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African heritage of presidents of the United States

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This article includes information on the African heritage of presidents of the United States, together with information on unsubstantiated claims that certain presidents of the United States had African ancestry. (All Homo sapiens descend from ancestors on the African continent, but "African heritage" here means descent from sub-Saharan Africans in roughly the past 500 years.)

Presidents with African ancestry

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Barack Obama

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President Barack Obama, who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017, had an African father and an American mother of mostly European ancestry.[1][2] His father, Barack Obama Sr. (1936–1982),[3] was a Luo Kenyan[4] from Nyang'oma Kogelo, Kenya.[5] In July 2012, drawing on a combination of historical documents and Y-DNA analysis, Ancestry.com found a strong likelihood that Obama—through his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham—was descended from John Punch, known as the "first official slave in the English colonies."[6][7][8][9]

Unsubstantiated claims that presidents had African ancestry

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Claims that certain U.S. presidents other than Barack Obama had African or African-American ancestry have been made by the amateur historian J. A. Rogers, ophthalmologist Leroy William Vaughn,[10] and psychologist Auset BaKhufu. All base their theories chiefly on the work of J. A. Rogers, who apparently self-published a pamphlet in 1965 claiming that five presidents of the United States, widely accepted as white, also had African ancestry.[11] Historian Henry Louis Gates has written that Rogers' pamphlet "would get the 'Black History Wishful Thinking Prize,' hands down".[12] Vaughn's and BaKhufu's books were also self-published.[13]

Historians' and biographers' studies of these presidents have not supported such claims, and they lack empirical evidence.[12][14] These authors are generally ignored by scholars. They have been classified as "rumormongers and amateur historians" as well as conspiracy theorists.[12][15] Vaughn and BaKhufu have added little substantive research to their claims, but there have been more rumors of the potential African heritage of other presidents in the decades since Rogers published his pamphlet.[15][16][17][18] These rumors are considered unsubstantiated and have not been acknowledged by historians.[19]

Thomas Jefferson

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Vaughn and others claim Thomas Jefferson's mother Jane Randolph Jefferson was of mixed-race ancestry.[13][18] The academic consensus does not support such claims. In her recent analyses of historical evidence about the Hemings and Jeffersons, for example, the scholar Annette Gordon-Reed makes no claim of African descent in the Randolph family.[20]

Specifically, Vaughn says, "The chief attack on Jefferson was in a book written by Thomas Hazard in 1867 called The Johnny Cake Papers. Hazard interviewed Paris Gardiner, who said he was present during the 1796 presidential campaign, when one speaker states that Thomas Jefferson was a mean-spirited son of a half-breed Indian squaw and a Virginia mulatto father."[21] An overlapping claim is that, in an 18th-century presidential campaign, someone speaking against Jefferson's candidacy and in favor of that of John Adams accused Jefferson of being "half Injun, half nigger, half Frenchman"[22][23] and born to a "mulatto father"[22][23][24] or slave[25] and "a half-breed Indian squaw",[22][23][24] this birth to a mulatto and an Indian allegedly "well-known in the neighbourhood where he was raised"[26] but otherwise unproven. These claims are based on damning stories from Jefferson's political opponents and are best understood as race-baiting rather than evidence about his actual lineage.[12]

The Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which owns and operates Monticello, the major public history site on Jefferson, characterizes Jefferson's parents this way: "His father Peter Jefferson was a successful planter and surveyor and his mother Jane Randolph a member of one of Virginia's most distinguished families."[27] They describe the quote in The Johnny Cake Papers as one frequently repeated, but it is attributed in written sources to the 1800 rather than the 1796 election campaign and clearly is one made by political opponents. The Johnny Cake Papers were a collection of folk tales published in 1879, not 1867, and only one tale commented on Jefferson. Dixon Wecter, in his essay "Thomas Jefferson, The Gentle Radical," discusses various portrayals of Jefferson by his political enemies, and mentions that "the Jonnycake [sic] Papers later burlesqued such caricatures..."[28]

