population. This is the melting pot world our Malagasy ancestor entered when she arrived in colonial New York in the late 1600s – early 1700s. She and her descendants would have had children with slaves or free blacks who came from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. They may have also had children fathered by a slave owner as female slaves were very often at risk for sexual abuse by their slave owners and/or their male family members.
It should be acknowledged that slavery under the Dutch colonial government was dramatically different from the system of slavery that the British instituted after 1664. Perhaps the biggest difference was that, under the Dutch, slaves could become free either by being granted “half-free” status or by being granted their full freedom. Under the “half-free” status, slaves were given land which they farmed for themselves, but had to pay tribute to the WIC as well as be available to protect the colony. Their children would still be considered slaves though. If they were granted full freedom, they were free and their children inherited that status. The first slaves in New Amsterdam received their freedom in the 1640s after having worked as slaves for almost 20 years.
Likewise, under the Dutch colonial slave system, the Dutch Reformed Church recognized slave and free Black marriages and baptisms, they could take care of their children which was their responsibility, when not working for the WIC, they could hire themselves out for paid wages, they were also allowed to raise crops and animals on WIC land, and black people could bring cases to court and serve as witnesses against others. We see that the Dutch believed in maintaining the slave family unit for the most part.
With the arrival of the British in 1664, everything changed. The British immediately instituted the first laws regulating slavery the way they had done in Virginia and other southern colonies. Between 1665 and 1683, New York City’s Common Council passed a series of restrictions on the activities of slaves and free blacks alike. Some of the changes included children of slaves now could only inherit the status of their mothers, children could be separated from their family, slave masters were now able to hire slaves out for their own profit, slaves, free blacks and whites were not allowed to associate with each other, slaves couldn’t leave their master’s home without permission, etc. The list goes on and on. The codification of slavery was now complete. Within this historical context, it is not surprising that the New York Slave Revolt of 1712 happened at all.
The response of our D’Angola, De Vries, and Van Dunk ancestors was to leave New Amsterdam behind. Who could blame them? By the mid-1650s, these free blacks had been given land in an area on the outskirts of the town near the Fresh Water Pond and had been accustomed to their freedom and knew what that meant. We know that by 1670, Claes Manuel, Jan De Vries II, and Augustine Van Dunk lived near this area which was considered part of the Stuyvesant Farm which was owned by Peter Stuyvesant, the Governor of New Amsterdam. As people in New Amsterdam chafed under the British and as land became scarce, many Dutch families started to cross the Hudson River and settle in the area known as Hackensack River Valley.
Tracing My Family’s Colonial Roots From NY to NJ: All Roads Lead to the Tappan Patent
In 1683, a group of 16 individuals, primarily from the Bowery Village, purchased land from the Tappen Indians in the Upper Hackensack River Valley. This tract of land was called the Tappan Patent and was located 12 miles north of Manhattan on the Jersey side of the Hudson River. Because of a land dispute between New York and New Jersey, the land title wasn’t granted officially until 1687. As you can see below, Claes Manuel and Jan De Vries II were two of the 16 original land grantees. By 1712, they were also joined by Augustine Van Dunk. These families were considered mixed-race and would have been Dutch culturally, Their land was then inherited by their descendants upon their deaths.
By the mid- to late 1700s, as New Jersey adopted their own set of laws that restricted the movement of free blacks and slaves, the descendants of the Manuel, De Vries, and Van Dunk families moved into the Ramapough Mountains. Many were then absorbed into the Ramapough Lenapi Indiannation and consider themselves to be Native American today. Our extended family has direct ties with members of the Ramapough Lenapi that indicate our ancestors’ shared family history and culture with them. We proudly embrace our indigenous Ramapough Lenapi roots.
Tappan Patent Land Grantees
The Tappan Patent was only 12 miles north of Manhattan
Our 4th great-grandmother was born between 1790 and 1800 in Tappan, NY which was part of the original Tappan Patent. Her name was Tun Snyder and her maternal line was of Malagasy descent. We are descendants of her daughter Susan Pickett and her granddaughter Laura Thompson. Her female ancestor most likely came over in the late 1600s- early 1700 time period. Through an analysis of our DNA and DNA cousins, we know that our Pickett-Snyder line was a mix of Malagasy, West African, Lenapi, and European, primarily Dutch, people. We also have Euro DNA cousins who are related to well-known founding families of Bergen County, NJ and Rockland County, NY like the Blauvelt, Banta, Ackerman/Ackerson/Eckerson, VanBuskirk, and Demarest families. There is only one way our family can share genetic ties to these families and that would be via consensual or nonconsensual relations between our ancestors.
The Blauvelts were the slave owners of Tun and her ancestors and they were also Tappan Patent land grantees. The Blauvelts of the Tappan Patent can be directly traced to Gerritt Henricksen Blauvelt who arrived in New Amsterdam in 1646 and received a grant of 50 acres of land. The Blauvelt farm was right next door to the Stuyvesant Farm. The Blauvelts and their slaves would have known the D’Angola, De Vries, and Van Dunk families as they owned land that was also next to the Stuyvesant Farm in New Amsterdam. Could male members of the Blauvelt and free black/mixed race families have fathered children with Malagasy female Blauvelt slaves in New Amsterdam? We may never know, but it could be a possibility. However, it is certain that, after these families moved to the Tappan Patent, some of their descendants, in fact, did. All roads lead to the Tappan Patent indeed.
List of exchanged goods for Tappan Patent land
The sons of Gerritt included Johannes Gerritsen Blauvelt and Huybert Gerritsen Blauvelt—two of the original Tappan Patent land grantees. They moved to the Tappan Patent with their brothers Hendrick Gerritsen Blauvelt, Isaac Gerritsen Blauvelt, and Abraham Gerritsen Blauvelt, their sister, Margrietje Gerritsen Blauvelt, who married Lambert Ariaensen Smidt, and their sister, Marritie Gerritsen Blauvelt, who married Cozyn Haring. As you can see, the Smidts and Harings were also Tappan Patent land grantees as well as in-laws to the Blauvelts. In fact, it was Huybert Gerritsen Blauvelt who sailed up the Hudson River, with his brother-in-laws Peter Haring and Adriaen Lambertsen Smidt, to negotiate the purchase of this land in 1682 with the Tappan Indians. What we see here then is that the Tappan Patent land grantees were relatives, in-laws, and neighbors, who included two free black families among them, which in itself was unheard of at the time. They were not an unknown group of disparate individuals who randomly met one day and decided to purchase land. Nope. They were a carefully chosen, trusted group of people who wanted to found their own community away from the British which they did. They all brought their slaves with them when they relocated to New Jersey, too.
Tun was owned by Fredericus (Frederick) Blauvelt in Tappan, NY. Fredericus (1728-1809) was the son of Joseph Blauvelt and Elizabeth Van Delson. Fredericus’father was Joseph Blauvelt, the son of Henrick Gerritsen Blauvelt (1697-?), and was one of the first Blauvelts to be born in the Tappan Patent. When Fredericus died in 1809, Tun was willed to his granddaughter Ann Mabie.
Federica Blauvelt’s 1809 will mentioning Tun (Transcribed wrongly as Ton)
It should also be noted that the status of slaves changed upon the death of their slave masters. Most were inherited by the family members of slave owners while others may have been freed upon their death. What we do know is that Federicus Blauvelt’s wife Anna Maria DeWindt inherited two slaves from her father as the will below shows. Were these slaves somehow related to Tun? We don’t know for sure. All we know is that John left instructions for “his negro boy Jack and negro wench Sublie” to live with his daughter and her husband after he died and for Anna Maria to look out for Sublie as she grew old. Tun would have known these individuals as she lived with them.
Tun was sold or loaned out out a couple of times as a slave and finally ended up with the family of Gerrit Ackerman whose family was also from the Tappan Patent. The Ackermans (also known as Ackersons/Eckersons) intermarried with the Blauvelts, Demarests, and others. Tun labored as a “servant slave” most of her life. In his 1846 will, Gerrit Ackerman instructed his sons to look after her and even willed her son Samuel property in the form of a house. She died in 1881 in Saddle River, Washington County, NY.
I will be writing a separate blogpost in the future on Tun and her ancestors as my cousin Andrea and I are now going through all the Blauvelt wills, Bergen County and Rockland County vital records, etc. searching for clues to her ancestry. So far, I have located the wills of 6 Blauvelts who passed their slaves down to their descendants or freed them. Tun’s story is yet to be told. Stay tuned.
The DNA Trail Continues: Our Full Sequence M23 mtDNA Cousins
Some of our M23 mtDNA cousins
Last year, my cousins Andrea and Helen took Family Tree’s Full Sequence mtDNA test to see what else we could find out about our maternal Malagasy line. A year later, we have 9 Full Sequence mtDNA cousin matches who share our M23 haplogroup. I have been in touch with 6 of our 9 FS mtDNA cousins and we have learned several things about their family histories. We haven’t found our common ancestor and may not be able to do so given the nature of slavery.
So what gave we learned? Four out of our 6 mtDNA cousins have ties to the NY/NJ area along with my family. Two mtDNA cousins, Brenda and “Donnie”, are actually 5th cousins who share the same set of 4th great-grandparents who were born in Nova Scotia. Their 5th great-grandmother Rose Fortune was born in VA and who, as a 10 year old girl, boarded a ship in NY to Nova Scotia at the end of the Revolutionary War. Her parents were Black Loyalists and their family is documented in The Book of Negroes. We have found some documentation that their 6th great-grandparents were from Philadelphia and were owned by the Devoe family.
The Devoe family were French Hugeunots who arrived in New Amsterdam in the late 1600s and who settled up and down the Hudson River before some of their descendants moved to NJ and PA, including Philadelphia. We have found documented evidence that in 1762, Captain Michael Devoe of Ulster County, NY, had taken out a runaway slave ad for his slave Prince who was of Malagasy descent. Prince was a valuable slave as he had nautical skills that were very much needed on the Hudson River and his loss would have been keenly felt. Clearly, the Devoes had acquired Malagasy slaves in NY and the children of those slaves would have been inherited by their descendants.
Runaway Slave Ad for Prince
Hudson River Counties
On the map above, one sees how close Ulster County is to NYC as well as to Albany, Westchester, Putnam, Rockland counties. NY merchants involved in the NY to Madagascar slave trade had vast estates in all these counties. Again, the Malagasy slaves who arrived in the late 1600s and early 1700s would have been sold up and down the Hudson River region and beyond.
We have identified the family line of the two other M23 mtDNA cousins, Lois and Dorothy, who match my family. That line is the Timbrook-Titus line and this line originates in the Greater New Brunswick, NJ area. In the 1870s, my family has a Rev. Isaac Timbrook living with our Thompson-King ancestors in Newark, NJ and a Violet Timbrook is living in a house owned by our 3rd great-grandfather Cato Thompson, who was married to our M23 3rd great-grandmother Susan Pickett, in the 1850s. The Timbrooks are related to our Malagasy descended Pickett-Snyder line. Lois has a 4th great-grandmother named Sarah Timbrook Titus who was also from New Brunswick. We believe Isaac is her nephew, the son of her brother Edward Timbrook. Dorothy is connected to a Fanny Titus who may be related to this family line as well. We are still sorting out the family relationships, but we do know that this is the one family line that may link to our common Malagasy ancestor.
Our mtDNA matches from South Africa, St. Helena, Barbados, New York and Nova Scotia
Our 5th mtDNA cousin Rhoda is an outlier in that her roots are in the South. To date, all of the people in the Malagasy Roots Project who have the M23 haplogroup have been found with ties to the Northeast. Of course, more people need to be tested to see if other haplogroups found in Madagascar are also present in this geographical area. What is interesting about Rhoda is that she highly likely had an ancestor of Malagasy from the NY/NJ area who was sold South at some point.
My friend Richard Sears Walling has recently been publicizing an illegal slave trade that occured in NJ in 1818 whereby about 100 African-Americans, both free and enslaved, were sold South into slavery by Judge Jacob Van Wickle. This slave trade occured in the New Brunswick/Old Bridge, NJ area and it is quite possible that all of us may have had an ancestor who may have been sold South in this trade. It should be noted that in 1850, Isaac Timbrook is working as a farmhand on a farm owned by the great-nephew of the judge, Steven Van Wickle. The interconnections between people and places does serve as a backdrop to our potential shared history.
Lastly, our 6th mtDNA cousin Alan has a grandmother who was half-Malagasy/half British and who was born on the island of St. Helena. This island was the first stop on the return trip from Madagascar. An import tax was paid in the form of Malagasy slaves on ships that arrived in St. Helena’s port. For Alan to be related to all of us means that we either shared a common ancestor in Madagascar whose descendants ended up in two different locations or maybe two females ancestors became separated when a ship from Madagascar stopped in St. Helena on its way to New York. Alan’s connection to our M23 cohort is of particular interest as it shows the importance of St. Helena as a stopover point on the way from Madagascar to New York. Alan can trace his maternal ancestry back to his 3rd great-grandmother, Sarah Bateman, who was born in 1815 on the island of St. Helena. Her maternal ancestors were Malagasy for certain.
Alan was so kind to share a family photo of his grandmother and mother taken in the early early 1900s as well as photos of Malagasy people in St. Helena. He is lucky to have such an important connection to Madagascar.
Alan’s grandmother, Elizabeth Annie Scott, holding his mother, Mabel Elizabeth Harvey, as a baby in St. Helena
Malagasy people in St. Helena
A market day in St. Helena
Another market day in St. Helena
View of St. Helena
Historical Truth and The Schulyer Flatts Burial Ground Revealed
One of the hardest things we have to do in researching our slave ancestors is to dig DEEP for the truth that exist somewhere out there about their lives. Our ancestors were stripped of the normal genealogical paper trails that others can find with ease for often they were just counted as property in between all the other non-human goods in inventories and wills. Many times they were also buried in unmarked graves, in unmarked or lost cemeteries, that have long since returned to Mother Earth or were just built over. How then can we reclaim these ancestors who are our own? How can we reconstruct their lives when we seemingly have no clues as to who they were or where they came from?
My 3rd cousin Andrea and I took the 23andme DNA test three years ago in order to break through our genealogical brick walls. DNA tests were becoming popular then and we felt like we had nothing to lose. How can you lose anything when most genealogical records do not exist for your slave ancestors? We lucked out when Andrea’s mtDNA haplogroup came back M23. She is a matrilineal descendant of our shared 2nd great-grandmother.
Descent from Laura Thompson Green, our mtDNA M23 2nd great-grandmother
When we got Andrea’s results back, we were amazed at the haplogroup designation which originated in Madagascar. We went on to test our other M23 cousins, including our 100-year old Cousin Helen whose grandmother Mary was a sister of our 2nd great-grandmother Laura. An unknown window to our family history opened up to us. This was one African country, without question or hesitation, that we knew we could now call our own. It was then that we both started to embrace the opportunity that this M23 haplogroup had given us and we became obsessed with finding out how our Malagasy ancestors came to the NY/NJ region. This blog post is an attempt to answer that question. We may never know the name of our original Malagasy ancestor, but we now know how, where, and when she arrived in colonial NY and her descendants ended up in NJ. That is a whole lot more than we ever knew before our DNA test. It was this ancestor who gave us the gift of her M23 mtDNA that allowed us to follow the trail back to her and to discover the socio-historical events that circumscribed her life. We are so grateful to her for we have now reclaimed that which slavery took from us — one segment of our roots, our Malagasy roots.
