Report: President Obama Descended From “First American Slave”
July 30, 2012
Arrival of the first 20 slaves in Jamestown (depiction 1911)
This story is going to very soon be recognized as an absolutely astonishing piece of American history.
The very first African-American president of the United States is believed to be a direct descendant of the very first documented case of an African being made a slave in the American colonies. This goes all the way back to Jamestown—Jamestown—and the year 1640.
A research team from Ancestry.com … has concluded that President Barack Obama is the 11thgreat-grandson of John Punch, the first documented African enslaved for life in American history. Remarkably, the connection was made through President Obama’s Caucasian mother’s side of the family.
John Punch was among the first twenty Africans forcibly brought to what would become the United States of America (and the very first known to have tried to escape!), and the very first to be designated a slave for life. And his grandkid, so to speak, became the U.S. of A.’s very first black president. And the family line goes through his white mother’s side of the family.
The mind just reels.
President Barack Obama, official White House portrait
Wikipedia article on the Jamestown Twenty.
News stories here, here, and here.
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