Andrew Jackson

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Andrew Jackson referred to an accusation that his "Mother ... [was] held to public scorn as a prostitute who intermarried with a Negro, and [that his] ... eldest brother [was] sold as a slave in Carolina."[29][30] Less specific was a rumor of Jackson having "colored blood", meaning having "Negro" ancestry;[31] this rumor was unproven. President Jackson's father was born in Carrickfergus, County Antrim, in current-day Northern Ireland, around 1738.[32] Scholars Hendrik Booraem, Robert Remini, and H. W. Brands have agreed he had no black ancestors.[33]

Abraham Lincoln

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Abraham Lincoln's mother Nancy Hanks was claimed to be of African descent (Ethiopian). Since then it has been proven she was white.[15][17][18]

According to historian William E. Barton, a rumor "current in various forms in several sections of the South" was that Lincoln's biological father was Abraham Enloe, which Barton dismissed as "false".[34] According to Doug Wead, Enloe made a public boast that he was Lincoln's real father, and Thomas Lincoln allegedly fought him, biting off a piece of his nose.[35] Another claim was that Lincoln was "part Negro",[36] but that was unproven.[37][38] According to Lincoln's law partner William H. Herndon, Lincoln had "very dark skin"[39] although "his cheeks were leathery and saffron-colored"[40] and "his face was ... sallow,"[40] and "his hair was dark, almost black".[41] Abraham Lincoln described himself c. 1838–39 as a "long black fellow"[42] and his "complexion" in 1859 as "dark",[43] but whether he meant either in an ancestral sense is unknown. The anti-Lincoln Charleston Mercury described him as being "of ... the dirtiest complexion",[44] as part of anti-abolitionist race-baiting.[12] Rumors of Lincoln's alleged black racial heritage are considered unsubstantiated and have not been acknowledged by historians.[19]

Warren G. Harding

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Warren G. Harding was said to have African ancestry; one claim was by his political opponent, a controversial and racist historian, William Estabrook Chancellor. Chancellor said Harding's father was a mulatto[15][16][17] and Harding's great-grandmother was black.[16] During Harding's campaign, Democratic opponents spread rumors that Harding's great-great-grandfather was a West Indian black and that other blacks might be found in his family tree.[45] Chancellor publicized rumors, based on supposed family research, but perhaps reflecting no more than local gossip.[46] In an era when the "one-drop rule" would classify a person with any African ancestry as black, and black people in the South had been effectively disenfranchised, Harding's campaign manager responded, "no family in the state (of Ohio) has a clearer, a more honorable record than the Hardings', a blue-eyed stock from New England and Pennsylvania, the finest pioneer blood."[47] "Many biographers have dismissed the rumors of Harding's mixed-race family as little more than a political scandal and Chancellor himself as a Democratic mudslinger and racist ideologue."[16] According to Chancellor, Harding got his only academic degree from Iberia College, which had been "founded to educate fugitive slaves."[18][48] The college was founded by abolitionist supporters in the Presbyterian Church in Ohio for students of both genders and all races.

The rumors may have been sustained by a statement Harding allegedly made to newspaperman James W. Faulkner on the subject, which he perhaps meant to be dismissive: "How do I know, Jim? One of my ancestors may have jumped the fence."[49] However, while there are gaps in the historical record, studies of his family tree have not found evidence of an African-American ancestor.[50]

In 2015 genetic testing of Harding's descendants determined, with more than a 95% percent chance of accuracy, that he lacked sub-Saharan African forebears within four previous generations.[51]

Calvin Coolidge

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Calvin Coolidge's mother Victoria Moor was claimed to be of a mixed-race family in Vermont.[15][18][48] Vaughn noted that her surname was derived from "Moor", a European term for people of North Africa. He did not note that another meaning of her surname is the landscape feature of moor or bog. People's surnames were often based on such landscape features when surnames became generally adopted in 14th century England. Moor/Moore is a common name in England, Scotland, and Ireland. What gives legitimacy to this claim, however, is the common knowledge of the Moors conquering Eastern Europe and ruling over Spain for 700 years.[52]

