The American revolution left a profound legacy not only for the birth of this nation but also for those who chose loyalty to the British Crown over rebellion. Among these Black Loyalists ── individuals, both free and enslaved, who faced unimaginable challenges as they navigated the complexities of war and its aftermath. This article continues the exploration of their lives, focusing on those who originated from Westchester and Dutchess Counties, New York. Many lived on estates owned by prominent families, including the Philipse, Van Cortlandt, Schuyler, Livingston, and Beekman Manors.
Drawing from my own family’s deep roots in these counties, this series sheds light on the experiences of individuals whose choices and sacrifices shaped their futures in the face of war, displacement, and resettlement. By chronicling their journeys ── be it evacuation to Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, or other parts of the British Empire ── this article aims to honor their resilience and contribution to history. These stories remind us of the diverse threads of loyalty, survival, and identity that are woven into the fabric of the Revolutionary era.
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 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!