We will never know where our earliest ancestors of Malagasy descent are buried. But, in 2005 in Colonie, NY, an unmarked slave burial ground was discovered there. The historical erasure of these fourteen nameless individuals, who were found in the Schuyler Flatts Burial Ground, was to be no more. The remains found included one man, 6 women, 2 children, and 5 infants. By historic design, we know little about them. What we do know is that, after a mtDNA testwas performed, 4 were designated as being of West African/Central African descent, 1 descended from a Native American woman and was of mixed-race, and 2 sets of remains were from women of Malagasy descent with a M haplogroup designation. The Schuyler Flatts Burial Ground should be viewed as a stand-in burial ground for all those forgotten slaves who toiled all over colonial New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. The re-emergence of this burial ground is a testament to the fact that the some of the earliest slaves in colonial NY/NJ were Native American, West African, and Malagasy. It is also a testament to the indisputable fact that there are many African-Americans, my family included, who have historic ties to this land that predate most of the other non-Native American immigrants who became Americans much later on.
The Schuyler Flatts Burial Ground was built on land owned by the Schuyler familly. Peter Schuyler, who occupied the estate between 1711-1723, was one of the NY merchants involved in the Madagascar to NY slave trade. He, along with his brother-in-law Robert Livingston, routinely invested in ships that made the trip to Madagascar to sell goods and then returned with enslaved Malagasy in their cargo hold along with other items for sale. He also owned sloops that trafficked on the Hudson River from Albany to Manhattan and owned property in Manhattan, Bergen County, NJ, Westchester, and Albany, NY. On those properties were no doubt slaves of Malagasy descent among others. Schuyler may be remembered for many things, but, make no mistake, he was one of the players in the NY slave trade. For those of us with Malagasy roots, he will be remembered for being actively involved and complicit in the NY to Madagascar slave trade along with all the other NY merchants families. — the Philipse, Livingston, Van Cortland, Delancey, Bayard, Lynch, Van Dam, Van Horne, Heathcote, and other families — who sold our ancestors into slavery.
I am not one to sanitize a historical truth when it involves my ancestors. History needs to be understood as it was experienced by everyone and not the chosen few. As far as I am concerned, the lives of my slave ancestors are just as valuable historically as any other person who ever lived. Their lives did not happen in a historical vacuum and their stories need to be told. Their lives were indeed valid. I can’t over-emphasize how important it is for us to seek out our ancestors’ stories. All of us, who are descendants of slaves, need to reclaim the lives of our ancestors so that others may learn of their existence and their contributions to American society. We owe it to them NOT to continue to aid in their historical erasure. If we do not do it, who will? The choice is ours. Let us all then shine a light on those who came before us. Our ancestors are always with us and their stories are encoded in our DNA.
References
On Colonial New York:
Berlin, Ira. Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. 1998.
Goodfriend, Joyce D. Before The Melting Pot: Society and Culture in Colonial New York City, 1664-1730. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 1992.
Cohen, David Steven. The Ramapough Mountain People. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. 1986.
Harris, Leslie M. In the Shadow of Slavery: African-Americans in New York City, 1626-1863. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. 2003.
Hodges, Graham Russell. Root & Branches: African Americans in New York & East Jersey, 1613-1863. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press. 1999.
Lepore, Jill. New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery, and Conspiracy in Eighteenth Century Manhattan. New York, NY: Vintage Books. 2007.
Matson, Cathy. Merchants & Empire: Trading in Colonial New York. Baltimore, MD: The John Hopkins University Press. 1998.
Taylor, Alan. American Colonies: The Settling of North America (The Penguin History of The United Sates, Volume 1). New York, NY: Penguin Books. 2002.
Shaw Romney ,Susanah. New Netherland and Connections: Intimate Networks and Atlantic Ties in the Seventeenth-Century America. Chapel Hill, NC:University Prss of North Carolina. 2014.
Wills Foote, Thelma. Black and White Manhattan: The History of Racial Formation in Colonial New York City. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. 2004.
On Madagascar:
Allen, Richard, Ed. European Slave Trading in the Indian Ocean, 1500-1850. Athens,OH: Ohio University Press, 2014.
Armstrong, James C. “Madagascar and the Slave Trade in the Seventeenth Century.” Omaly sy anio (Antananarivo University of Madagascar), no. 17 (1983): 211:34.
Elphick, Richard and Hermann Giliomee, Eds. The Shaping of South African Society, 1652-1840. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. 1979.
Hopper, Jane. “Pirates and Kings: Power on the Shores of Early Modern Madagascar and the Indian Ocean.” Journal of World History, Vol. 22, no. 2 (June 2011) : 215-242.
Judd, Jacob. “Frederick Philipse and the Madagascar Slave Trade.” New York Historical Society Quarterly 55, no. 4 (October 1971): 354-74.
Manning, Patrick. The African Diaspora: A History Through Culture. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. 2009.
McDonald, Kevin P. Pirates, Merchants, Settlers, and Slaves: Colonial America and the Indo-Atlantic World. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. 2015.
Platt, Virginia Bever. “The East India Company and the Madagascar Slave Trade.” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., 26, no. 4 (October 1969): 548-77.
Sheriff, Abdul. Dhow Cultures of the Indian Ocean: Cosmopolitanism, Commerce and Islam. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. 2010.
Vernet, Thomas. “Slave Trade and Slavery on the Swahili Coast, 1500-1750.” In Slavery, islam, and Diaspora, edited by Behnaz A. Mirzai, Ismael Musah Montana, and APul E. Lovejoy, 37-76. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. 2009.
Wilson-Fall, Wendy. Memories of Madagascar and Slavery in the Black Atlantic. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press. 2015.
On Native American Slavery:
Newell, Margaret Ellen. Brethren by Nature: New England Indians, Colonists, and the Origins of American Slavery. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 2015.
Resendez, Andres. The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2016.
On Spain’s Involvement in the Slave Trade:
Fradera, Josep and Christopher Schmidt-Nowara, Eds. Slavery and Anti-Slavery in Spain’s Atlantic Empire. New York, NY: Berghahn Books. 2013.
Henry S. Lyon is a distant cousin of mine via an unknown Lyon slave owner ancestor. It appears that in 1890, he stood up for the people buried in The Byram African-American Cemetery. That he stood up is indicative of the fact that the Lyon family —the family who created the cemetery for their slaves and ex-slaves— has always sought to protect the land that they saw as part of their Old Cemetery. In my discussions with a few of my Lyon cousins, it is clear that The Byram African-American Cemetery has always been seen as hallowed and consecrated land by the Lyon family and it has always been considered a part of the Old (Lyon) Cemetery.
It is also highly likely that there are other Native American and African-Americans buried there who, like my ancestors, are genetically related to the Lyon family. My family are descendants of Peg who was originally owned by Daniel Lyon and who was emancipated in 1800 by his brother Benjamin Woolsey Lyon. Peg, her husband Anthony, her other ancestors, and maybe 1-2 of her sons may be buried there. Through DNA, we are linked to the Lyon family line which includes Benjamin Woolsey and his brother Daniel > James > John >John > all the way back to Thomas Lyon, one of the original Lyons who settled in Greenwich in the mid-1600s. All of my relatives who tested at AncestryDNA have DNA cousins who trace back to multiple Lyon lines, including to Daniel. DNA has the power to uncover hidden truths and it has done so in this case.
As the article points out:
“But the people in the neighborhood did not like to have the consecrated ground developed for personal use, and Mr. Lyon circulated a petition to the Selectman to have the barn removed though he himself did not sign the petition. There was a large number of signers, however, Mr. Waterman knowing the part Mr. Lyon had taken in the matter, naturally looked upon him as the enemy.”
It must be noted (see 1890 map below) that the neighborhood was filled with my Lyon ancestors. Facts matter….. History matters… All my ancestors matter…The restoration of the Byram African-American Cemetery matters… Its historical designation as an Native – African-American cemetery matters… Above all, the people who are buried there matter… And I stand humbled in knowing that my extended Lyon family understands that our shared family histories, born out of slavery in Greenwich, CT, still matter, too. We stand united even today.
Port Chester Journal 5/19/1890
Port Chester Journal 5/22/1890
The photos below are from the Historical Perspectives Documentary Study that the Town of Greenwich Conservation Commission put together and which can be found here.
Clarification: The Town of Greenwich is taking steps to acquire three abandoned cemeteries, including The Byram African-American Cemetery. My family and I have every reason to believe that the town will do right by the descendants of every single individual who is buried in this cemetery to make sure that this cemetery is maintained as a sacred historical site. Our issue is not with them. I should make that clear.
As descendants of Lyon slaves and slave owners, our position is that any change to The Byram African-American Cemetery was and is a desecration to the cemetery and to the memory of everyone buried there. The Lyon Family specifically created this cemetery as a finally resting place for their slaves as well as free blacks, who were most likely their former slaves, so it is also disrespectful to the memory and original intentions of the Lyon Family who are buried above the Byram African-American Cemetery. There should be no expectations of neutrality on this issue from the descendants of the Green/Merritt family. None whatsoever.
What Do You Say to Your Ancestors When You Find Out That Their Burial Ground Was Desecrated by Greed?
The Byram African-American Cemetery in 2016
It’s August 30th, 2016 at 3:20 am in the morning and I can’t sleep. I can’t sleep because my heart is heavy, my mind is unsettled, and I can hear my ancestors calling out for justice. Almost a year ago, I was able to break through an over decade genealogical brick wall on my maternal Green/Merritt line. I finally located my third and fourth great-grandparents and learned their names. I called their names out loud and clear —Peg, Anthony, Allen and Mary. I was so loud that I brought them all back to life, figuratively speaking, so that now they could officially be remembered. I went even further and took the time to learn all about them. This led me to blog about my proud Green and Merritt ancestors from Greenwich, CT. They were among my first slave ancestors, both Native – and African-American, who walked the path towards emancipation and onward to freedom—- heads, no doubt, held high.
The Byram African-American Cemetery in 2009
I am the daughter of Joyce Greene Vega, the granddaughter of Richard W. Greene, Jr., the great-granddaughter of Richard W. Green, Sr., the great-great granddaughter of George E. Green, the great-great-great granddaughter of Allen and Mary Green, and the great-great-great-great granddaughter of Anthony and Peg Green. Hear me now, the Greens ARE from Greenwich, CT and they were Native and African descent with some European thrown in the mix. Our family history in Greenwich spans over 250 years. Greenwich certainly can be called our hometown. My ancestors were a part of Greenwich before most of the people living there now ever called Greenwich their home. Historical facts matter and my ancestors’, and the other Native-African lives buried in the Byram African-American Cemetery, mattered …even in death.
Just because my earliest ancestors were born Lyon slaves does not mean their lives were not valid. Just because the cemetery that they were buried in had no tombstones or grave markers does not mean someone had the right to disturb their graves. That ground was hallowed ground. Did they even consider that there were people who were buried there? Did they not know that their descendants were still around waiting until God saw fit to reunite their family? Did they not know that all cemeteries are sacred spaces? Did they not know that to mess with the dead is to invite The Unwanted? Did they think we wouldn’t notice that our ancestor’s remains and other remains were disturbed? Did they think that a plaque on a tree honoring The Byram African-American Cemetery would make up for their wanton destruction of the cemetery? Or, was the value of prime waterfront real estate just too good to pass up that parts of the oldest Native- and African-American cemetery in Greenwich had to be destroyed and remains desecrated? My inquiring mind would like to know. My ancestors buried there would also like to know.
Waterfront Views
I can still hear my ancestors calling me at 4:30 am and I just answered them back. It was only appropriate that I did so as I was taught to respect my elders…even in death. I told them not to worry even though truthfully I don’t know how to comfort the restless dead. I can only pray for their spirits to find peace. But, I was able to tell them that, as long as their descendants are still living, we will have their backs. We will be their unified voice to articulate their pain, loud and clear, with our heads held high…just like they showed us when they walked towards freedom.
God bless my Greenwich ancestors, both enslaved and free, whose life stories I am honored to tell almost 250 years later. We call your names so you will be remembered by all.
My Greens: George E. Green, Richard W. Green, Sr., Richard W. Greene, Jr. and Joyce Green Vega
I dedicate this blogpost to the following people: My cousin Andrea Hughes, who remains my main research partner and whose research skills were instrumental in my writing this blogpost; My grandfather, Richard W. Greene, Jr., who instilled in me a love of family history and pride; and to all my immediate and extended Green and Merritt family members who should feel proud that we descend from a group of people who survived slavery and went on to prosper. We are because they were. We come from strong New England stock indeed.
I would like to acknowledge the following people who have aided me in my research: Jeffrey Bingham Mead, whose all-important book, Chains Unbound: Slave Emancipations in the Town of Greenwich, Connecticut, presented me with the emancipation records of my 4th great-grandparents and who has been a great overall resource; Christopher Shields, Archivist at the Greenwich Historical Society, and Sheri Jordan, Director of the Rye Historical Society, both of whom helped me locate critical documents related to my ancestors; Barbara Lowden, Assistant Registrar of Vital Statistics at Greenwich Town Hall, for helping me search for my ancestors’ vital records, and Jean Thomson, Archivist and Historian at Second Congregational Church in Greenwich, for identifying church records pertaining to my ancestors.
Our Family’s Enslaved Roots
My Green and Merritt family history begins with my 4th great-grandparents, Peg Merritt and Anthony Green (also referred here as Tone). They were members of the pioneering enslaved class that began the walk to freedom so to speak. Their emancipation journey was long, arduous, difficult, and precarious at best. What follows below is an account of my ancestors slow crawl out of slavery and their slow jog to freedom. The fact that my enslaved ancestors persevered and eventually prospered is a very American story that needs to be told. I am honored to be able to tell their story.
Unlike most African-Americans who face a real struggle in locating their ancestors before 1870 —the year that African-Americans were first listed as people by their name—I was blessed to have been able to find a paper trail for my Greenwich ancestors that goes back to the late 1700s. As you will see below, this paper trail includes bills of sale, a letter of indenture, emancipation records, land records, wills, census records, etc. Because my ancestors were enslaved in the North, they were emancipated earlier and this led to an accumulation of records concerning them. However, before Peg and Anthony’s story can be told, a short overview of slavery in Connecticut is needed.
Overview of Slavery in Connecticut
The first African people to arrive in Connecticut came as the first colonial settlements were founded in the mid-1600s. These enslaved people were few in number. It must be mentioned that Connecticut slavery also included enslaved Native Americans who later intermarried with the burgeoning enslaved Black population in a way that alowed them to survive genocide, dispossession, and settler colonalism. However, as the wars with Native Americans continued and Native Americans were being decimated in the process of colonization, the preference for captive Africans increased. By the 1700s , there is a marked increase in the number of Black people being brought into Connecticut via the Caribbean and Africa. In 1680, there were about 30 enslavesd individuals in Connecticut and, by 1774, that number increased to over 5,100 enslaved people.