Dwight D. Eisenhower

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Dwight D. Eisenhower's mother was said to be of mixed blood from Africa and mulatto.[13][15][17] This claim seems to be ultimately based on nothing more than her appearance on an 1885 wedding photograph.[12] Historians and biographers of Eisenhower had documented his parents' German and Swiss German ancestry and long history in America. Some of his immigrant ancestors settled in Pennsylvania in 1741 and after, migrated west to Kansas.[53]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Scott, Janny, A Singular Woman (2011).
  2. ^ Stolberg, Sheryl Gay (30 July 2012). "Obama Has Ties to Slavery Not by His Father but His Mother, Research Suggests". The New York Times.
  3. ^ Kipkemboi, Andrew (June 1, 2008). "Kenyans Enthusiastic About Obama". Baltimore Sun. Archived from the original on February 22, 2020. Retrieved January 16, 2020.
  4. ^ "The fascinating tribal tradition that gave Obama his last name - The Washington Post". The Washington Post.
  5. ^ David R Arnott (7 November 2012). "From Obama's old school to his ancestral village, world reacts to US presidential election". Nbcnews.com. Retrieved January 16, 2020.
  6. ^ Coates (2003). "Law and the Cultural Production of Race and Racialized Systems of Oppression" (PDF). American Behavioral Scientist. 47 (3): 329–351. doi:10.1177/0002764203256190. S2CID 146357699.
  7. ^ "Ancestry.com Discovers Ph Suggests" Archived 2015-04-02 at the Wayback Machine, The New York Times. July 30, 2012.
  8. ^ Plante, Bill Obama Related to First Documented Slave in America", Ancestry.com. July 30, 2012.
  9. ^ Stolberg, Sheryl Gay "Obama Has Ties to Slavery Not by His Father but His Mother, Research-in-obamas-family-tree/ "Surprising link found in Obama's family tree", CBS News. July 30, 2012.
  10. ^ Dr. Leroy Vaughn, Black People & Their Place in History Archived January 24, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
  11. ^ Rogers, J. A., The Five Negro Presidents: According to What White People Said They Were (St. Petersburg, Fla.: Helga M. Rogers, 1965; ISBN 0-9602294-8-5).
  12. ^ a b c d e f Adams, Cecil (2017-01-04). "Were There Black Presidents Before Obama?". Washington City Paper. Retrieved 2022-07-29.
  13. ^ a b c Haynes, Monica (February 5, 2008). "Racial heritage of six former presidents is questioned". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Archived from the original on 22 January 2009. Retrieved 2009-01-28. "Virtually, all we know came from J.A. Rogers," said Dr. Vaughn, who based his chapter on black presidents on Mr. Rogers' research and that of Dr. Auset Bakhufu. Dr. Bakhufu's 1993 book The Six Black Presidents Black Blood: White Masks includes Eisenhower. Vaughn's publisher, Lulu, advertised a self-publication service at its home page, as accessed February 21, 2013.
  14. ^ "Barack Obama is Not the First "Black President"". All Africa. 2008. Archived from the original on 26 January 2009. Retrieved 2009-01-29. Another rendering is the one using C. Stone Brown's article titled "Who were the 5 Black Presidents" that appeared in a February 2004 edition of DiversityInc magazine, ophthalmologist Leroy Brown's book titled Black People and Their Place in History, J.A. Roger's book titled Five Black Presidents and William Herndon's book titled The Hidden Lincoln. These sources together claim six American Presidents who were believed to have had "Black blood": Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Dwight David Eisenhower. These sources, however, do not offer compelling empirical evidence to support their claims. A more empirically grounded source is the article titled "Harding was first 'black president'" that appeared in the Baltimore Sun on October 7, 1998 (p.2A) written by Theo Lippman. The following is a retelling of Lippman's findings.
  15. ^ a b c d e f Chideya, Farai (June 24, 2008). "Has America Already Had a Black President?". National Public Radio. Retrieved 2009-01-20. This fall, America could elect its first black president, but according to some, the country has already had a black commander-in-chief. Over time, rumormongers and amateur historians have claimed that Andrew Jackson, Thomas Jefferson, Warren Harding, Dwight Eisenhower, Calvin Coolidge, and Abraham Lincoln had black lineage.
