Category Archives: Blacks in Rockland County

The Legacy of David S. Cohen’s Ramapo Mountain People and the Rise of Indigenous Hatekeepers

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 years after the 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-1-1
Taphow 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 here in 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)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_lCuYR2FcZLzFcIu1nuyQqm1JG71vrdl/view?usp=sharing

Community Members Speak out Against the “Alleged Pretendian List”

https://lastrealindians.com/news/2021/5/9/cp3jcylawd83oe095y8npx67n6jng0

The Crashing of Sacheen’s Funeral

https://voshart.medium.com/the-crashing-of-sacheens-funeral-a3c3a7bec173

Opinion: The Real Problem With Jacqueline Keeler’s ‘Alleged Pretendian’ List

https://www.powwows.com/the-problem-with-jacqueline-keelers-pretendian-list/’

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/Ramapough that 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.

https://www.academia.edu/36838452/Sovereignty_and_Recognition

https://www.academia.edu/1225640/The_Name_Game_The_Ramapough_Mountain_Indians

https://www.academia.edu/2008598/The_Limits_of_Advocacy_The_Case_of_the_Lumbee_Indians

https://www.academia.edu/3995343/The_One_Drop_Rule_in_Reverse_The_Nanticoke_Lenni_Lenape_the_Delaware_Indians_and_the_New_Jersey_Indian_Commission

hpps://www.academia.edu/44628690/Whos_Afraid_of_Historical_Evidence_Rutgers_the_New_Jersey_Historical_Commission_and_New_Jerseys_Non_Federally_Recognized_Indian_Tribes_

https://www.academia.edu/29783986/The_Seven_Trees_Motif_and_the_Ramapo_Mountain_People

https://www.academia.edu/28884150/American_Native_Film_Review_docx

htpps://www.academia.edu/37949936/The_Lumbee_Indians_An_American_Struggle

https://www.academia.edu/3690101/Emergent_Native_American_Groups_in_New_Jersey

 

For Further  Reading and Viewing:

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.

Websites:

https://ramapomunsee.net/

https://sandhillindianhistory.org/contact.html

https://native-land.ca/

http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:3153295

The Freedmen of New Amsterdam

YouTube Videos:

Ezra Stiles, Census Making, and Indian Erasure in New England with Jason Mancini https://youtu.be/6lmSB5FkKOw

https://www.youtube.com/@whoisnickasmith/playlists  (Researching the Enslaved playlist) and episode on The Five Civilized Tribes)

https://youtu.be/xJkZG2SKEKI (Finding Isaac Rogers)

 Articles:

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.

“Can Genealogy be Racist? Identity, Roots & The Question of Proof” by Ellen Fernandez-Sacco, Latino Genealogy and Beyond.com, March 22, 2018. https://latinogenealogyandbeyond.com/blog/can-genealogy-be-racist/

 ”Extinction: The Historical Trope of Anti-Indigeneity in the Caribbean” by Maximillian C. Forte, Issues in Caribbean Amerindian Studies, Vol VI, No. 4, August 2004-August. https://indigenouscaribbean.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/forteatlantic2005.pdf

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

“One-drop” — Reckoning with Erasure of Native Identity in Appalachia”  https://www.salon.com/2018/05/21/one-drop-reckoning-with-the-erasure-of-native-identity-in-appalachia_partner/

Book Titles/Authors:

 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

 

Our Abolitionist Ancestors: Newark Born and Bred

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 website which 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 Society deserve 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 Relations Marcia 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.

Let it be known that our extended Thompson- King family has an over 400+ year history in Newark/Essex County, NJ as well as most counties across the state, and they were among the original foot soldiers of freedom who insitutionalized what became known as the Underground Railroad in the Northeast. They were the ones who founded churches, schools, anti-slavery societies (The Colored Anti-Slavery Society of Newark, the Anti-Slavery Society of Essex County, The New Jersey State Anti-Slavery Society, as well as the American Anti-Slavery Society), businesses, benevolent and mutual aid organizations, anti-colonization societies, Masonic lodges, literary societies, temperance  societies, etc. as I have previously mentioned in my blogposts (1) From Slave to Stagecoach Owner: Thomas Thompson, (2)My Poor 3rd Great-Grandfather Cato, (3)The Underground Railroad House that Jacob D. King Built in Newark, (4) Rev. John A. King: Abolitionist, Preacher, and Planemaker and (5) The Blanchard Family of Orange, NJ: From Slavery to Freedom.

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, 1864
Centinel of Freedom November 3, 1863
Centinel 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. OgdenCaleb 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.

Our Lyon Family Legacy: From CT to NY/NJ

Connecticut Puritans  settled in Newark (Essex County) and all over East Jersey in the early 1600s. Among Newark’s original settlers were the New Jersey Branch of our CT Lyon Family. Our Lyon ancestors have a strong abolitionist history with our Lyon-Green-Merritt ancestors who have always been linked by blood and kinship. The following blogposts detail our united family history that spans centuries up to TODAY: (1) A Look at Northern Slavery Personified: The Greens and Merritts of Greenwich, CT, (2) My Ancestors Are Now Buried In Someone’s Front Lawn, (3) Coming to the Table In Honor of Jack Husted, (4) Hangroot Was Our Hood: Reclaiming Black Greenwich History, (5) Our Ancestors Willed It And So It Came To Be, and (6) Off the Battlefield, But Still Suffering from PTSD. Most of our ancestors on our NJ Lyon line were Patriots during the Revolutionary War.
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 Church in 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. DeGrasse
Lewis 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…

 

 

DNA Doesn’t Lie: The Denial of the Pepper in Salted Histories

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.