As the number of enslaved people increased, Connecticut instituted their own Black Codes. These were laws, enacted between 1690 and 1730, that proscribed the relationship between master and slave. These laws also did not distinguish between slaves and Free blacks. This meant that Black people had to carry a pass outside of town, could not be out after 9pm at night, could not sell items without proof of ownership and permission of their master, could not speak out against or strike their master or any white person, could not drink in public or create a disturbance, could not receive training in a militia, etc. Violation of any of these things would result in punishment, including whippings. However, Black people in general had some avenues in court to address issues concerning them by entering petitions and pleas and by making complaints.
There are some who mistakenly argue that slavery in the North was a more “benevolent” form of slavery versus slavery in the South. I categorically reject this assumption. To be enslavd is to be forever locked into the most dehumanizing and subjugating position one can be in without relief — one’s location does not matter. To be enslaved was to be at the absolute bottom of the social hierarchy. Of course, there are critical differences in the way slavery was experienced in Connecticut than that which was experienced in the South—namely, in size and scope. For the most part, when we discuss slavery in Connecticut, we are talking about farmers having 1-2 enslaved people working either as farmhands or as domestic servants. They lived in close quarters with their slave owners. Unlike the Southern system of slavery with its large plantations and anywhere from tens to hundreds of slaves, slavery in Connecticut was very small-scale and “family-centered” in scope.
The shift in how slavery, as an institution, was viewed changed as the Revolutionary War approached in the mid-1770s. The Connecticut anti-slavery movement played an instrumental part in getting a law passed in 1774 that banned the importation of slaves into Connecticut. The hypocrisy of fighting for freedom from England while continuing to enslave Black people became apparent and so the calls to end slavery grew louder. Though emancipation bills were defeated in 1777, 1779, and 1780, anti-slavery activists did not give up. At this point in time, Connecticut had the most slaves in all of New England. Finally, in 1784, the Gradual Emancipation Act was passed.
The Gradual Emancipation Act of 1784 was the beginning of the end of slavery in Connecticut. This act freed children born to enslaved women who were born after March 1, 1784. However, these children had to serve a term until they were age 25 for men and 21 years for women. Prior to these ages, the children with in the care of their parents and/or owners and had to work for their masters. They could also be apprenticed out to others until they gained their freedom. Slave owners were required to register the births of all children born after March 1, 1784 and were penalized if they did not. Of course, there were slave owners who did not comply with the law. Unfortunately, those enslaved children, who were born prior to March 1st, 1784, were considered slaves for life or until their owners emancipated them. In 1797, the Gradual Emancipation Act was amended. The age requirement for all was reduced to a term of 21 years for all and it prevented those under gradual emancipation from being sold out of state. By 1800, 83% of the Black population was free. By 1848, the year that slavery was officially abolished in Connecticut, there were only 6 slaves left in the state.
Slavery in Greenwich, CT
Jeffrey B. Mead’s book Chains Unbound: Slave Emancipations in the Town of Greenwich, CT is the only compilation of transcribed emancipation records that exists for Greenwich’s formerly enslaved people. In this sense, it is a groundbreaking book and excellent resource for descendants, like me, of Greenwich’s early Black population. According to Mead, slave labor was never widespread in Greenwich. He mentions that, in 1762, Greenwich had a population of 2,021 Whites and 52 Blacks and, in 1774, Greenwich had 2,654 Whites and 122 Blacks. By the time of the 1790 census, Greenwich had a total population of 3,175, of which only 49 individuals owned 80 enslaved people. The two largest enslavers owned 7 and 8 enslaved individuals respectively. Most Greenwich enslavers only had 1-2 slaves.
Greenwich enslaved people lived with their owners for the most part. The Bush-Holly House in Greenwich provides an example of the type of living quarters enslaved people occupied in the enslaver’s home during slavery. Joseph McGill, of the Slave Dwelling Project spent the night at the Bush-Holly House, with members of the organization Coming To The Table, and they describe their experiences here.
From Chains Unbound:Slave Emancipations in the Town of Greenwich, CT by Jeffrey B. Mead, p. 4.
The Enslavers of Our Family
Among the enslavers of my family were Daniel Lyon, Jr., Nathan Merritt, Sr., Nathan Merritt, Jr., Simeon Lyon, Benjamin Woolsey Lyon, and Captain John Green. From my research into these families, I learned that they were all part of the same geographically close, extended family. For example, Nathan Merritt, Sr. and the mother of Captain John Green, Mary Merritt Green, were siblings. This would make Nathan Merritt Jr. and John Green first cousins. Benjamin Woolsey Lyon’s wife was Phebe Merritt Lyon. Daniel Lyon, Jr., Simeon Lyon, and Benjamin Woolsey Lyon were all cousins and all 3 were descendants of ThomasLyon of Greenwich, CT. John Green’s brother James’s children, Thomas Green, Nancy Green Husted, and Sarah Green Wilson, all maintained contact with the children and grandchildren of Peg and Anthony after their deaths. In fact, Sarah Green Wilson’s son, James Wilson, was the executor of 4 of my ancestors’ wills. From 1810-1870, the descendants of both enslavers and eslaved lived with or near each other.
It is my belief, that because the extended enslavers’ families lived in close proximity to each other, my ancestors were able to maintain a level of family cohesion that allowed them to survive slavery as a family unit. When you look at census records from 1790-1820, you see that the Merritts, Husteds, Wilsons, Lyons, and Greens all living near each other. This meant that, in some cases, Peg and Anthony were able to see their children frequently. Since both slave owners and slaves attended the same churches, this also provided a venue for them to reconnect with their children. That being said, both Peg and Anthony had to wait 30 years, from the time of her emancipation, for all their family members to be free.
Nutmeg State Enslaved: The Wait to be Free
On July 7th, 1790, my 4th great-grandmother Peg was sold to Nathan Merritt, Jr. by Daniel Lyon, Jr. She was 20 years old at the time. Because she was born around 1770, she was enslaved for life until she was emancipated. She was sold for “the sum of fifty pounds of New York money” to Nathan Merritt, Jr. As a young enslaved woman, she was subject to the whims of her enslaver which included being forced to have non-consensual relations. While enslaved with Nathan Merritt, Jr., Peg gave birth to her first son, Charles Merritt, on May, 11, 1791 and gave him the Merritt surname. Through DNA testing of a Charles Merritt descended cousin, who has a 4th DNA cousin match that descends from the family of Nathan Merritt, we know that her son Charles was fathered by a Merritt male. Her second son Jack, whose birth record recorded him as Tack, was also born when she was in the Merritt household on February 14, 1793. He was most likely fathered by a Merritt as well. Sometime before 1795, Peg returned to the Lyon family and was living with Benjamin Woolsey Lyon, brother of Daniel. This would make him the 3rd enslaver she had by the time she was 25 years old. It would also meant that she was separated from her sons as they were still owned by her prior enslaver and were considered his property.
Peg’s 1790 Bill of Sale/Rye Historical Society
Birth records of Peg’s first four sons which were required under the 1784/1797 Gradual Emancipation Act
We know that Peg met Anthony sometime in the early 1790s. Because Nathan Merritt, Jr. and John Green, Anthony’s enslaver, were first cousins, there is the high probability that they met at a family gathering of the enslavers prior to her being sold to Benjamin Woolsey Lyon. While she was enslaved by Benjamin Woolsey Lyon, she gave birth to Anthony Green, Jr. on December 3rd, 1795 and to Plato (Platt) Green on November 1st, 1798. From the mid 1790s onward, they were for all purposes a married couple.
While enslaved, Peg and Anthony had no control over their own lives or those of their children. They could be separated at any time from each other. This was very evident on August 18, 1796 when her son Jack was sold at the age of three by Nathan Merritt, Jr. who still owned him. Jack was sold for “the sum of 15 pounds of New York money” to Simeon Lyon of Greenwich.
Peg’s 2nd son Jack’s Bill of Sale/ Greenwich Historical Society
Going through Benjamin Woolsey Lyon’s will in 1809, we see that Anthony, Jr. remained enslaved in Benjamin Woolsey Lyon’s household as he is mentioned as “his negro boy Tone”. His value in 1809 was $75 and it was stated that he had to serve 25 years. Plato isn’t mentioned in his will so he may have been sold to someone else after Peg was emancipated.
Anthony, Jr. mentioned in Benjamin Woolsey Lyon’s 1809 will
Anthony, Jr.’s was worth $75 in 1809
It should be noted that Peg’s older sons Charles, Jack, and Anthony, Jr. would have been gradually emancipated after serving a term of 25 years according to the Gradual Emancipation Act of 1784. Her last 4 sons by Anthony—Plato, Allan (my 3rd great-grandfather), Henry and Solomon would have been required to only serve a 21 year term as the Gradual Emancipation Act of 1797 decreased the time that enslaved children had to serve by 4 years. This meant that Charles would be emancipated in 1816, Jack in 1818, Anthony, Jr. in 1820, Plato in 1819, Allen in 1825, Henry in 1829, and Solomon in 1831.
When Freedom Came: The Emancipation of Peg & Anthony Green
Peg was the first to be emancipated on April 12, 1800 by Benjamin Woolsey Lyon. She was now 30 years old. Among the newly emancipated, she would have had to fend for herself. Given that she was in a solid relationship with Anthony and may have been living with him then, it’s easy to assume that he may have been able to provide for her and their three sons —Allen Henry, and Solomon—born after she was emancipated, but this was not the case. Though Peg and Anthony are first recorded in the 1810 census as living as Free blacks with a household of 5, they were still not able to provide adequately for their children. In 1812, their son Henry became a ward of the town and was bound out to Nathan Merritt, Sr. of New Castle, West Chester County, NY until the 2nd day of May 1829. This letter of indenture specifically states that“with the consent and advice of Jabaz Mead, Justice of the Peace in said county put place and bind out Henry, a Negro boy (son of Margaret) a poor child whose parents do not take care of nor provide for him and who has become chargeable to the town…” In return for Henry’s labor, Nathan Merritt, Sr. was to provide “meat, drink, washing, lodging, clothing, and physic (exercise) during said term.”This letter of indentured was signed on April 15, 1812. Both Peg and Anthony may have appealed to him to take on their son Henry when they couldn’t provide for him. I would like to think that they leveraged personal ties to do so.
Actual 1810 Census Page with Anthony Green
Anthony “Negro” Green’s Family listed as Free Blacks in 1810
From Chains Unbound:Slave Emancipations in the Town of Greenwich, CT by Jeffrey B. Mead, P. 38
1812 Letter of Indenture for Henry Green/Rye Historical Society
The life of the formerly enslaved person was not easy. It was a constant struggle to survive and provide adequately for oneself. We do know that Peg had to wait another 16 years for Anthony to be emancipated after she was. On April 15, 1816, three months after Captain ohn Green died, Anthony was emancipated by his widow Mary Green and her son-in-law/nephew Thomas Green. Its worth noting that at the time John Green died, Anthony was valued at $100—the same sum of John Green’s beds and bedding items.
From Chains Unbound:Slave Emancipations in the Town of Greenwich, CT by Jeffrey B. Mead, p. 51
John Green’s Will mentioning Anthony’s value at the time of his death in 1816
Anthony had the same value as John Green’s 3 beds with bedding in his 1816 will
First Generation Freedom: From Enslaved to Landowners
After Peg and Anthony were emancipated, they slowly began to build a future for themselves and their children. It was through their sheer hardwork and determination that they were able to improve their lives. As Free Blacks, they hired themselves out as domestic servants and/or farmhands and saved money in the process. It was quite common for Greenwich slave owners to have both slaves and Free blacks working for them. On April 17, 1820, Anthony bought into a $5,000 land deal with some prominent men from Greenwich, CT and Rye, NY. These men were Thomas Green, Zopher Mead, Isaac Mead, Jabez Mead, William Robbins, Carr Robbins of Greenwich, CT and Samuel Pine, Samuel Lyon, and Elisha Belcher of Rye, NY.
Record of 4/7/1820 Land Deal/Greenwich Town Hall
There are so many questions that need to be asked about this land deal. It should be mentioned that Thomas Green was the nephew/son-in-law of John Green, Anthony’s former enslaver. Is it possible that Anthony continued to work for the Green family after emancipation? Is it possible that Thomas Green let him in on the land deal? Jabez Mead was also the Justice of the Peace who signed off on Henry’s letter of indenture. Did Jabez Mead know Anthony and Peg before this land deal? Did Samuel Lyon know Anthony and Peg from Benjamin Woolsey Lyon? In his 1840 will, Benjamin Green, a nephew of John Green, states that he is leaving land to his wife. He just happens to mention that some of his land borders the land of Mary Green and Anthony Green. Was Anthony’s property, next to Mary’s, purchased as part of the land deal? Mary and Anthony were around the same age and definitely knew each other their entire lives. Did Thomas and Mary help Anthony out? Anything is quite possible since Greenwich is a small town and there were few Blacks at the time. Anthony and Peg were well-known to the larger White Greenwich community.
1840 will of Benjamin Green’s mentioning Anthony Green’s land
As an aside, Jabez Mead, one of the men listed in the $5K land deal, is Jeffrey B. Mead’s 3rd great-grandfather. How wonderful it is to know that not only has Jeffrey been an asset to my research, but that his ancestor may have been instrumental in helping my 4th-great-grandfather accumulate wealth in the form of property.
By the mid-1820s, Peg and Anthony would see that most of their children were free. With Allen reaching the emancipation age of 21 in 1825, that meant that only Henry and Solomon were left to be freed. At some point before 1830, Peg must have passed away. We do not have an official death date for her. We don’t see her listed on the 1830 census. Peg and Anthony were around the same age in the 1820 census, but there is no woman in her age category with him in the 1830 census. When she died is anyone’s guess.
‘We do believe, however, that the most likely place for her and Anthony to be buried was in Byram Cemetry. This cemetery was built by the Lyon’s family for their descendants and included a Colored Cemetery for their enslaved and Free blacks. It would make perfect sense for Peg and Anthony to have been buried there as they were both affiliated with the Lyon family. There is no way to verify this though as no records were kept of the Black burials and no tombstones exist. Of course, this is just another way that our ancestors have been erased from the historical record.
Byram African-American Cemetery
Though Peg may have died before Anthony, both of them did get to see some of the next generation born free from the shackles of slavery. The Greens and Merritts were definitely fruitful and multiplied. Charles Merritt and his wife Catherine’s family included Abraham, Samuel, Jarvis, Ann, and Isaac. Jack Husted and his wife Helen had Nancy, Jane Ann, Sarah, and Lucinda. Anthony, Jr. and his wife Abigail expanded their family with Sylvia, Mary, Susan, Caroline, Anthony, III, and Henry. My third great-grandparents, Allen and Mary, went all out with Sarah, Thomas, Rebecca, Samuel, James, John, Charles, George, Darius, Anna, and Benjamin. Henry and his wife Tempy had Warren, William, George, Adelaide Louisa, Harriet, Frances, Susan, David, and Randolph. Solomon and his wife Lucinda only has a daughter, Ellen. We have no record for children for Plato.
It was Anthony who lived to see all his children emancipated. Without a doubt, he accepted both Charles and Jack — Peg’s oldest sons — as his own along with the five sons they had together. According to the 1830 census, his sons, Charles, Anthony, Henry, and Jack, all were living independently and working as laborers.
From Black and Free:The Free Negro in America, 1830 by Carter Woodson, p. 2
Anthony passed away sometime in 1836. We found a probate record mentioning that James Wilson was appointed the executor of his estate. His estate was only worth $198. Given that the value of his estate was low, it is safe to assume that he may have distributed his property to his sons before he died.
