Breaking!! Forbears of Obama's white mother owned slaves!!1

[ecstatic]

Breaking news in the continuing coverage of the meme: Is Obama Black enough?

According to the research, one of Obama's great-great-great-great grandfathers, George Washington Overall, owned two slaves who were recorded in the 1850 Census in Nelson County, Ky. The same records show that one of Obama's great-great-great-great-great-grandmothers, Mary Duvall, also owned two slaves.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/bal-obama0301,1,4823288.story?coll=chi-news-hed

Obama is clearly not black enough. True blacks do not have slave owners in their ancestry. :sarcasm: :sarcasm:

[MADem]

1. Tell that to Al Sharpton and Essie May Washington Williams! NT

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. Actually,

there were black slave owners in the South--a black barber in Natchez MS became prosperous enough to own slaves (barbering was a trade open to blacks in the antebellum south)and another in MD, if memory serves. Hmm....wonder if THEIR descendants are considered "black enough"?

[papau]

8. the 1654 black Mr. Johnson sueing his Indentured Servant to make him a slave is "irony"

An Indentured Servant (or in the U.S. bonded laborer) is a laborer under contract to work for an employer for a specific amount of time, usually seven to eight years, to pay off a passage to a new country or home. Typically the employers provided little if any monetary pay, but was responsible for accommodation, food, other essentials, and training. Upon completion of the term of the contract those bound to Service for a Term of Years sometimes received a lump sum payment such as a parcel of land and was free to farm or take up trade of his own.

The term comes from the medieval English "indenture of retainer" — a contract written in duplicate on the same sheet, with the copies separated by cutting along a jagged (toothed, hence the term "indenture") line so that the teeth of the two parts could later be refitted to confirm authenticity.

in the United States Constitution: = those bound to Service for a Term of Years

"Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons".

====================================================

The free Negro (slavery was a near day one fact in British America) Anthony Johnson and his slave John Casor:

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:LCWXD_bfvGUJ:www.dinsdoc.com/russell-1.htm+colonial+slavery+legal+black+slave+owners&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=11&gl=us&client=firefox-a

The deposition of Capt. Samll. Goldsmyth taken in open court 8th of March <16>54 sayeth that being att ye house of Anth. Johnson Negro about ye beginning of November last to receive a Hogsd of tobac, a negro called Jno. Casor came to this depot & told him yt hee came into Virginia for seaven or eight years of Indenture; yt hee had demanded his freedome of Antho. Johnson his mayster & further sd yt hee had kept him his serv seaven years longer than hee should or ought; and desired that this Depont would see yt hee might have noe wronge; whereupon your depont demanded of Anth. Johnson his Indenture. the sd Johnson answered hee never saw any. The negro Jno. Casor replyed when hee came in he had an Indenture. Anth. Johnson sd hee had ye Negro for his life, but Mr. Robert & George Parker sd they knewe that ye sd Negro had an Indenture in one Mr. S hand on ye other side of ye Baye. Further sd Mr. Robert Parker & his

Brother George sd (if the sd. Anth. Johnson did not let ye negro go free) the said negro Jno Casor would recover most of his Cows from him ye sd Johnson. Then Anth. Johnson (as this dept. did suppose) was in a great feare. . . . Anth. Johnsons sonne in Law, his wife & his own two sonnes persuaded the old negro Anth. Johnson to sett the sd. Jno. Casor free . . . more sth not.

SAMLL GOLDSMYTH. Eight March Anno 1654.4

John Casor was not, however, permitted to enjoy long his freedom. Johnson decided to petition the county court to determine whether John Casor was a slave for life or a servant “for seven years of indenture.” The court record of the suit is as follows:

Whereas complaint was this daye made to ye court by ye humble peticion of Anth. Johnson Negro agt Mr. Robert Parker that hee detayneth one John Casor a Negro the plaintiffs Servt under pretense yt the sd Jno. Casor is a freeman the court seriously considering & maturely weighing ye premises doe fynd that ye sd Mr. Robert Parker most unrightly keepeth ye sd Negro John Casor from his rt mayster Anth. Johnson as it appeareth by ye Deposition of Capt. Samll Gold smith & many probable circumstances. be it therefore ye Judgement of ye court & ordered that ye sd Jno. Casor negro, shall forthwith bee turned into ye service of his sd master Anthony Johnson and that the sd Mr. Robert Parker make payment of all charges in the suite and execution.5

