Posted on 03/02/2007 7:49:02 AM PST by dead
WASHINGTON: Many people know that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's father was from Kenya and his mother from Kansas.
But an intriguing snippet of the Illinois senator's family history has received almost no attention until now: It appears that forebears of his white mother owned slaves, according to genealogical research and US census records.
The records - never addressed publicly by Senator Obama or his relatives - were noted in an ancestry report compiled by William Addams Reitwiesner, who works at the Library of Congress and researches genealogies in his spare time. The report, on Mr Reitwiesner's website, carries a disclaimer that it is a "first draft" - one likely to be examined more closely if the senator from Illinois is nominated.
According to the research, one of Senator Obama's great-great-great-great-grandfathers, George Washington Overall, owned two slaves who were recorded in the 1850 census in Nelson County, Kentucky. The same records show that one of Senator Obama's great-great-great-great-great-grandmothers, Mary Duvall, also owned two slaves.
The records show that Overall, then 30, owned a 15-year-old female and a 25-year-old male, while Mary Duvall, his mother-in-law, owned a 60-year-old man and a 58-year-old woman.
An Obama spokesman did not dispute the information and said that the senator's ancestors "are representative of America".
"While a relative owned slaves, another fought for the Union in the Civil War," campaign spokesman Bill Burton said on Thursday. "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."
It was unclear whether Senator Obama was aware of any slave-holding ancestors.
"You just can't casually throw some documents together and make a sophisticated analysis," said Tony Burroughs, author of Black Roots: A Beginners Guide to Tracing the African American Family Tree.
Senator Obama faces a showdown this weekend in Alabama with Hillary Clinton for black votes. The former president Bill Clinton will make his first campaign appearance with his wife. Senator Obama is keynoting tomorrow's civil rights commemoration in Selma while the Clintons will be at a nearby church. All three will join a march over the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where state troopers police beat civil rights activists in 1965.
I imagine that a large percentage of today's black American citizens (who are not recent arrivals from Africa) have a slaveowner, either black or white, in their family tree.
First Romney is held to account for his great-great-great grandfather's actions now Obama is being held to account for this. I think both stories have Clinton fingerprints all over them. And this from the couple who believe that they can't be held responsible for what they did 10 seconds ago. They are a contaminant to the body politic of this country.
For Hillary Clinton to be that early so obsessed with Obama who has zero chance to win the nomination to begin with is a great sign that she cannot handle any pressure. The woman is too nasty, too mean, and too arrogant to be elected President. She and the liberal media cannot hide her nasty character no matter what. The voters will recognize her very mean personality early on and the majority of them will be turned away from her. The primaries are 10 months away and she is that mean and nasty, imagine when the real campaign starts how horribly nasty she will turn.
Well, there goes Obama's share of the reparations!
I have been thinking about reparations. I now think reparations are a good idea, if the person receiving reparations gives up their citizenship and return to the land of their ancestors.
I suspect that most "black" people in this country had some slave owner DNA in their family tree.
So they owe themselves a big apology.
Man, he must owe some serious reparations!
Mr. Reitweisner's genealogies are fun to browse (www.wargs.com). Obama is a cousin to Christopher Reeve, Brad Pitt, Howard Dean, Brit Hume, Katharine Hepburn, Harry Truman, VP Cheney, Senator Robert Byrd, John Hinckley, both Presidents Bush, Jon Benet Ramsey and Georgia O'Keefe, among many others.
That's a little different - generally they were still the slaves.
It's meaningless, but it's fair game cuz the media are jumping up and down over the Romney Mormon thing.
"That's a little different - generally they were still the slaves."
Indeed.
You've got it!! Strange "accidents" just seem to happen to the Witch's adversaries.
LOL....we're ALL related! And, furthermore, MY great, great, great, great, great, great,.... great grandparents were likely slaves also....in the Roman Empire.
You're right, but look at the larger picture--Hillary keeps the black vote.
Pre-colonial history Cushitic-speaking people from northern Africa moved into the area that is now Kenya beginning around 2000 BC. Arab traders began frequenting the Kenya coast around the 1st century AD. Kenya's proximity to the Arabian Peninsula invited colonization, and Arab and Persian settlements sprouted along the coast by the 8th century. During the first millennium AD, Nilotic and Bantu peoples moved into the region, and the latter now comprise three-quarters of Kenya's population. In the centuries preceeding colonisation, Kenya was part of the east African region used extensively by slavers from the Muslim world to find slaves. Initially these slavers came mainly from Arab states, but later many also came from Zanzibar (such as Tippu Tip). The Ameru tribe of Kenya originates from slaves escaping from Arab lands some time around the year 1700.
Swahili, a Bantu language with many Arabic loan words, developed as a lingua franca for trade between the different peoples.
It's like carbon credits. We conservatives are just too pea-brained to fathom it.
If we wanted to tar a candidate with slave ownership or polyagamy, we don't need to go that far back. Obama's own father was married to another woman when he married his mother and he later took a third wife. I'm sure his black muslim father or a not too distant ancestor probably owned slaves, also, as muslims do not consider slavery wrong.
So what? Who the heck cares what someone's great-great-great-great grandparents did. This is too ridiculous to even comment on.
So what? Who the heck cares what someone's great-great-great-great grandparents did? This is too ridiculous to even comment on.
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