Anthony’s probate record in 1836/Stamford Government Center
Anthony Green’s 1836 estate value/Stamford Government Center
Second Generation Freedom: From Landowners to Freedom Fighters and More
After Anthony died, Plato, Allen, Jack, Charles, Solomon, and Anthony, Jr. were listed on a land sale record where they were selling $210 of land to a Henry Merritt of Greenwich.
1837 Land Sale Record from Peg and Anthony’s sons to Henry Merritt
This land record describes, “a certain tract of land with buildings in said Greenwich, being estate of our deceased father Anthony Green in quantity of one room, bounded North by land of Esbon Husted, East of land by Charles Merritt, South by land of Esbon Husted, and West by land of Esbon Husted.” The document was signed by Plato Green, Allen Green, Charles Merritt, Jack Husted, Solomon Green, and Anthony Green, Jr. The only son missing was Henry Green.
It should mentioned here that the man they sold land to, Henry Merritt, is NOT a descendant of Peg. Henry descends from a separate African-American Merritt line. This line can be traced back to Robert Merritt, son of Whitman, who was born in Greenwich in 1737. Whitman Merritt must have been born around 1720. This other Merritt line predates my family’s Merritt line. We know that our Charles Merritt was fathered by a White Merritt. We also know that my 4th cousin, William Merritt, is a direct descendant of this Robert Merritt AND via Joshua Green, Allen Green’s grandson. William has been DNA tested and has an African (Malagasy) haplogroup which reflects his Merritt line’s African ancestry. So, what this document tells us is that one Black family was helping another Black family purchase land in the 1830s.
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In 1840, Charles, Jack, Anthony, Jr., Allen, Solomon and Henry are living in Greenwich with their families. Plato is the only one who we can’t find in any records for after the land deal above. He may have relocated out of state or passed away.
In 1850, we see three of the Green brothers living next to each other. Solomon and Jack Husted are living independently. It’s interesting to note that Charles Merritt is listed as Charles Green. This is the only census where he is listed as a Green and it may reflect more on the part of the census taker. That person may have asked one Green brother who lived next door and was told it was his brother Charles. Again, they continued to work as laborers and owned their property for the most part.
1850 Census showing Charles, Henry, and Allen Green
1850 Census showing Solomon Green
1850 Census showing Jack Husted
I should mention here that my Greenwich ancestors started attending Second Congregational Church in Greenwich in the 1840s. In 1851, Robert W. Mead deeded three acres of land to Second Congregational Church to be used as a cemetery for poor people and people of color. These three acres, that were to become known as Lot #23, were added to Union Cemetery which was owned by the church. As soon as Lot #23 was open, my ancestors were among the first to take advantage of this burial place and bought plots. I can only imagine how important it was for some of them to have tombstones erected. As you can see, my family has 17 Green, Merritt, and Husted ancestors buried in Union Cemetery in Greenwich.
Lot #23 Plot Purchase by Greens, Merritts, and Husteds/Vertical Files/Greenwich Historical Society
Greens, Merritts, and Husteds ancestors buried in Union Cemetery/Vertical Files/Greenwich Historical Society
Throughout the 1850s and 1860s, the children and grandchildren of Peg and Anthony can be seen living with, or next to, the descendants of their family’s former enslavers. For example, in 1850, Allen’s daughter Sarah is living with Nancy Green Husted and her husband Peter. Allen’s son Thomas is living with Mary Green, the daughter of John Green and wife of Thomas Green. Allen’s son James is living right next door with James Wilson, John Green’s great-nephew. In 1850, Allen’s son Samuel is living with John B. Wilson and Anthony, Jr.’s son Henry Green is living with Benjamin Woolsey Lyon’s son, Daniel Lyon. In 1860, Allen’s son Darius is also living with James Wilson. In 1860, Anthony, Jr., his wife Abigail, and son are living with Nancy Green Husted. The close relationship between the descendants of enslavers and enslaved can’t be denied. There is something that is to be said for the continuance of such a relationship for decades. It’s noteworthy if we consider as well the fact that James Wilson is the executor of Anthony, Sr., Anthony, Jr., Allen, and Charles’s wife Catherine’s wills. I should also add here that Mary Green left $250 each to both Anthony, Jr. and Allen when she died. There was definitely a level of trust and familiarity there for sure.
Mary Green’s will
Speaking of wills, the fact that Peg and Anthony’s children even had wills is a testament to them wanting to leave their children a little better off than they were. Looking at my 3rd great-grandfather Allen’s will, we are able to get an idea of what he had accumulated during his life that was then passed down to his children. Allen left everything to his wife Mary, but, after she died, he wanted everything split between their children, Thomas, Sarah, Samuel, John, George, Charles, Darius, and Benjamin. Only James was left out of his will though he was mentioned as a son. Both Rebecca and Anna were already deceased.
Allen Green’s willAllen Green’s willAllen Green’s Personal Property
Allen left behind $1,985.07 worth of property. $1,600 was in real estate and the rest was in personal property. He clearly left valuable items behind that would be of use to his children. Cows, fowl, vegetable gardens, apples, hay, rye etc. could all be used for sustenance. Items like a horse, a wagon, farming tools, lots of furniture, a stove, grinding stones, looking glasses (mirrors), etc. would have been extremely valuable as well. When Anthony, Sr. died in 1836, his estate was valued at $198. 42 years later when Allen died, his estate was worth 10 times as much as his father’s. This should be considered progress by any manner, especially one generation out of slavery. They were making a way seemingly out of no way.
In the mid-1860s, the Greens and Merritts were witnesses to the events that were engulfing this nation as it veered towards the Civil War. The 29th Infantry Regiment, an all volunteer unit, was organized in Fair Haven, CT and mustered our in March 8, 1864 after beginning training at the end of 1863. It should be noted that the 29th Infantry Regiment was the first infantry to enter Richmond, VA at the close of the war. Of the 18 black men who fought in the 29th Infantry Connecticut Colored Troops from Greenwich, 7 are connected to my family. Direct ancestors include James H. Green, Charles E. Green, William Green, George E. Green, and Isaac Merritt. James and Charles are my 3rd great-uncles and William, George, and Isaac are my first cousins 4XR. In addition, Robert Peterson was the brother-in-law of my 3rd great uncle Thomas Green, who was married to Robert’s sister Emeline. Horace Watson’s daughter Annice was married to William Green. That my ancestors volunteered to fight in the war that gave way to the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, only a generation removed from slavery themselves, is a source of great family pride. Charles, William, George, Isaac, and Robert are buried together in Union Cemetery until this day. May God bless them for their service to this country.
George E. Green, USCT, Union Cemetery
William Green, USCT, Union Cemetery
Robert Peterson, USCT, Union Cemetery
Charles Green or Isaac Merritt, USCT, Union Cemetery
Starting in the early 1860s, we see that our Green and Merritt ancestors started to leave Greenwich for other parts of Connecticut, Massachusetts, Westchester County, NY, New York City, and New Jersey. They left to pursue work elsewhere as farming opportunities dried up in Greenwich. For example, my 2nd great-grandfather George E. Green originally moved to Yorktown Heights, Westchester County before moving to New York City to work in the hotel industry. After serving in the US Navy during the Civil War, he ended up in Newark, NJ. Henry’s daughter Adelaida Louisa moved to New York City’s Harlem and married Charles Glasby, who fought for the 20th Infantry from New York, Company K, United States Colored Troops. Allen’s daughter Sarah moved to New Canaan, CT after marrying Marcus Smith whose paternal line goes back to Ned Smith who was born in 1774 in New Canaan. Charles Merritt’s grandson Norton L. Merritt ended up in Port Chester, NY in the 1880s and finally resided in Waterbury, CT by 1900.
That being said, we did have many ancestors who did stay behind in Greenwich. Some even left a mark there. We clearly see this in 1882 when 28 members of the Greenwich black community banded together and founded Little Bethel AME Church. Of the 28 original members, there were Charles Green, Catherine Merritt, Casella Merritt, Frank Merritt, and Mandeville Merritt — all ancestors of ours. Let the church say amen!
Little Bethel AME Zion Church
The Untold Story: What Our DNA Tells Us about Peg and Anthony
1) Growing up, we had always heard that the Green-Merritt line was “Mulatto” and that this line also had Native American ancestry. After having over 10 relatives tested on this line, we can say for certain that our oral history is correct. All of us have tri-racial ancestry with anywhere from 0.6% – 4% Native American admixture. This should not come as any surprise since we have colonial roots in Northeast and the first enslaved in the Northeast, including Connecticut, were people of African and Native American descent. This is certainly seen in our ethnic composition. As seen below, our cousin LC has Native American admixture of 4%, African admixture of 52%, European admixture of 39%, 4% West Asia admixture, and 1% South Asia/East Asia admixture. As an FYI, Native Americans were not identified as such in the 1790-1840 census records. This could be seen as one way to erase Native Americans from the historical records—paper gencide.
An example of a Green-Merritt cousin’s ethnic composition
2) Looking at all of our DNA cousins matches, it becomes quite clear that we all have Euro DNA cousins who descend from the founding families of Greenwich, CT and Rye, NY. These families include the Lyon, Merritt, Mead, Green, Purdy, Sherwood, Lockwood, Husted, Knapp, and Peck families among others. Why do we share a connection to Euro DNA cousins with these surnames? Well, because we must have have some ancestors in common. This would also make sense since all my family’s White slave owners were all interrelated themselves. We all know that consensual and nonconsensual relations occured during slavery and after. This is something that some people don’t want to acknowledge. However, history can’t be denied as DNA has the power to uncover hidden truths.
Below shows a Lyon DNA cousin who is sharing 7.8 cMs with my cousin Andrea. He is a direct descendant of John Lyon who was born in Greenwich in 1706. John Lyon’s father was Thomas Lyon, a descendant of Thomas Lyon of Rye.
DNA cousin with a John Lyon ancestor
DNA cousin with descent from the Lyon family
John Lyon was the son of Thomas Lyon
3) There is a high possibility that both Peg and Anthony were “Mulatto.” The case for Peg being mulatto stems from the fact that quite a few of us have Euro DNA cousins who are directly related to a number of Lyons who descend from Thomas Lyon, including her first slave owner Daniel Lyon. I should add here that my 3rd great-grandfather Allen did name his son Benjamin Woolsey Green after Peg’s last slaveowner. The question begs to be asked why? Did he name him after a possible relative?
With Anthony, the evidence seems to be more circumstantial. It is very clear that Anthony had a special relationship with the extended Green family that seems highly preferential. That he was given the freedom to live with Peg before his emancipation, was included in a substantial land deal, owned property directly near a number of members of the Green family, had children and grandchildren living with the descendants of his former slave owners for up to almost 60 years later, and had children who received money when these slaveowners died, makes me wonder as to why? Was this just a simple case of rewarding a man who used to be enslaved by them and who may have worked for them after he was emancipated? Or, was there also a genetic component involved in this special relationship where Anthony, Sr. and his family were being looked after by their former enslavers and their descendants on some level? Was Anthony fathered by a wWite Green? Of course, this would not be the first time that a White enslaverr took care of their “Mulatto” biological children. With DNA becoming more common and being used to break down genealogy brick walls, I hope we one day have more definitive answers to these questions.
And Now You Know….
Teresa and Elisa D. Vega
Last Fall, I went to Greenwich Town Hall and to the Greenwich Historical Society to do some research with my sister Elisa. We stopped at a 7-11 to buy some drinks. The man behind the counter immediately blurted out that “we must be from the City.” In true Gemini quick-witted fashion, I responded, “Actually, we have deep roots here going back to the 1700s.” He didn’t say anything after that, but we got a good chuckle out of it. I recount this story because there are many people today who don’t know the history of Greenwich. Though my ancestors may have left due to economic reasons and some may have been priced out because of the rising property values as Greenwich because wealthier in the 1900s, some of Peg and Anthony’s descendants still live nearby. My cousin Pat lives close to the Thomas Lyon House. My cousin Ana lives in Stratford, CT. My cousin Eddie lives in Yonkers, NY. And, yes, I do live in New York City…a short train ride away.
Many people do not know that, once upon a time, there were enslaved people who lived in Greenwich, CT BEFORE the Revolutionary War. They know even less about the lives of these individuals and how they made the transition from slavery to freedom. Out of the darkness born of slavery in Greenwich, my family took the steps necessary to walk in the light of a freedom certain when emancipation came calling. I hope that in telling the stories of my ancestors that I, in some small way, rendered them visible and made their stories known. We will continue to claim Greenwich as our home because it always was.
References:
Chains Unbound:Slave Emancipations in the Town of Greenwich, Connecticut:
Black and Free:The Free Negro in America, 1830, A Commentary on Carter Woodson’s “Free Negro Heads of Families in the United States in 1830, Ed. By Alan Abrams, Sylvania, OH: Doubting Thomas Oublishing, LLC, 2001.
[Please note the updates to this blogpost found here.]
Reflections On When Yauco Came Calling: May the Circle Be Unbroken
Over a year ago, I wrote a blogpost about Juan Eusebio Bonilla Salcedo, my 2nd great grandfather. I dedicated that post to my father, Antonio Vega Noboa, and my cousin Madeline Castanon Quiles and her family, the extended Bonilla Quiles family. Little did I know, that almost 15 months later, I would have the unexpected opportunity to travel to Puerto Rico to film an AncestryDNA commercial to be shown only on TNT. Thanks to Nicka Smith, who gave me the name of a TNT contact of hers, I was able to travel to Yauco, Puerto Rico, on my dad’s birthday, meet my Bonilla Quiles cousins, and join with them in a circle, with all his descendants gathered in spirit, to pay homage to our ancestor, Juan Eusebio Bonilla Salcedo. On the evening of March 18th, we honored our bisabuelo/tatarabuelo, Juan Eusebio, the way he deserved to be. May the circle we made be unbroken, may HIS story be known and may we forever be connected to him ….
Me and MaddyYauco, Puerto Rico
Me in Puerto Rico
Bringing Darkness Into Light: Recovering Our Family History
Almost two years ago, I met my 3rd cousin Madeline Castanon Quiles. She was the AncestryDNA hint that led me to discovering our great great grandfather, Juan Eusebio Bonilla Salcedo. When I first spoke with Maddy over the phone, she told me about his assassination and, when I googled his name, there were only two references to him. One was an urban legend and one was a book reference. Maddy had grown up hearing family oral history about his death, but lacked any concrete account of his death. The day after speaking with Maddy, I went to the New York Public Library to read the book, Asesinato Politico. It was only a 50 page book that was written by the son of Juan Eusebio’s best friend, Venancio Gutierrez. Between the pages of this short book, I learned the reason why Juan Eusebio was beaten, shot in the head, lynched from a Guasima tree, gutted, his penis put in his mouth, his testicles in his pant pockets. He was then cut down from the tree, placed on the stairs leading to the cemetery behind the church, and set on fire. That is where the people of Yauco found his body smoking and wreaking of gas. Tears, tears, tears…. How many times can you kill a man?