In thus sustaining the claim of Anth. Johnson to the perpetual service of John Casor the court gave judicial sanction to the right of Negroes to own slaves of their own race. Indeed no earlier record, to our knowledge, has been found of judicial support given to slavery in Virginia except as a punishment for crime. Additional gleanings from the records show that this black slavemaster was a respected citizen of wealth and one of the very earliest Negro arrivals upon this continent, if, indeed, he was not one of the first twenty brought in on the Dutch man-of-war in 1619. Every doubt of the correctness of this assertion should be banished by a perusal of the somewhat detailed evidence upon which the conclusion is based.


The following record of the court of Henrico County under date of 1795 is an example of what is to be found in the records of any of the older counties of Virginia
9 J. C. Hotten, “Lists of Emigrants to America,” pp. 218-258.

Know all men by these presents that I, James Radford of the County of Henrico for and in consideration of the sum of thirty-three pounds current money of Virginia to me in hand paid by George Radford a black freeman of the city of Richmond hath bargained and sold unto George Radford one negro woman aggy, to have and to hold the said negro slave aggy unto the said George Radford his heirs and assigns forever.

JAMES RADFORD (seal) 10

[Jacobin]

3. Um, Africans owning slaves in Liberia

was common late into the 19th century

[HereSince1628]

6. I'm confused, Liberia didn't exist until into the 19th century.

A couple of decades as a colony of sorts then nationhood about 1850.

[michaelwb]

13. Yeah.

Not really a problem.

Country in 1850.

Late 19th century would be 1850 - 1900.

50 years of overlap between two statements.

[Jacobin]

20. here ya go

Amazon.com
For most Americans, Liberia is a remote place in a distant continent with no connection to their daily lives. Few of us know that in the early 19th century, it was, in fact, an American colony, and to this day, contains communities called Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, Virginia, Kentucky, and Maryland founded by freed American slaves and populated by descendants of those slaves. Author Alan Huffman tells this story in his remarkable Mississippi in Africa: The Saga of the Slaves of Prospect Hill Plantation and Their Legacy in Liberia Today. The book begins as the author's attempt to flush out the details of a fascinating Mississippi family story about a prominent plantation owner's (Isaac Ross) desire to repatriate his slaves in Africa, but ends up being a complex and sensitive exploration of the legacy of slavery in the American South and Liberia. As Huffman traces Ross' descendants and those of his family's repatriated slaves, an intricate story of displacement, cultural identity, immigration, oppression, and racial politics unfolds. Ironically, when America's freed slaves immigrated to Africa, they brought with them the only social paradigm they knew, that of the Southern plantation. Overcoming severe hardship, they recreated that culture, and by the time Liberia became Africa's first independent republic in 1847, the minority American settlers had become the country's ruling class. Huffman adeptly shows how this legacy contributes to the current crisis in Liberia.

Mississippi in Africa is at once historical and contemporary, personal and universal, local and global. As Huffman indicates, slavery "has existed throughout Africa's recorded history, and still has not entirely passed from the scene." Its pernicious consequences continue to affect the lives of millions caught in the devastating and endless civil war in Liberia, just as they continue to impact American life. Yet, Huffman repeatedly shows that this extraordinary story cannot be simply reduced to a polemical rendering of white oppression of blacks. It is so much more about the powerful versus the powerless. Thus, Huffman presents the subtleties that have shaped both the politics and human relations in this story with profound humanity and nuance. --Silvana Tropea

http://www.amazon.com/Mississippi-Africa-Prospect-Plant...

[Jacobin]

19. google:

Mississippi in Africa.

My ancestors owned slaves in Mississippi and when he died his will provided for his land to be sold and for the proceeds to be used to fund the slaves return to Africa. After a lengthy court battle (heirs weren't happy) the land was sold and the slaves who wished to return (about half of them) were given funds to start anew there.