  16. ^ a b c d Gage, Beverly (April 6, 2008). "Our First Black President?". The New York Times. Archived from the original on December 10, 2008. Retrieved 2009-01-20.
  17. ^ a b c d Mlynar, Bobbi (November 5, 2008). "Is Obama the first black president?". Emporia Gazette. Archived from the original on December 10, 2008. Retrieved 2009-01-20. '(I)f we go with George Washington as our first (American president), then Obama would be No. 7,' said Terrell, department chairman and associate professor of sociology at Emporia State University, who received his doctorate in sociology from Iowa State University. 'But we have six presidents whose parents — five mothers, one father — had black blood. But we never claimed that for these folks.'
  18. ^ a b c d e Hussain, Aysha (2009). "Obama Won't Be First Black President" (PDF). North Dallas Gazette (published from Diversity original from 2008). Retrieved 2016-01-29. Were there other "black" presidents? Some historians have reason to believe people don't really understand the genealogy of past U.S. Presidents. Research shows at least five U.S. presidents had black ancestors and Thomas Jefferson, the nation's third president, was considered the first black president, according to historian Leroy Vaughn, author of Black People and Their Place in World History. Vaughn's research shows Jefferson was not the only former black U.S. president. Who were the others? Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge. But why was this unknown? How were they elected president? All five of these presidents never acknowledged their black ancestry.
  19. ^ a b "Fact check: Photograph of unidentified black man mislabeled as 'the real Abraham Lincoln'". Reuters. 2020-06-11. Retrieved 2022-07-29. Rumors about Lincoln's racial heritage have been circulating for years, as well as other presidents' including Thomas Jefferson, Warren Harding and Dwight Eisenhower (here, here). These claims, however, are considered unsubstantiated and have not been acknowledged by historians (here, here).
  20. ^ Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello and Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings.
  21. ^ Leroy William Vaughn (2002). Black People and Their Place in History. Lulu.com. p. 142. ISBN 0-9715920-0-4.
  22. ^ a b c Nock, Albert Jay, Jefferson (N.Y.: Hill & Wang (American Century ser.), 1st Am. Century ser. edn September 1960, 3rd printing November 1963, copyright 1926 (apparently [pbk.])), p. 141, citing The Johnnycake Papers (in another ed., possibly p. 233).
  23. ^ a b c Taylor, Coley, & Samuel Middlebrook, The Eagle Screams (N.Y.: Macaulay, 1936), p. 77 and see p. 76 (campaign of 1796), citing Nock, A. J., Jefferson.
  24. ^ a b B., D. S., Dim View (sidebar), in Broder, David S., Why the Candidates are Targets for Mudslingers, in The New York Times, September 27, 1964, last page of article, as accessed in ProQuest April 30, 2012, 7:15:39 p.m. (campaign in 1796).
  25. ^ Taylor, Coley, et al., The Eagle Screams, op. cit., p. 67.
  26. ^ Nock, Albert Jay, Jefferson, op. cit., p. 141, citing The Johnnycake Papers (in another ed., possibly p. 233), op. cit..
      Without hyphen & "u": Taylor, Coley, et al., The Eagle Screams, op. cit., p. 77 and see p. 76, citing Nock, A. J., Jefferson.
  27. ^ "Brief Biography of Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)". Monticello Foundation. Archived from the original on 2008-08-01. Retrieved 2009-01-31.
  28. ^ "Son of a half-breed Indian squaw..." Monticello Foundation. Archived from the original on 2012-07-31. Retrieved 2009-01-31.
  29. ^ Letters from Andrew Jackson to R. K. Call, in The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 29, no. 2, April 1921, p. 191, and see p. 192 (letter dated August 16, 1828).
  30. ^ Coyle, David Cushman, Ordeal of the Presidency (Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs Press, 1960), p. 127 (author graduate of Princeton & Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute).