Honoring Juan Eusebio Bonilla Salcedo
As the great great granddaughter of Juan Eusebio that was a lot to process to say the least. I grew up with my maternal great-grandmother so a great great grandfather seemed very close to me. I went from doing a happy dance because I found his maternal surname to utter despair. To learn that he was assassinated in such an “overkill” way just because he was a member of the Puerto Rican Autonomous Party, was of Taino descent, had chosen to speak out against the abuses of the Spanish Civil Guard, and had spoken up for the rights of the Boricua people, was an eye-opener for me. It was between the pages of this short book that I found out that I descended from a true Boricua hero. However, he had been left to languish in historical oblivion. That is when I decided that I had to pay homage to him by telling his story in a blogpost. I felt a real need to bring what happened to him back to life—even if it was after 125 years. There is no time limit on bearing witness to the atrocities that were committed against him. I just couldn’t have my great great grandfather be a backdrop to an urban legend or hidden behind the covers of a book. I truly believe that, as descendants of ordinary people who have done extraordinary things, we owe it to our ancestors to remember them as they were. If we don’t, who will? We are because they were. I am because he was.
The story of what happened to Juan Eusebio was never meant to be told. I know because Asesinato Politicotells us that the Spanish Civil Guard threatened the people of Yauco if they said anything about how he died and if they mentioned that the Civil Guard was involved. But, the book also tells us that the people of Yauco, at great personal costs, still testified as to what happened to Juan Eusebio nonetheless. They did this because they knew what a good man he was and that the spectacular way in which he was found was a message directed at them. Throughout this book, Juan Eusebio is described as un hijo del pueblo, valiant, humble, dignified, religious, honorable, had a character above reproach, was a true gentleman, etc. After his death, he was remembered in songs and in poems. We were lucky to have found the book Asesinato Politicoas it is the closest thing my family has to a first person account for it was told by the son of his best friend. It told me everything we needed to know about what happened to Juan Eusebio. My family is blessed to even have such a resource despite the subject matter. And thus darkness was thus brought to light.
Juan Pio Bonilla Avallanet, Son of Juan Eusebio Bonilla Salcedo
God’s Amazing Grace
As I was on the plane traveling to Puerto Rico, I realized that, although I am Antonio Vega Noboa’s daughter, I am just as equally Joyce Green’s daughter. I may not have been raised Catholic, but I was raised Christian—Baptist actually. I am still that girl who grew up going to Messiah Baptist Church, 80 Legion Parkway, Brockton, MA— the church of my mother, maternal grandparents, and maternal great grandfather. I never knew if my father had religion, but, rest assured, I know my mama and her family did. I grew up learning about what faith is. I grew up singing the old gospel songs “We’ve Come This Far By Faith, Leaning on the Lord”, “Going Up, Yonder,”and “Never Alone.” I will forever be Rice & Beans & Collard Greens.
One of the things that I learned from the book was just how religious Juan Eusebio was and what great faith he had. The God in him definitely spoke to me. The book tells us that Juan Eusebio was imprisoned for three years during the El Componte Era, an era when the Spanish colonial government rounded up members of the Puerto Rican Automomous Party, jailed, and tortured them. He was jailed from 1887-1890. Once he got out, he wrote to the man who tortured him and challenged him to a duel now that he was free— because he believed in an honor code among gentlemen. I am sure he relied on his faith to get him through those horrible three years and after.
The night before his assassination he was at church attending a baptism for one of the neighborhood children. That same night, his friends gathered and warned him not to go to the duel he had set up because they knew he might not return. Juan Eusebio had such an unshakable amount of faith that he left his best friend Venancio Guitierrez with an account of all the torture he had withstood in jail as well as the info about how his duel was set up. There is no doubt in my mind, and never will be, that my great great grandfather KNEW what may happen to him and was prepared to die. He clearly wanted his friend to bear witness so he left him with evidence just in case—evidence that was “lost” after being turned over to the powers that be when the investigation into his death was launched. He was prepared to die and was not afraid. Psalms 23 states, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me, thy rod and they staff they comfort me.” Juan Eusebio had no fear for he walked with God EVERY step of the way.
The devil’s minions wanted the people of Yauco to have the image of Juan Eusebio’s body lying down, smoking and wreaking of gas on the steps leading to the cemetery forever seared in their memories. It’s an alarming image to have indeed. But, I know that the only image that I will have is the image that wasn’t seen. It’s the image that God’s amazing grace provided. The image of the doors of Heaven opening up and the angels coming down to carry Juan Eusebio’s spirit home to meet the God he served so well. Amen! Amen! Amen!
The Making of a Libation Ceremony
I knew when I was going to Yauco that I wanted to remember Juan Eusebio with his other descendants, my Bonilla Quiles cousins, and that I wanted to have a libation ceremony in his honor. A libation is a ritual pouring of a liquid in memory of a person. Prior to this, I had never done a libation ceremony. I reached out to my cousin Luis Sanakori Ramos, whom I lovingly refer to as my “cousin preacher Taino teacher.” Luis is a Taino shaman and educator. I thank God for his presence in my life because he is the resource I go for all things Taino. When I told him that I wanted to do a libation ceremony, part of which was to celebrate Juan Eusebio’s Taino ancestry, he told me what I needed to have with me. My cousin Theresa Delgado-Tossas, when she heard that I was going to do a libation ceremony, she said she wanted to take part in the ceremony. Unbeknownst to me, she had also contacted Luis, her cousin as well, and learned the Taino welcoming song, got the items that were to be used in the ceremony, and took it upon herself to make sure things were done correctly.
Theresa and her husband Ralph, will forever be known to me as the first Puerto Rican cousins that I met in Puerto Rico and who were also instrumental in making Juan Eusebio’s honoring ceremony happen. I will never forget the songs that Theresa sang during the ceremony. She has a voice of an angel for sure. My cousin Ralph also stepped up and translated when I was speaking and I am equally grateful to him as well.
Theresa, Me, and Ralph at the airport upon arrival
Me and Luis Sanakori Ramos
When I was off shooting scenes for the AncestryDNA commercial in Guanica, Theresa and Ralph went down to the ocean and gathered up the sacred water that was used in the ceremony. Guanica is a beautiful place. Since Luis has roots in Yauco and Guanica, we brought him gifts back from the ocean as well as the mountains of Yauco. He was with us in spirit guiding us along.
Guanica, PR
Libation water from GuanicaTheresa and I sent a photo to Luis letting him know that we obtained the sacred water from Guanica. Bottled water wouldn’t do!
On the second day of filming we went up to Susua Alta, Yauco, the place where my paternal grandfather’s family resided for centuries. My Vega, Bonilla, Rodriguez, Gonzalez, Toro/Del Toro Del Rosario/Rosario, and Bracero lines are all from Susua Alta and Yauco. I truly felt their spirit and I am proud to have roots that are jíbaro puro.
Susua Alta
Susua Alta
Susua Alta, Yauco
My first time in Susua Alta, Yauco
What a great feeling it was to walk where my Boricua ancestors lived for thousands of years. Yauco is the birthplace of the great Taino cacique, Agueybana. In between filming, I looked around and found some stones to bring back with me.
Agueybana, the great Taino chief
On Friday afternoon on March 18th, 2016, the descendants of Juan Eusebio, in person and in spirit, gathered together. I will forever remember the day I first met my Bonilla Quiles cousins. The TNT film crew had been filming me walking up to Tia Lucy’s home over and over again to get the perfect shot. With each take, the tears flowed. Here I was getting ready to meet my cousins FINALLY!
Theresa catching me in the moment
I will NEVER forget the moment when I walked into her home. My cousins — Tia Lucy and her husband Tio Pedro, Tio Becco and his wife Tia Nilsa, and my cousins Ivonne and her son Javier—were clapping and singing in Spanish, “Welcome to the family, Teresa” over and over again. We then gathered in a circle and got to know each other. Over lunch, I shared photos of my parents, my siblings, nieces and nephews. An extended family was reunited. And as God and the ancestors willed it, so it was.
Me and Tia Lucy
Me, Tia Nilsa, Tio Becco, and Tia Lucy
Me and Tia LucyTio Pedro, me, and Tia Lucy
Ivonne, Tio Pedro, and Me
Ivonne, Tio Pedro, Tia Lucy, and Me
Tia Nilsa, Tio Becco and Ivonne
Me and Tia Nilsa
Me and Tio Becco
Tia Lucy and MeTio Pedro and Tia Lucy
Me and Ivonne
Me and Javier
Family Portrait
Acknowledging Family Facts and Truths
A Sunset Gathering
Getting ready to honor our bisabuelo/tartarabuelo
At sunset, after filming was finished at La Guardarrayarestaurant, we gathered in a circle again, on the grass off to the side of a parking lot, to begin the ceremony. This was the highlight of my trip. I began by stating that we, as descendants of Juan Eusebio, needed to acknowledge certain facts as truths. Speaking from the center of the circle, I acknowledged the following and the others nodded in agreement:
That the blood Juan Eusebio shed in 1890 is the blood that we still have and it was this blood (via a DNA test) that reunited us here today.
That, while we stand here in person, we also represent all the descendants of Juan Eusebio who couldn’t be here today in spirit.
That the book Asesinato Politico must be included in our family history because this book is the closest thing we have to the truth for it was written by Juan Eusebio’s best friend’s son. It is between the pages of this book that we learn about who our bisabuelo/tatarabuelo was. That he was a humble man, valiant, dignified, religious, above reproach, etc.
That Juan Eusebio was a good Christian. That he had a remarkable faith in God. That it was his faith in God that caused him to fear no evil. Blessed be the name of the Lord. How great thou art!
That our Bonilla line is our Taino line.
That we are here in Yauco today honoring Juan Eusebio, un hijo del pueblo.
That Yauco is, and will always be, the birthplace of the great Taino cacique, Aguebana, and our ancestral homeland.
Our book of TRUTH
After I acknowledged all of the above, I returned to my spot in the circle of descendants. Ralph then played a song using a Peruvian pan flute and Tunisian tarbuka drum. After which, Theresa sang the Taino welcoming song for the Cemi, the Taino ancestral spirits. While she sang, I returned to the center of the circle and greeted the Cemi in all directions and offered up tobacco to them. This is the way Luis instructed us.
Theresa sang as Ralph played the Tarbuka drum
The video clip below is the full Taino welcoming song as sung by our cousin Luis Sanakori Ramos.
After Theresa finished welcoming our Taino ancestral spirits, I again stood in the center of the circle and gave thanks to Juan Eusebio in this manner.
Thank you, Juan Eusebio, for the blood you spilled in 1890 for it is the blood that still flows through our veins and the blood that was instrumental in reuniting your descendants today.
Thank you for showing us how to be a good Christian. By your example, you showed us how to walk with God and fear no evil. Your faith in God was remarkable and we know that you earned your wings to fly. Blessed are the pure at heart, for they shall see God. May you always enjoy being in the presence of God.
Thank you for speaking up for the social, political, and economic rights of the Boricua people despite paying the ultimate cost. We are forever indebted to you and other Puerto Rican freedom fighters for having the courage to speak truth to power.
Thank you, Juan Eusebio, for being our Puerto Rican patriot.
Thank you for leaving us with the blood of the Taino …blood that will never be exterminated as long as we are here. It was because of you that we are, that our children will be also.
Thank you for having been born in Yauco, the birthplace of the Taino and our ancestral homeland.
With that, I returned to the outer circle and we had a moment of silence in his honor.
We then began the libation ceremony. We only recorded part of it. I began by pouring water inside the circle we made. I also decided to pour water outside our circle to signify that, as we honor the memory of Juan Eusebio, that we also recognize how we, his descendants, have been reunited and are now bound to each other. We may not have grown up with each other, but we can now grow old with each other knowing who brought us together. Theresa then sang Amazing Grace as a tribute to his Catholic faith.
After Theresa sang Amazing Grace, she started the Taino ceremony in honor of Juan Eusebio. We first called out and acknowledged the Cemi Makatarie Guayaba, the Lord of the Underworld, to pay our respects. She then dug three holes in the ground and buried guava. Guava (guayaba) is the food fed to the departed. In this case, we buried guava in honor of Juan Eusebio. Theresa then placed tobacco over the holes and lit the tobacco on fire. The smoke from the tobacco is the vehicle that allows the message to be sent to the ancestors. As the tobacco was lit, we called his name. Juan Eusebio, Juan Eusebio, Juan Eusebio….
We then hug each other and said goodbye for now…..
But There Are No More True Goodbyes, Only Hellos….
Pedro, Me, and Kelly at the airport upon my departure
When I got back to Ponce later that night, I couldn’t stop crying tears of joy . Gratitude was all I felt. What was seemingly lost was found.
I took my first DNA test three years ago. I will always tell people that the greatest thing ever was finding my Puerto Rican side of the family. To go from knowing only my dad to having cousins in the thousands was beyond anything I ever imagined. To have lived in NYC for over 20 years thinking the I had no relatives here to now being able to hang out with my NYC cousin crew all the time is awesome. That some of my NYC cousins live only blocks from me makes it sweeter. Now, I have connected with my PR cousins in Puerto Rico— cousins who will welcome me back with open arms. My Boricua branches continue to expand each day.
When I left Puerto Rico, my cousins Pedro and Kelly sent me off. Meeting Pedro and Kelly completed my visit. We shared a quick visit and I showed them part of the libation ceremony as well as family photos. I also learned that Kelly may also be related to me twice— such is Puerto Rican endogamy. There will never be any goodbyes, only hellos until we meet next time. Because of all my cousins, I was able to come home….finally.
Kelly and Pedro watching the libation ceremony
May the circle be unbroken!
PS: Before I left, my cousin Emma told me that the Guasima tree was a healing tree, a medicinal plant. She said my visit would be a healing visit. Emma, you were right. My soul has been healed.
This blog post is dedicated to my M23 Malagasy ancestors who survived the Middle Passage and made it to New York and New Jersey. This is Part I of a two part series and is focused on my family’s Malagasy ancestry. My next blog post will discuss how my ancestors arrived in New York based on the actions of unscrupulous NY merchants and pirates.
Map of Indian Ocean Countries
About Madagascar and DNA
Over the past decade, there have been numerous studies done that describe the origins of the Malagasy, the people of Madagascar. For example, in 2005, Hurles et al.discussed the dual origins of the Malasy people as being Southeast Asian and East African. His study was followed by one done in 2009 by Sergio Tofanelli et al. In this article, they wrote:
“Our results confirm that admixture of Malagasy was due to the encounter of people surfing the extreme edges of two of the broadest historical waves of language expansion: the Austronesian and Bantu expansions. In fact, all Madagascan living groups show amixture of uni-parental lineages typical present in African and Southeast Asian populations with only a minor contribution of Y lineages with different origins. Two observations suggest that the the Y lineages with “another origin” entered the island in recent times: 1) they are particularly frequent in the Tanosy area (Fort Dauphin), and around Antananarivo, where commercial networks and the slave trade had a focus; 2) they matched with haplogroups typical of present Indo-European (Europeans) and Arabic speaking (Somali) people.”
In addition, a 2012 study by Cox, et al.noted that most Malagasy people can trace their mtDNA back to 30 Indonesian women who made up the founding population of Madagascar. Given the fact that Southeast Asian Y-DNA was also found among the Malagasy, it is assumed that there were also some Indonesian men among this group of women. These women went on to have children with the Indonesian men present as well as men from Africa. Later migrations from Africa also included Southeast African Bantu mtDNA haplogroups from north of the Zambezi River. In 2013, Melanie Capredon et al.also discussed the Arab-Islamic contribution to the Malagasy gene pool as a result of Indian Ocean slave trade.