They built plantation homes in Liberia and enslaved Africans to work them. In the 1980's the native African rose up and overthrew the American-Africans and the country is now in considerable turmoil.

Amazon.com
For most Americans, Liberia is a remote place in a distant continent with no connection to their daily lives. Few of us know that in the early 19th century, it was, in fact, an American colony, and to this day, contains communities called Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, Virginia, Kentucky, and Maryland founded by freed American slaves and populated by descendants of those slaves. Author Alan Huffman tells this story in his remarkable Mississippi in Africa: The Saga of the Slaves of Prospect Hill Plantation and Their Legacy in Liberia Today. The book begins as the author's attempt to flush out the details of a fascinating Mississippi family story about a prominent plantation owner's (Isaac Ross) desire to repatriate his slaves in Africa, but ends up being a complex and sensitive exploration of the legacy of slavery in the American South and Liberia. As Huffman traces Ross' descendants and those of his family's repatriated slaves, an intricate story of displacement, cultural identity, immigration, oppression, and racial politics unfolds. Ironically, when America's freed slaves immigrated to Africa, they brought with them the only social paradigm they knew, that of the Southern plantation. Overcoming severe hardship, they recreated that culture, and by the time Liberia became Africa's first independent republic in 1847, the minority American settlers had become the country's ruling class. Huffman adeptly shows how this legacy contributes to the current crisis in Liberia.

Mississippi in Africa is at once historical and contemporary, personal and universal, local and global. As Huffman indicates, slavery "has existed throughout Africa's recorded history, and still has not entirely passed from the scene." Its pernicious consequences continue to affect the lives of millions caught in the devastating and endless civil war in Liberia, just as they continue to impact American life. Yet, Huffman repeatedly shows that this extraordinary story cannot be simply reduced to a polemical rendering of white oppression of blacks. It is so much more about the powerful versus the powerless. Thus, Huffman presents the subtleties that have shaped both the politics and human relations in this story with profound humanity and nuance. --Silvana Tropea

http://www.amazon.com/Mississippi-Africa-Prospect-Plantation-Liberia/dp/1592400442

Slavery has been a blight and a stain on humans for centuries and we will all be living with its insidious after effects for generations

[HereSince1628]

26. Yeah, I'm pretty aware of Liberia's history and Quaker connection

And I'm aware that slavery still goes on in various countries in western Africa.

What struck me as odd was the OPs use of "into" the 19th century. My experience is "into" doesn't mean throughout, or reaching well past the middle. 1805 is "into" the 19th century. As in a number of the Founders had political careers lasting into the 19th century. That's all. It just jarred my sense of expressing the penetration of a phenomenon across the period of a century.

[lynne]

9. Uh, "Free Coloreds" owned slaves in the US -

- check the 1790 census which breaks this info out. There were about 200 "free colored" slave holding families in the US at that time.
http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/php/start.php?year=V1790

[Jacobin]

17. Yes they did

There was a famous daughter of a slave and slave owner who was one of the largest slave owners in Louisiana near Natchitoches.

[PVnRT]

4. Clearly!

Obama might as well be David Duke! Hillary has the black vote locked up! :sarcasm:

[melody]

5. That's so stupid, it's painful

Playing to that core base Republican support group -- people who flunked history.

For the record, I'm descended from slave owners as well as slaves. And I'll betcha if
we take a little look into the background of Little George, to say nothing of every other
candidate ...

[Chemical Bill]

14. Me too.

Slave owners and slaves in my ancestry. Family is a wonderful thing.

Bill

[Ian David]

7. "While a relative owned slaves, another fought for the Union in the Civil War."

<snip>

"While a relative owned slaves, another fought for the Union in the Civil War," campaign spokesman Bill Burton said tonight. "And it is a true measure of progress that the descendant of a slave owner would come to marry a student from Kenya and produce a son who would grow up to be a candidate for president of the United States."

<snip>

Reitwiesner's research identifies two other presidential candidates, Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona and former Democratic Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, as descendants of slave owners. Three of McCain's great-great-grandfathers in Mississippi owned slaves, including one who owned 52 in 1860. Two ancestors of Edwards owned one slave each in Georgia in 1860.