  31. ^ Both quotations: Jacobson, David J., The Affairs of Dame Rumor (N.Y.: Rinehart & Co., 1948), p. 190.
  32. ^ Gullan, Harold I., First Fathers: The Men Who Inspired Our Presidents (Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2004; ISBN 0-471-46597-6; LCCN 2003-20625; OCLC 53090968). Retrieved January 14, 2010.
  33. ^ Hendrik Booraem, Young Hickory: The Making of Andrew Jackson (2001); Robert Remini, Andrew Jackson: The Course of American Empire, 1767–1821. Vol. 1 (1999); The Papers of Andrew Jackson. Vol. 1, 1770–1803 (1980); H. W. Brands, Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times (2006).
  34. ^ Barton, William E. (1920). The Paternity of Abraham Lincoln: Was He the Son of Thomas Lincoln? An Essay on the Chastity of Nancy Hanks. George H. Doran Company. pp. 19, 203, & 319.
  35. ^ Wead, Doug (2005). The Raising of a President: The Mothers and Fathers of Our Nation's Leaders. Simon & Schuster. p. 101. ISBN 0-7434-9726-0.
  36. ^ Jacobson, David J., The Affairs of Dame Rumor (N.Y.: Rinehart & Co., 1948), p. 191, citing Burr, Chauncey, Catechism, the latter referencing a "pamphlet by a western author adducing evidence" for the claim.
  37. ^ Sandburg, Carl, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years (N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace,1928), vol. 2, p. 381 (in chap.champ;154).
  38. ^ Coyle, David Cushman, Ordeal of the Presidency (Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs Press, 1960), p. 155 (author graduate of Princeton & Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute).
  39. ^ Hertz, Emanuel, The Hidden Lincoln: from the Letters and Papers of William H. Herndon (N.Y.: Viking Press, February 1938), p. 413.
  40. ^ a b Hertz, Emanuel, The Hidden Lincoln, op. cit., p. 414.
  41. ^ Hertz, Emanuel, The Hidden Lincoln, op. cit., p. 414 and see p. 413 ("dark hair").
  42. ^ Shaw, Archer H., compiler & ed., The Lincoln Encyclopedia: The Spoken and Written Words of A. Lincoln Arranged For Ready Reference (N.Y.: Macmillan, 1950), p. 190, entry Lincoln, Abraham, personal description of (To Josephus Hewett, February 13, 1848, I, 355) ("nearly ten years ago" thus ca. 1838–'39).
  43. ^ Both quotations: Shaw, Archer H., compiler & ed., The Lincoln Encyclopedia, op. cit. (To F. W. Fell, December 20, 1859, V, 288).
  44. ^ Taylor, Coley, & Samuel Middlebrook, The Eagle Screams, op. cit., p. 106 and see p. 109.
  45. ^ Russell, Francis, The Shadow of Blooming Grove–Warren G. Harding In His Times (Easton Press, 1962; ISBN 0-07-054338-0), p. 372.
  46. ^ Russell, Francis, The Shadow of Blooming Grove, op. cit., pp. 403–405.
  47. ^ Russell, Francis, The Shadow of Blooming Grove, op. cit., p. 404.
  48. ^ a b Murphy, P. (1993), Making the Connections: Women, Work, and Abuse. PMD Press, p. xxxi.
  49. ^ Adams, Samuel Hopkins, Incredible Era: The Life and Times of Warren Gamaliel Harding (Houghton Mifflin, 1939; ISBN 0-374-90051-5), p. 280.
  50. ^ Millner, Gloria, Warren G. Harding, Cleveland Live, February 4, 2008, retrieved December 23, 2010.
  51. ^ Baker, Peter (August 18, 2015). "DNA Shows Warren Harding Wasn't America's First Black President". The New York Times. Retrieved August 18, 2015.
  52. ^ Patrick Hanks (2003). Dictionary of American Family Names. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-508137-4. Moor is a variant of Moore. Moore Name Meaning and History: 1. English: from Middle English more 'moor', 'marsh', 'fen', 'area of uncultivated land' (Old English mor), hence a topographic name for someone who lived in such a place or a habitational name from any of the various places named with this word, as for example Moore in Cheshire or More in Shropshire. 2. English: from Old French more 'Moor' (Latin maurus). The Latin term denoted a native of northwestern Africa, but in medieval England the word came to be used informally as a nickname for any swarthy or dark-skinned person.
  53. ^ Eisenhower Presidential Library & Museum Archived February 23, 2009, at the Wayback Machine, includes Home and Tomb, and photo of parents, Official website, accessed 30 January 2009.
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