Austronesian Expansion
Bantu Expansion
North of the Zambezi River is where SE Bantu mtDNA originates
In addition to the Indonesian and African genetic links found among the Malagasy, there are also linguistic and cultural links to these regions as well. 90% of Malagasy vocabulary come from Maanyan, a language spoken in the Baritone River region of southern Borneo. The other 10% comes from the vocabulary of the Bantu, Malay, South Sulawesian, Javanese, and Sanskrit. Tofanelli et al. also raised the possibility that Indonesians may have reached East Africa and were admixed before their arrival in Madagascar probably around 2,300 years ago This initial mainland contact could explain the occurrence of banana cultivation (Asian Musa spp. phytolits) in southern Cameroon and Uganda before 500 BCE; the introduction of Bos indicus, a cattle of Southeast Asian origin, into East Africa from Asia; and the excavation of chicken bones, originating in Southeast Asia, from Neolithic limestone cave site at Zanzibar. They write, “This Malagasy admixture could have had a history in East Africa before it crossed the Mozambique Channel, even though genetic signatures of these first mainland contacts are still missing (2009:21).”
Madagascar and the Slave Trade and After
Madagascar was part of both the global trade in slaves in both the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. The Indian Ocean slave trade existed before European colonization and even before the emergence of Islam in the 7th and 8th centuries. It saw Malagasy slaves taken to the Mascarene Islands, the Seychelles, Comoros Islands, East Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, Persian Gulf, and India. The European-driven Indo-Atlantic slave trade began in the 16th century. The Portuguese, Dutch , French, British and Americans brought Malagasy slaves to the shores of South Africa, St. Helena’s Island, Brazil and other South American countries, the Caribbean, especially Jamaica and Barbados, and North America. It should be noted that both slave trades were facilitated in part by different Malagasy ethnic groups who engaged in the selling of slaves to outsiders in exchange for arms and material goods. As a result of both slave trades— and later as free immigrants— Malagasy DNA spread around the globe.
On Finding Our Malagasy mtDNA
Over two years ago, my cousin Andrea and I decided to take the 23andme DNA test. We were desperate to find more information about our Thompson family history and felt that a DNA test would provide us with more clues. I knew beforehand that my mtDNA was European as my maternal 2nd great-grandmother was a first generation Irish-American. However, Andrea and I were excited to see what her mtDNA would be because she was a matrilineal descendant of our shared 2nd great-grandmother, Laura Thompson Green, while I was not. Well, imagine our surprise when her mtDNA came back M23, a haplogroup that is only found in Madagascar. We were shocked as this was totally unexpected. It seems that our Malagasy ancestors came to the New York City/New Jersey area between 1678-98 or 1716-21. The knowledge that our 2nd great-grandmother had matrilineal ancestry that traced back to Madagascar necessitated that we do further research. Several questions came to mind. Did our Malagasy ancestry still show up in our genes? When did our Malagasy ancestors arrive in the States, specifically NY/NJ? Why did slave traders go to Madagascar to procure slaves?
Our Malagasy Roots and DNA Admixture
We can trace our Malagasy ancestry back to our 5th great-grandmother, Jane Pickett, who was born a slave in NJ or NY around 1775. Her daughter was Tun, also a slave born around 1790 in Tappan, NY, according to a 1860 census record, though she may have also been born in NJ. Both Jane and Tun were born slaves and eventually worked as house servants in their later years. Tun had a daughter named Susan Pickett, our third great-grandmother, who was born in Morris County, NJ in 1809. Susan was born under The Gradual Emancipation Actand thus had to serve her master for 21 years. We don’t know who her father was, but Susan is listed as being “mulatto.” Once freed, Susan married our third great-grandfather, Cato Thompson. Susan and Cato had six children.
Our M23 2nd great-grandmother, Laura Thompson Green
Their children were Richard, Thomas, Jacob, Laura, Mary, and Catherine. My three maternal siblings, my aunt Helen, my first cousin, and I are the descendants of Laura’s son Richard. Andrea, her mother Mildred, uncle Robert, brother, and daughter are the descendants of Laura’s daughter Goldie. My cousin Yvonne and her grandson are the descendants of Laura’s son Stewart. My cousin Helen is a descendant of Laura’s sister Mary and my cousin Lillian is a descendant of Laura’s sister Catherine.
As of today, we have had 15 descendants of Susan Pickett DNA tested, of whom six have mtDNA M23. Having so many relatives DNA tested allows us to see how Malagasy ancestry is passed down generationally. According to 23andme, all of us have ethnic admixture, in varying amounts, from Southeast Asia, Central and South Africa, and/or East Africa, South Asia and Oceania. Those cousins who are matrilineal descendants of our shared M23 ancestors do show higher amounts in these admixture areas. While I don’t think any DNA test can tell you with 100% certainty what your admixture is, I do believe that they can provide clues about your ethnicity especially when combined with knowledge of local and family history.
Please note that I have previously blogged about my own admixture tests. In this blog post I will be mainly discussing my relatives’ admixture results.
Here are the 23andme Ancestry Composition results of my cousins Helen, Mildred, and Robert. You can clearly see the indicators of Malagasy ancestry.
Helen’s Ancestry Composition
Mildred’s Ancestry Composition
Robert’s Ancestry Composition
As a comparison, here are the Ancestry Compositions for my aunt Helen and cousin Lillian. As you can see, their admixture is from the same areas, but in lesser amounts.
My aunt Helen’s Ancestry Composition
Lillian’s Ancestry Composition
A look at the X chromosomes of Mildred, Robert, Lillian and Helen also show how our Southeast Asian ancestry (in yellow) has been passed down from our Malagasy ancestors. All four are the descendants of all three of Susan Pickett’s daughters—Laura (Mildred and Robert), Mary (Helen), and Catherine (Lillian).
X Chromosomes for Mildred, Robert, Helen and Lillian
In addition to testing at 23andme, my cousins Mildred and Andrea, aunt Helen, and sister Elisa also had a DNA Tribes SNP Analysis done in 2013. Again, the Malagasy indicators tend to be Southeast Asia, Central and South Africa, and/or East Africa, South Asia and Oceania. Please note that Bantu, Pedi, and Nguni are all Bantu-speaking groups that were part of the Bantu expansion.
Here are their Native Populations Admixture Analysis from DNA Tribes:
Mildred’s DNA Tribe SNP Analysis
Andrea’s DNA Tribes SNP Analysis
My aunt Helen’s DNA Tribes SNP Analysis
My sister Elisa’s DNA Tribes Analysis
In 2014, I had my DNA Tribes SNP Analysis done again after they instituted their regional clusters. Here are my results as a Malagasy non-matrilineal descendant:
My 2014 DNA Tribes SNP Analysis
On chromosome 20, you can see how our Malagasy DNA, represented by our Southeast Asian admixture in yellow, has been inherited by the same ancestor.
On Chromosome 20, we share the same ancestor who had Malagasy DNA
A Word About Our Malagasy vs. Native American Ancestry
My family’s Malagasy (M23) ancestry is separate from our Native American ancestry. I make note of this because there have been claims made that haplogroup M was found in North America, and thus was Native American, based on a 2007 articlethat has since been debunked. I have written two prior blog posts on M23 and other M subclade haplogroups that mention how I disagree with this assessment and provide comments from well-known genetic genealogists and mtDNA experts about the M haplogroup. In the chromosomal view below, you can see how the Southeast Asian admixture (in yellow) is separate from our Native American admixture (in orange).
Mildred’s AC Chromosome View
My sister Maria’s AC Chromosome View
Yvonne’s AC Chromosome View
My brother Michael’s AC Chromosome View
As it relates to my discussion of my family’s Malagasy ancestry in my next blog post, Esther J. Lee et al. note in their article “MtDNA Origins of an Enslaved Labor Force From the 18th century Schuyler Flatts Burial Ground in Colonial Albany, NY: Africans, Native Americans, and Malagasy?,” “individuals identified as haplogroup M7 and M resemble lineages found in Madagascar. Historical documents suggest several hundred people were imported from Madagascar through illegal trading to New York by the end of the 17th century. ” Though Lee had access to the now debunked 2007 article, she rightly acknowledges that the M7 haplogroup is found in East Asia, Southeast Asia and Madagascar. It is so important, as the Lee article shows, to look at local historical events to see how individuals with M haplogroups may have arrived in the Americas via the slave trade and who are NOT Native American.
I should also note that African-Americans, with the help of DNA tests, are now discovering their Malagasy ancestry. For example, my 98-year old cousin Helen has 5 DNA cousin matches with Malagasy ancestry from Madagascar, South Africa, and France on her 23andme DNA Relatives List and many of my family members have DNA cousins with known Malagasy haplogroups. Likewise, my friend Melvin Collier has written an excellent blog postonfinding and confirming his Malagasy ancestry via a Malagasy DNA cousin. As a result of these Malagasy ancestral discoveries, there is a now a Malagasy Roots Project at FTDNAthat seeks to connect African-Americans with their Malagasy DNA cousins.
Using Gedmatch Admixture Calculators to Detect Malagasy Ancestry
I have been asked repeatedly how one can tell if they have Malagasy ancestry in the absence of a known Malagasy mtDNA or Y-DNA. One of the ways is to take an autosomal DNA test from any of the three major testing companies — 23andme (highly recommended as you also get your haplogroups), AncestryDNA, or FTDNA Autosomal Family Finder— and then upload the results to Gedmatch, a free site, where you can run additional admixture calculators.
Based on my family’s known Malagasy ancestry, I feel confident enough to state that Malagasy indicators are Southeast Asia, Central and South Africa, and/or East Africa, South Asia and Oceania. It is crucial to realize that it is a combination of all these admixtures that may indicate Malagasy ancestry. Just having Southeast Asian, South African, East African ancestry or any one individual admixture is not enough to indicate Malagasy ancestry. I would also mention that one should research the local history/area where your ancestors resided. Slaves from Madagascar were known to have been imported into Boston, New York/NJ, and Virginia. However, there were many Malagasy slaves who may have arrived in the States via the Caribbean, Brazil, Europe, India, as well as a host of other countries. Many Malagasy also came to this country as free immigrants. In essence, you need to really do your research.
Some additional things to do would be to also have other relatives tested to confirm your Malagasy ancestry as well as to check your Gedmatch One-To-Many list to see if your DNA cousins have a Malagasy haplogroup.
Below are some of Gedmatch admixture calculators that I use to detect indicators of Malagasy ancestry. I am going to use my mother Joyce as an example because you can easily see her Malagasy admixture indicators. Plus, I think it is really cool to use a Gedmatch Lazarus recreated genome based on her four children, sister, niece and a host of 2nd and 3rd cousins. For the record, I use the following Gedmatch admixture calculators: MDLP-World 22, MDLP-K23b, Dodecad v3, Dodecad World9, Dodecad Africa9 (to detect South African and East African ancestry), Eurogenes K13, Eurogenes K36, and HarappaWorld. Most of these calculators detect Southeast, Oceanian, Austronesian, South Asian, Melanesian/Polynesian, Papuan, Malayan, South African, and East African admixture.
Disclaimer: Please note that the list below has some of the haplogroups found in Madagascar that come from several scientific studies (see references below). The nomenclature of these haplogroups may have changed since the articles were written. Also, if you have taken a 23andme test, their v4 chip may not give a definitive haplogroup assignment. For example, I am H1 on 23andme since I tested with their v3 chip, however, my siblings are just H since they tested with the v4 chip. Likewise, some folks who are B4a1a1b may show up as only B4a1a1 on 23andme. Note these haplogroups can be found in other places as well. There are only two haplogroups that I know for sure that are found only in Madagascar and they are M23 and B4a1a1a haplogroup subclades. I am by no means an expert on mtDNA or Y-DNA, but I think this list is valuable to those seeking more answers on their Malagasy ancestry.
[Please note the updates to this blogpost found here.]
I dedicate this blog post to my Bonilla ancestors, especially my father, Antonio Vega Noboa, who would have been proud to learn that his great-grandfather was a true Puerto Rican patriot. I also dedicate this blog post to my dear cousin, Madeline Castañon Quiles, and her family, who grew up hearing about the brutal death of our 2nd great-grandfather. I hope I tell his story the way he would have wanted it to be told. May Juan Eusebio Bonilla Salcedo continue to rest in peace. Que Dios le bendiga.
Finding Maddy via AncestryDNA
Two years ago, I had a very off-balanced family tree. As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, my father was an only child and his parents divorced when he was a child. My paternal grandmother then moved from Carolina, Puerto Rico to Brooklyn, NY in the early 1940s. My dad and his parents were the only three names I had on my tree. After I took my first DNA test, I met a cousin, Luis Rivera, who helped me expand my tree immensely. He took me back to all my paternal great-grandparents, 2nd great-grandparents, as well as some third and fourth great-grandparents.
My Bonilla line can be traced to my paternal great-grandmother, Juana Florentina Bonilla Bonilla, the mother of my grandfather, Antonio Vega Bonilla. Based on Juana’s marriage record to my great-grandfather, Segundo Vega Rodriguez, I knew her parents were Juan E. Bonilla and Josefa Bonilla. Other than the fact that both were “mestizo” and were born in Susua Alta, Yauco, I was at a dead end. I had hit my Bonilla brick wall. Without their maternal surnames, it would be difficult to trace Juana’s parents further back.
Early last year I decided to take the AncestryDNA test. When I first received my results, I looked up the Bonilla surname to see if I could locate any of my Bonilla cousins from Susua Alta, Yauco. I did find Bonilla DNA cousins, but their trees started and ended in Coamo, Puerto Rico which didn’t seem to help me at all. That was until September 6, 2014 when I realized that I had a new cousin hint. I was so excited when I saw Madeline Castañon Quiles on my list. She was one of the cousins I had been waiting for for some time. Maddy turned out to be the cousin who helped me break down my Bonilla brick wall with a big KABOOM!
Me and Maddy
The Walls Came Tumbling Down…And So Did The Tears
As soon as I saw her name on my list with the exact 3rd cousin relationship, I wrote immediately to her and let her know that we were related via our shared 2nd great-grandfather, Juan Eusebio Bonilla. I was excited to finally learn his maternal surname…Salcedo.
AncestryDNA shared hint
Juan Eusebio was one of four children born to Marcos Bonilla Bonilla and Rita Salcedo in 1852. In addition to his siblings Rosario and Antonio, he had a twin brother named Jose. Juan Eusebio was apparently married three times and had six children from all three marriages. My 2nd great-grandmother, Josefa, was his first wife and with whom he had Juana and Domingo. Maddy’s 2nd great-grandmother, Carmen Avallanet, was his second wife with whom he had Juan. Maria Dominga Camacho Torres was his third wife with whom he had Angel, Agueda, and Eusebio.
From Maddy, I also learned about “La Leyenda de la Guásima,” an urban legend which was indeed based on fact. She told me that our 2nd great-grandfather had been assassinated in a very public, horrific way by a Spanish Civil Guard, Jose Ferreria Tello, on June 30th, 1890. Maddy had grown up hearing about Juan Eusebio’s death from the oral history passed down from her mother Hilda, who had heard it from her elders. I went from feeling happiness at finally locating him to despair. So many questions popped into my head. The two major ones being (1) WHY was he assassinated? (2) WHAT did he do to deserve a death that involved being beaten, tied to a guásima tree, shot in the head, gutted, his mutilated genitals stuffed in his mouth and pant pockets, and finally set on fire???? Tears, tears, tears and more tears…..