<snip>

In a reference to his American ancestry, Obama writes "while one of my great-great-grandfathers, Christopher Columbus Clark, had been a decorated Union soldier, his wife's mother was rumored to have been a second cousin of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy."

Clark was actually Obama's great-great-great-grandfather, according to Reitwiesner's research and Census data available at ancestry.com. A 1930 Census document lists Clark, 84, living in the same El Dorado City, Kansas household as a 12-year-old great-grandson, Stanley A. Dunham. Dunham was Obama's grandfather.

More:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/bal-obama0301,1,4823288.story?coll=chi-news-hed

[Virginia Dare]

18. I can top that...

I have ancestors who owned slaves AND fought for the Union..:shrug:

[ecstatic]

23. hehe... are you serious? What made them jump ship? nt

[Virginia Dare]

24. No idea...

all we know is that when they went to Kentucky from Virginia they took their slaves with them, and ten years later some of them ended up fighting on the Union side. Peer pressure? Political pressure? Moral epiphany? We just don't know.. :shrug:

[pampango]

10. Since his Kenyan father's ancestors were not slaves,

as far as I know, Obama has more ancestors who were slave owners than he does those who were slaves.

If you look black you are black in our society. It is interesting, though, that if monetary reparations for slavery are ever enacted, he will be on the paying rather than receiving end.

Policy positions aside, which I know is a large caveat here at DU, Obama and Hillary both have the precedent setting aspect to their candidacies which would makes makes them intriguing. I'll support whoever survives the primaries, since the only option is not appealing. I am not a partisan of any particular candidate, so I learn a lot here about them all (though most posts deal with what is wrong with other candidates rather than what is right with their favorite.)

[GumboYaYa]

11. Breaking: George Bush descended from Nazi Sympathizers

and they are a lot closer in lineage than Barack's former slave owner ancestors.

[Adelante]

12. Many, many, many Americans descend from slave owners

And don't know it. Especially if you have pre-mid-19th century ancestors of any race or ethnicity and did your genealogy you might find easily that you descend from slave owners. This is true of families in northern states, also, although slaves were generally fewer in number than in the plantation south. New Jersey was one of the last states to have legal slaves, if I'm remembering correctly.

[Jack Rabbit]

15. Jack Rabbit descended from slave owners

In case anybody is wondering.

They migrated from Kentucky to Ohio at some point. I don't know what they did with the slaves before they moved.

[Jacobin]

21. I did too

[Horse with no Name]

16. Who gives a fuck--really?

If they have to go back to 1850...that shows how far they are really reaching.

[rocktivity]

22. I can't believe how much funnier The Onion has gotten

since they started outsourcing their work to other publications...

:eyes:
rocknation

[qwlauren35]

25. What's to be sarcastic about???

Your sarcasm is entirely without merit. Most black folks don't have slave owners in our ancestry BY CHOICE!!!

However, a lot of English-descendant WHITE people definitely do...

Obama is biracial. It's just a fact. And people on both sides of the racial fence have to accept it if he's going to get anywhere.

It's quite possible that Obama's slave owning ancestors rolled in their graves when one of their female descendants MARRIED an African!

Once again, I see a belittling of the complex aspects of race in America. And frankly, it amuses me... and reminds me that most people here are probably white, and some just have no clue about these things.

I have a cousin who was raped by her white boss. And had a son. She was married, and the family tried their best to accept this extremely light skinned biracial child in their midst. But it was too hard for everyone... he eventually blew his brains out.

Try to realize that there are a fair number of African-Americans who carry white blood because some slavemaster considered sleeping with female slaves to be a cheap way to increase the labor pool.

Obama may have married a woman who has a history like this, but it's not in any way a part of HIS ancestry. He is NOT the descendant of African-American slaves, his parents and ancestors didn't deal beatings or rape by masters and overseers, or the threat of lynching, or segregation and Jim Crow laws, or inferior schooling for generations, or exclusion from most jobs for nearly 100 years after being freed from slavery. Personally, I don't hold it against him. But this fact is part of what makes him who he is... and who he is NOT, and it's not something I just ignore.