I am not too sure about others, but having done genealogy/family history research for quite some time now, I’ve gotten to the point where I sometimes feel my ancestors pushing me in the direction of where they want me to go, as if they are leaving me breadcrumbs to follow. After speaking to Maddy, who I also found out lived in NYC, I googled Juan Eusebio’s name and found my first breadcrumb—a short 50-page book titled Asesinato Politico by E. Gutierrez Velez.
Asesinato Politico by E. Gutierrez Velez
It is a book about the events of the “El Componte Era” in Puerto Rico, which led up to Juan Eusebio’s’s death in 1890, followed by “La Intentona” in 1897, the last uprising in Puerto Rico against Spanish colonial rule. The author was none other than the son of one of Juan Eusebio’s good friends, Venancio Gutierrez.
With the spirit of the ancestors leading the way, I indeed felt Juan Eusebio nudging me to discover the truth about his life and death almost 125 years after the fact. It is my intention to rescue him from obscurity. As his descendants, both Maddy and I owe that to him at the very least. He is our Puerto Rican patriot de verdad. If we don’t remember our ancestors, who will? Moreover, who will speak for those whose voices have been silenced? No matter how hard it was to read this book, I am grateful to have such an account, despite the horror of it all.
About His Death Record
We were able to locate Juan Eusebio’s death certificate which proved to be informative all around. His death record indicated that he was only shot in the head, that there was a criminal case made against the Civil Guard Jose Ferreria, his assassin, and that he was married, but had no living children. His parents were recorded as being Marcos Bonilla and Rita Salcedo.
Death record of Juan Eusebio Bonilla Salcedo, Pt. 1Death Record of Juan Eusebio Bonilla Salcedo, Pt. 2
Given the amount of birth , marriage and death records for him and his children, his death record smacks of a coverup and, at the very least, a great minimization of his death. Why was the truth about his death not mentioned? My inquiring mind wanted to know.
Puerto Rican mtDNA and Y-DNA
We know from a 2001 study done by Dr. Juan Martinez Cruzado that 61% of all Purto Ricans have Native American mtDNA, 27% have African mtDNA and 12% have European mtDNA. MtDNA is inherited only from one’s mother from her matrilineal ancestors and does not change over time. This, of course, means that a majority of Puerto Ricans are descended from a Taino woman. The flip side to this is that a majority of Y-DNA in Puerto Ricans, the DNA that males inherit from their’s father’s patrilineal line, is European. About 74.8% of Puerto Rican Y-DNA is European, 23.8% is African, and 1.5% is Native American.
Looking at Juan Eusebio’s grandsons, Enrique Vega Bonilla, who was my great-uncle, and Maddy’s grandfather, Juan Bonilla Quiles, clearly you see their mestizo ancestry. On her marriage certificate, my great-grandmother Juana Bonilla Bonilla listed her “race” as “mestizo.”
Enrique Vega Bonilla and Juan Bonilla Quiles, the grandsons of Juan Eusebio Bonilla Salcedo
I can only assume that her father, Juan Eusebio, was also mixed-race, most likely mestizo, just like the majority of Puerto Ricans who have Native American mtDNA and a European Y-DNA.
NOTE: In order to really understand Juan Eusebio’s brutal assassination, we have to examine the historical period in which he lived. It is only in this way that we can fully understand how patriotic and brave he was to keep speaking truth to power.
The Puerto Rican Autonomist Party
In February of 1887, the Autonomist Party (Partido Autonomista) was formed in Ponce. Autonomist Party members advocated for the rights of Puerto Ricans who were born on the island. Their liberal beliefs included self-government, political economic development, education, and social justice for Puerto Ricans. The party was clear in that they were not asking for independence from Spain. Instead, they were looking to work within the confines of the Spanish colonial system. As a result, the Autonomist Party garnered the support of the Puerto Rican-born population, especially the educated middle class, as opposed to the Spanish-born Spaniard peninsular population who tended to support the more conservative Unconditional Spanish Party.
It should be noted that members of the Autonomist Party came from all racial backgrounds and represented all Puerto Ricans. That the majority of members were of mixed-race infuriated those in power. This new political party and it’s leaders were also closely aligned with the abolitionist movement in Puerto Rico. At a time when Spanish-born Spaniards still controlled all aspects of the politico-economic life on the island, the Autonomist Party was considered radical by the conservative parties on the island. Within months of the founding of the Autonomist Pary, their liberal ideas made them a target of government repression and conservative scorn.
In her classic book, The History of Puerto Rico, Loida Figueroa writes about how some members of the Autonomist Party decided to organize a boycott against Spanish owned businesses in favor of patronizing Puerto Rican businesses. The boycotters had formed secret societies to promote their boycott. This boycott was seen as evidence by both the Spanish colonial government and conservatives that the Autonomist Party was engaging in acts of separatism. [She also hinted at how Spanish businessmen burned down their own buildings and then blamed the arson on the boycotters.] Figueroa writes:
“The Spaniards and Puerto Ricans of the Unconditional sector knew something was going on, just noting the shift of people towards the Puerto Rica businesses and the lack of it towards their own businesses. Since refusing to buy in an establishment could not be declared illegal they had to use other means, such as saying that another Separatist conspiracy had been generated, aimed at ruining the businesses and lives of the Penisulares and those loyal to Spain. Since Puerto Ricans were Autonomists, the Unconditionals, upon attacking the Society, indirectly attacked the Party. In order to make others believe that national integrity was in danger, since the province was “on the verge of a revolution” the only thing they needed was to succeed in making the Captain Genral play their game. This Captain was General don Romualdo Palacios.” (Figueroa, p. 375)
It was in this way that the Autonomist Party and their supporters were targeted by the Spanish colonial government which, in turn, gave rise to the El Componte Era.
Map of where El Componte was carried out.
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General Romualdo Palacios Gonzelez and the El Componte Era
Governor Romualdo Palaciosarrived in Puerto Rico in March of 1887. By April, he had aligned himself with the Unconditional Spanish Party and initiated the start of the El Componte Era. Palacios ordered the Spanish Civil Guard to identify, pursue, punish, torture and jail Autonomist Party members and supporters. “Componte” is a term that meant “rectify” or “pacify” by means of torture. Doctors, lawyers, business owners, teachers, musicians, writers, journalists, farmers, workers, and many others were rounded up and tortured. Figueroa goes on to write:
“…the Civil Guard kept on making arrests, with the anomaly that although it was announced that their object was to make investigations respective to the secret societies, the assumed informers were immediately qualified as wrongdoers or revolutionaries. To justify this qualification they proceeded to torture the “witnesses” and pry confessions out of them that would give a conspiratorial air to the boycotting societies. The tortures used were palillos, cordeles, chains or lash, apart from the current slaps, kicks, blows with butt ends of guns, and all kinds of other blows.” (Figueroa, p. 380)
There were many Autonomist Party members and supporters who were held and tortured both in “Houses of Componte” as well as the Castillo del Morro. Many were killed and some committed suicide as a result of this torture.
In August, Palacios had 16 leaders of the Autonomist Party arrested and, on November 6th, he ordered all 16 to be taken to the Castillo del Morro where they were sentenced to death. Those 16 were Cristino Aponte, Roman Baldorioty de Castro, Salvador Carbonell Toro, Francisco Cepeda Taborcias, Ulises Dalmau Proventud, Pedro Maria Descartes, Rodulfo Figueroa Gonzalez, Jose Vicente Gonzalez, Ramon Marin Sola, Antonio Molina Vergara, Bruno Negron, Andres Santos Negroni, Santiago R. Palmer, Epifanio Presas, Tomas Vazquez Rivera and Manuel Antonio Zavala Rodriguez. There was such an international outcry over these arrests that on November 9th, General Palacios was recalled to Spain. On December 19th, all 16 prisoners were freed. As we shall see, the El Componte Era did not end with Palacios leaving the island. It continued on for years.
Freemasonry in Puerto Rico
I have to add here that one of the groups that was heavily affected by El Componte were the Freemasonsin Puerto Rico. The government ordered all Masonic lodges to be closed and banned participation in Masonic activities. Because Masonic lodges operate in secrecy, the government found them to be a threat to their existence.
Freemasonry had taken hold in Puerto Rico after the Haitian Revolution with the immigration of French nationals to Puerto Rico. After 1850, Freemasonry attracted a following among the educated middle class population. With the ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity inherent in their beliefs, Freemasons became members and natural supporters of the Autonomous Party. Out of the 16 Autonomous Party leaders imprisoned in El Morro, five were Freemasons. Those five were Salvador Carbonell Toro, Ramon Baldorioty de Castro, Santiago R. Palmer, Tomas Vazquez Rivera and Jose Vicente Gonzalez. Other prominent Masonic Autonomous Party members also included Ramon Emeterio Betances, Segundo Ruiz Belvis, Jose Julian Acosta, Luis Munoz Rivera, Jose Celso Barbosa among others.
Juan Eusebio Bonilla Salcedo: Proud Yauco Autonomist Party Member
Juan Eusebio Bonilla Salcedo, “A humble son of the pueblo, very brave, of irreproachable conduct, loved and respected by neighbors. But the government had included him as one of their disaffected for his frankly liberal ideas”. (Gutierrez Velez, p.11)
Asesinato Politico proved to be a goldmine of information about Juan Eusebio. It is an almost play by play telling of events that led up to my 2nd great-grandfather’s vicious murder at the hands of the Spanish Civil Guard. E. Gutierrez Velez recorded events that his father Venancio relayed to him about the El Componte Era and its aftermath.
Juan Eusebio Bonilla Salcedo and the Autonomist Party (Gutierrez Velez, p. 44)
It turns out that Juan Eusebio was one of the first people in Susua Alta, Yauco to become affiliated with the Autonomous Party. He was outspoken in promoting their liberal ideas as well as advocating for the self-determination of Puerto Ricans. He was also a well-known businessman who owned a commercial store and coffee business. In addition, he was part of a group of Yaucanos, who were known to be Autonomous Party members and leaders, and who may have taken part in the boycott of Spanish owned businesses. As such, he came to the attention of the Spanish Civil Guard.
Friends of Juan Eusebio (From the Historia de Yauco by Hector Andres Negroni)
Gutierrez Velez lists the names of all the well-known Yaucanos who were arrested, imprisoned and/or tortured during El Componte. These men make up El Cuadro de Honor of Yauco, along with Juan Eusebio. I honor their names here as well:
In his book, Historia De Yauco, Hector Andres Negroni mentions the occupations of several of the men above. Antonio Mattei Lluberas and Domingo Mariani both owned sugar and coffee plantations. Francisco Castañer Castañer also owned a coffee plantation. Antonio Abrini owned a shoe store. Jose Maria Gatell was a pharmacy owner. Eustaquio Medina was a clothing manufacturer. Although he is not listed above, I should also mention that Venancio Gutierrez owned a tobacco factory. Clearly, all of these men represented the educated Puerto Rican middle-class that found the Autonomous Party attractive.
Francisco Mejia Rodriguez and Vicente Soltero Pagan were both Freemasons. I don’t know if Juan Eusebio was a Freemason, but he undoubtedly associated with them. As someone whose father and maternal grandfather were Masons, I am proud of the Masonic participation in the Autonomous Party.
So Why Was He Assassinated?
Gutierrez Velez writes that Juan Eusebio was arrested in 1887 during the Componte Era because, in addition to being an Autonomist Party member, he was accused of insulting the memory of a Civil Guard who had died. He returned to Susua Alta in the first months of 1890 after almost three years in prison in Ponce. While in prison, he was tortured by none other than Jose Ferreria! When he returned to the village, Jose Ferreria was not there. Gutierrez Velez, referring to Juan Eusebio, states:
“Creía tal vez, que la inquina dejada por su improprio proceder durante el “componte” se había extinguido con su repentina ausencia del teatro de las nefastas representaciones, en las cuales fue uno de los más destacados y también odiosos personajes.” (Gutierrez Velez, p.16)
“Perhaps, he believed that the gripe left by his improper conduct during “el componte” had been extinguished with the sudden absence of the theater of nefarious representations, in which he was one of the most prominent and also most hated characters.”
Once freed, Juan Eusebio wasted no time in writing to Jose Ferreria reminding him of all the abuse he suffered at his hands while in prison. He also challenged Ferreria to a duel as he considered this to be the best way to even the field with Ferreria—en el terreno de los caballeros. Wow! In effect, he was telling Jose Ferreria to be a real man—-as if to say, abuse me when my hands are not tied, when I don’t have a blindfold on, and when I am standing unfettered on my own two feet and see what happens. That took cojones to do that.
Juan Eusebio’s friends warned him not to go forward with the duel. Even Venancio Gutierrez gave him a prophetic warning when he said:
“Amigo Bonilla, deme la mano, porque si usted va al sitio con sus enemigos, que son menguados, no volveré a verlo vivo” (Gutierrez Velez, p. 19).
“My friend Bonilla, give me your hand, if you go to this place with your enemies, some of whom are devils, you will not be seen alive again.”
Despite the dire warnings of his close friends, Juan Eusebio was adamant that he would still go through with the duel. Obviously, he was not afraid. I often wonder why he showed no fear. I do find comfort in knowing that he was a religious man as Gutierrez Velez often points out in his book. I now know, without a shadow of a doubt, that it was his FAITHthat allowed him to go forward. He walked with God and feared no evil—not even in the presence of his enemies.
How they killed Juan Eusebio Bonilla Salcedo…
Venancio’s prophecy had been proven true for Juan Eusebio was found early in the morning on June 30, 1890. His assassins had placed his body on the steps of the entrance to the cemetery—-a clear message that would be understood by all. His remains were found wreaking of gas and and still smoldering. He had been gutted and his genitals removed. His assassins had also placed his body in a supine position and put a revolver in his hand. Of course, this gave them the opportunity to later claim that he committed suicide.
Gutierrez Velez vividly tells of the moment the people of Susua Alta heard of his death. In a nutshell, he writes that “in an instant, the people came running, like a landslide, toward the churchyard. The Civil Guard had tried to close off the area, but they couldn’t because the people came running from all directions screaming, “They killed Eusebio Bonilla.”
The response from the people of Susua Alta
La Leyenda de La Guásima is based on the facts about my 2nd great-grandfather’s assassination. There were no human witnesses to the brutality that he was subjected to on that night. However, Gutierrez Velez writes that, “the wires, the tree, and all the thicket damaged revealed with astonishing eloquence, the how and why of their dilapidated state, with their fresh bloodstains. The red showed definite signs and demonstrated, how much out of the ordinary, what happened there in the middle of the night in question.” It is no wonder that this urban legend states that when you hear the trees making noises at night, it is because they are crying out for justice for Juan Eusebio.
The Aftermath of His Assassination…
After his death, the Spanish Civil Guard tried to make it look like Juan Eusebio had committed suicide. In addition to placing a gun in his right hand, they also issued restrictive orders to the people of Susua Alta not to say anything about Jose Ferreria being in Yauco before or after Juan Eusebio’s death or to say, “Let me bring you to the guásima tree ” which was code language for “let me show you where Juan Eusebio was murdered.” The Spanish Civil Guard made clear that they would arrest anyone who violated their orders.
I am happy to say that Juan Eusebio had some good friends who were willing to speak out about his murder, at great personal costs, as well as pursue an investigation into his brutal death. One of those friends was Jose Simidei Rodriguez, who was a dry goods store owner in Susua Alta. Gutierrez Velez writes that one of the most vocal voices of protests over Juan Eusebio’s death came from Simidei who was arrested as a result. After being released, he thought about what he had said and decided, in hindsight, to liquidate his store and to flee to Santo Domingo out of fear for his life. Such was the fear of persecution that the Spanish Civil Guard created.
His other friends went on to launch a court investigation into his death at the hands of the Spanish Civil Guard in both Susua Baja and in San German. Many townspeople were called to testify against Jose Ferreria and many just showed up hoping to testify in memory of Juan Eusebio. Gutierrez Velez writes that the people were captivated by a man who distinguished himself with his correct conduct and who inspired respect from all because he respected everyone. And so they came to testify in his honor.
However, because the Spanish Civil Guard were agents of the state, the investigation was akin to being a kangaroo court where evidence was lost and the state always maintaining that Juan Eusebio had committed suicide. One of the “lost” documents was one that Juan Eusebio gave Venancio Gutierrez the night before he was killed which documented everything that Jose Ferreria had done to him during his imprisonment as well as the information concerning the duel. Juan Eusebio’s assassins literally got away with murder for Ferreria was found not guilty of anything since he was technically “not working” —he was off the clock so to speak—at the time of the murder and so the Spanish Civil Guard could not be blamed. Unbelievable.
Public Vindication for Juan Eusebio
La Justicia, 11/6/1890La Justicia, 11/6/1890
Public vindication would finally came for Juan Eusebio on November 6, 1890. On that day, the La Razón newspaper, published in Mayaguez, reprinted an article from the Spanish newspaper La Justicia under the heading “Or Between Savages.” The La Justicia correspondent wrote about the horrible details of Juan Eusebio’s murder. The article mentioned that my 2nd great-grandfather had been tortured in 1887 and later violently killed in Yauco. It went on to state that Juan Eusebio had challenged his “componteador” after completing his prison term and that the Civil Guard had set up an appointment for the evening of June 30th, 1890 to meet him. Juan Eusebio was surrounded by a group of Jose Ferreria’s friends who took advantage of their greater numbers and tied him to a guásima tree leaving him at the mercy of his enemy, Ferreria. It went on to say that Juan Eusebio’s corpse was found by the wall of the cemetery with it’s belly cut open and had been partially burned. Around his neck was evidence that his body had been hung from the tree where it was found. At the foot of this tree, there was blood found as well as evidence of a struggle while Juan Eusebio was still alive. The blood came from Juan Eusebio’s castration and his genitals were found in the pockets of his pants. I should add here that my cousin Maddy’s family’s oral history also records that Juan Eusebio’s penis was found in his mouth.
Juan Eusebio’s assassination was now being reported, not only in Spain, but also in Puerto Rico. Although the Spanish colonial government did not hold the Spanish Civil Guard liable for the death of Juan Eusebio, everyone reading that article would. Moreover, they would also know how preposterous it was to say that he had committed suicide. And just like that, darkness gave way to light.
The Taino Factor: Was There More to Juan Eusebio’s Assassination?
In his book, The Myth of the Indigenous Caribbean Extinction,Tony Castanha interviewed the descendants of Puerto Ricans of majority Taino descent whose ancestors survived the El Componte Era in the mountains of Northwest Puerto Rico in 1890. It is very telling that he likewise mentions that the El Componte Era continued lasted until the Spanish were expelled from Puerto Rico in 1898. Castanha mentions that the atrocities committed during the El Componte Era were comparable to those committed at the beginning of the Spanish colonization of the island. He writes:
“Elder Lipio’s mother, who had lived during el componte , used to tell him about what happened. When the Spaniards and the government came, they would follow “los indios” around and kill the men and rape the women. They would also throw the babies in the air and have them fall on their swords. When the people would run away and hide in the woods, the Spaniards would then burn down the forest (Casthanha, p. 100).”
“He said the Spaniards would “throw the babies up” and stick them with their knives. They did this to make the “Boricuas” “respect them,” he added. Again, this happened at the moment, two years before he was born. The elder uttered that the Boricua were fed up with the uprisings and upheaval. Thus, the Spaniards brought el componte to them (Castanha, p.100).”
Castanha’s interviews really resonated with me. I wonder how much of the “overkill factor” surrounding Juan Eusebio’s assassination had to do with the fact that he was of Taino descent and challenged the existing power structure? Was the spectacular way his burned and mutilated body was left on display a warning to others that they better “respect” the Spanish Civil Guard or else they could end up like him? I really think so. As Castanha reiterates, indigenous resistance to Spanish colonialism lasted until the Spanish were expelled in 1898. Had he lived, I have no doubt that Juan Eusebio Bonilla would have continued his own form of resistance against Spanish colonialism, too.
La Intentona de Yauco (1897)
La Intentona was the second —the first being El Grito de Lares–and last uprising against Spanish colonial rule. Gutierrez Velez sees the formation of the Autonomous Party in 1887, the death of Juan Eusebio Bonilla Salcedo in 1890, and La Intentona de Yauco in 1897 as one continuous event.
“The years 1887, 1890, and 1897 chronologically dissimilar dates, but their resonance and gravity had a great resemblance. Therefore when any of them is mentioned the others come to mind inevitably, completing the psychological impression of ideas, causes, and effects linking them (Gutierrez Velez, p. 43).”
He is also easily able to link these three events together because some of the the major players were the same. Antonio Mattei Lluberas, Dario Franceschi, Manuel Catala and other friends of Juan Eusebio were active participants in La Intentona. That it occurred in Susua Alta is also notable as is that fact that it was the first time the Puerto Rican flag was unfurled as the flag of Puerto Rico.
In Memory of Juan Eusebio
The people of Yauco continued to remember the Juan Eusebio years after his death. They remembered him in both décimas and in poems because he was “un verdadero hombre, a un puertorriqueño neto y completo.” Below are some décimas about the death of Juan Eusebio that Gutierrez Velez recorded in his book as well as the poem “Hymn For Yauco” by the famous Yaucano poet Rafael Hernández Ramos that was published in Negroni’s Historia de Yauco. I am particularly honored and humbled that Hernandez Ramos juxtaposed Juan Eusebio with Agüeybana, the Taino caciquewho was in power when the Spanish arrived. Both Gutierrez Velez and Hernandez Ramos provide testaments to the memory of my 2nd great-grandfather, Juan Eusebio Bonilla Salcedo.
Décimas about the death of Juan Eusebio:
Decimas about the death of Bonilla (Gutierrez Velez, p.45)Decima about the death of Bonilla (Gutierrez Velez, p.47)
Poem by Rafael Hernandez Ramos (Negroni, p. 277)
Poem by Rafael Hernandez Ramos (Negroni, p 278)
To My Tatarabuelo-
It has been an honor to have discovered you almost 125 years after your vicious death. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you earned your wings to fly a long time ago. While it has been hard to learn the circumstances of your death, I take comfort in knowing that you continued to keep speaking truth to power — despite the cost. It is clear as day that you loved your people and your isla bonita.
As your descendant, your memory will now live on in me and your DNA still flows through me. I call you name out loud and clear, not only because you give me strength, but also so that others will know who you are and what you stood for. Juan Eusebio Bonilla Salcedo, you will never be forgotten. Espero honora su memoria.
Update on 1/12/2015: I am again responding to a new blog post written by Robert Estes on 1/5/2015. Her post Anzick Matching Update is her admission that she used an old Gedmatch kit number for her Clovis Anzick research protocol. In this post, she again reiterates her methodology as well as her justification for including the M haplogroup on her list all the while ignoring the facts. The facts are below. She has also failed to answer any of my questions so I have also listed them below.
1) It is unwise to compare mtDNA haplogroup assignments to autosomal DNA. The main reason is that we are talking about two different types of DNA. Extrapolating mtDNA info from living people who have multiple ethnic admixtures and then comparing to an ancient Native American sample is seriously flawed. One can, in fact, match an ancient Native American, like Clovis, and have a non-Native American DNA. Roberta somehow conveniently misses the fact that on the F999919 Clovis Gedmatch One-To-Many list, there were a lot of people who matched Clovis who did not have a Native American haplogroup. Why did she not include these matches on herNew Native American Haplogrouplist?Was it because they are well-known non-Native American haplogroups? Is her continued inclusion of the some of M haplogroup subclades her attempt to discover something new? Why does she assume that just because someone matches a Native American autosomally that this means that they automatically have a Native American mtDNA?
2) The 2007 article she references has been brought into question by several known genetic genealogists, who are also experts in mtDNA analysis, like Ann Turner, Ugo Pereto, James Lick, Claudio Bravi and others. The M sample was not fully sequenced and was more likely to be an X haplogroup upon further analysis. I may not be an expert in genetic genealogy, but I certainly reached out to some of the best before I even wrote my posts. How come Roberta has not commented on their responses which I have reported in my blog posts?
3) Her continued inclusion of M subclade haplogroups on her Native American Haplogroup list, all the while maintaining that M has not been proven to be Native American, is very misleading and disingenuous because it gives people the false impression that they are Native American haplogroups. Lay readers will just look at the headline and make that assumption without reading the small print. Why is Roberta ignoring the fact that her posts are misleading? Is it really enough to justify the inclusion of M haplogroup, without a shred of evidence, just because she can? Should one even publish “research notes” that are not based on current data/facts?
These are questions my inquiring mind would like to know. However, Roberta has failed to answer any of my legitimate questions for months so I don’t see her changing her modus operandi today. This is what has led me to write my posts in the first place.
Roberta Estes, 1/5/2015
Update on 12/24/2014: I felt the need to share this with my readers. I was just made aware of the fact that Roberta Estes admitted today that she ran her initial results using one of the older Clovis Anzick Gedmatch kits numbers. As a result, the methodology she used calls into question her whole research protocol. I am taking her admission below that what I wrote in this blog post is correct.
Roberta Estes admission that she did not use the correct Clovis Gedmatch number for her 12/7/14 blog update
A continuation of my previous blog post…
I did not address the other M subclades that were mentioned in Roberta Estes “New Native American Mitochondrial Haplogroup” list in my last blog post because it focused specifically on M23. This blog post, however, seeks to do just that because I really don’t want the public to be misled into thinking that these other M subclades are, in fact, Native American as well. Given the stature that Roberta Estes has in the genetic genealogy community, I would really like to see her to remove these M subclades from her working hypothesis. The facts just don’t add up to them being Native American at all.
From Roberta Estes “Native American Mitochondrial Haplogroup” blog post on Sept. 18th, 2014 and updated 12/7/2014
I tried to replicate how Roberta Estes did her research to come up with her inclusion of the M haplogroup subclades in her hypothesis. I went back and looked at all the Clovis matches to see what M haplogroup subclades showed up and if they matched the ones Roberta mentioned on her blog (M1a, M1a1e, M1b1, M23, M3, M30c, M51, M5b3e, M7b1’2, M9a3a/M9a1ac1a). In order to accomplish this, I repeated the steps Roberta used to make her hypothesis. This meant bringing up the One-to-Many matches of the last known Gedmatch kit number we have for Clovis Anzick (F999919)and looking at the mtDNAs of the Clovis matches. When I reduced the cM level to 1 cM, I was able to pull up 1500 matches. However, only one had a M subclade of M7b1’2. I did not find any indication of any of the others she mentioned.
Clovis Anzick M7b1’2 mtDNA Match
I can only assume that Roberta used a previous version of the Clovis DNA profile. I know there were several as I matched the first Clovis DNA profile on Gedmatch, sharing 20 cMs with 7 cM as the largest segment, but did not match later Clovis DNA profiles. If this is in fact the case, than I believe Roberta should have taken this new Clovis match info into account when she updated her list on 12/7/2014.
As I mentioned in my previous post, the macro-haplogroup M covers a wide geographical area.
M Haplogroup Geographical Distribution
I looked up the geographical locations of each M subclade Roberta mentioned and found that they were not Native American or were out of the timeframe to be relevant for any comparison to Clovis Anzick. For example, M9a1a1c1a (formerly M9a3a), though geographical close– if you consider Siberia– to being Native American is dated by Behar to be 4221.4 years +/- 3456 old and therefore is nowhere near the 13,000-15,000 age range of Clovis.
The M subclades Roberta mentioned on her blog cover the following geographical areas:
M1a, M1a1e, M1b1 -North Africa, East African, and the Middle East
M23 – Only Madagascar
M3- Southeast Asia
M30c- South Asia
M51- Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Nepal, and Laos
M5b3e- I could not locate this subclade so it may be an error
M7b1’2- East Asia
M9a3a ( now known as M9a1a1c1a)- Japan, Siberia, Tibet, China, and Mongolia.
The M Haplgroup and Native Americans
I received some great feedback on my last blog post. One was from Ian Logan, another mtDNA expert, who likewise confirmed the Malagasy origins of the M23 haplogroup. Perhaps, one of the most telling comments that I received came from Dr. Ann Turner, a well-known genetic genealogy pioneer and mtDNA expert herself. I had included, in my blog post, the 2007 article titled “Mitochondrial Haplogroup M Discovered in Prehistoric Native Americans” by Ripan Malhi, et. al. This article is the one that Roberta cites in order to include M subclades as Native American in her hypothesis. Dr. Turner made the following comments:
Dr. Ann Turner’s comments
Dr. Ann Turner also consulted with Dr. Ugo Perego, another expert on Native American mtDNA, about the results of the 2007 M sample. Dr. Perego stated:
“Unfortunately, we might never know the true answer [because the remains have been reburied], but I am with you in thinking that it was probably a false positive for M and most likely an X, which would have been still quite interesting as ancient X’s are not that common.”
Both Dr. Turner and Dr. Perego believe that the M sample the article was based on most likely tested false positive for M when it was probably an X sample. Again, the M sample was never fully sequenced as Roberta herself acknowledges.
In conclusion, I have no idea how Roberta came up with her “New Native American Mitochondrial Haplogroups” list. Several people have asked her for an explanation of her methodology to no avail. I could not duplicate Roberta’s methodology as much as I tried. Because of this and the fact that the M sample she refers to was probably an X, I would like to see her remove the M subclades from her list of “New Native American Mitochondrial Haplogroups.” The evidence is simply not there to make that claim that they are “Native American Mitochondrial Haplogroups.”
We need to remember that individuals today have complex, multiple ancestries that may not be reflected in their mtDNA. I am one such person. I consider myself culturally African-American and Puerto Rican and my ethnic admixture is tri-racial (46% Sub-Saharan African, 46% European, and 8% Native American). But, when you look at my H1ag1 mtDNA, it is European. I am a perfect example of why it is so difficult to make vast, overarching conclusions about my mtDNA without knowing all the colors of my autosomal rainbow…The same holds true for all the other Clovis Anzick matches—who also had non-Native American haplgroups like E, L, H, T, U, J and K,—who did not make her list either.
Dr. Doug MacDonald’s Chromosomal Painting of Teresa Vega
