The "black man" in America represents a hybrid population

[Exeter]

"Biologically speaking, the "black man" in America represents a hybrid population composed of genes from Africa (primarily West Africa) and Europe. Thus, the genetic structure of the black population of the United States differs considerably from those African populations from which it sprang. It must also be remembered that American blacks constitute a sample of only a few of the many populations of the African continent.
The category "Negro" in the United States includes individuals who have any of the common phenotypic traits associated in the American folk taxonomy with African ancestry, or any individual who claims to have, or can be shown to have, such ancestry. Unlike Caucasians, who under certain circumstances can remain white and be part Indian too, it is almost impossible in the United,States to remain white if African ancestry is found somewhere in the family tree. A very peculiar second-rate literature has grown up around this type of racial identification. Typically, a young and beautiful southern belle, about to marry the aristocratic descendant of white slave owners, suddenly discovers that she herself is a Negro through genealogical ties to some long-forgotten distant relative. She gives up her future husband and responds nobly to the call of her race by
setting off on a new career caring for poor black orphans. Her marriage to a white man would be unthinkable and so a happy ending is built upon racial memory and heroic sacrifice. (Many of these stories become Hollywood films, viz., "Pinky.") One of the persistent biological myths reflected in these stories is the commonly held belief that a white-light Negro marriage might produce dark, even black, children. While two individuals of mixed ancestry can, in fact, have children somewhat darker and somewhat lighter than either parent, a marriage between a "pure" Caucasoid (whatever that is) and a Negro cannot produce offspring darker than the darker parent. The myth of black babies coming from such marriages probably arises from the fact of marriage between phenotypically light Negroes and individuals who were wrong in assuming that they had no African genes! This could happen in the south where a good deal of nonmarital intercourse took place (most often involuntarily on the part of blacks), particularly before the Civil War. Genes from such unions, some of them undoubtedly African in origin, got into the gene pool socially defined as white. It is for this reason that no southern American can really be sure that he is not "Negro," at least as he himself would define the term. This produces a cultural paranoia derived from social rules and definitions, as well as misunderstandings of biology."

Alexander Alland Jr, Human Diversity, Anchor Books, Garden City, NY, 1973.

[Galaico]

Very interesting topic. A few months ago, doing some googling, I found this web, that allegedly states quite a high level (~6%) of black admixture in the White (especially Afrikaner) population of South Africa. I don't know how reliable it is, but it's really interesting.

http://www.geocities.com/kempcountrymen/

[svin]

The address of the site: "kempcountrymen" is suspicious... I don't think that in country with apartheid it's possible to have such high admixture.

[Exeter]

I think most Americans with phenotypically Negrid-Europid parents are seen as socially black, so the example he gave is rather about exceptional cases. I think that, because of theone-drop rule, there is more European admixture in African-Americans (who would still be identified as "black") than African-American admicture in European-American communities. But it is a more difficult case when the admixture is small, genetically insignficant and long forgotten. This kind of admixture is sometimes phenotypically stronger than that of either parent.

"The sample of African Americans from Washington D.C. shows a significantly higher European contribution than the African Caribbean sample from Britain (18.6%±1.5% vs 10.2%±1.4%). In both samples, the native American contribution is small, with the 95% confidence intervals overlapping 0.0 (Washington, D.C.: 2.7%; African Caribbeans: 1.9%). In European Americans from State College, the west African and native American genetic contribution are low (0.7% and 3.2%, respectively)."

http://dienekes.ifreepages.com/blog/...es/000090.html

[Señor Malo]

Originally Posted by Exeter

I think most Americans with phenotypically Negrid-Europid parents are seen as socially black, so the example he gave is rather about exceptional cases. I think that, because of theone-drop rule, there is more European admixture in African-Americans (who would still be identified as "black") than African-American admicture in European-American communities. But it is a more difficult case when the admixture is small, genetically insignficant and long forgotten. This kind of admixture is sometimes phenotypically stronger than that of either parent.

Someone at Skadi Forum said that the reason why Americans liked so much making genealogical research was because they were obssesed by the idea of finding an amreindid or a afro forefather.

This consideration put aside I agree with you; cavcasoid admixture in afro americans is surely more important than the opposite. The difference with africans is too much evident and I'd see them closer to western indies blacks rather if not less negrids.

[Exeter]

The author addressed the American Indian case in the same book.

"In the United States being "Indian" generally means having any phenotypic characteristics which are similar to the characteristics of any Asiatic population and living in a state where Indians are prevalent and mainland Asiatics quite rare. An exception to this rule may be California, where large urban Indian, Japanese, and Chinese populations keep their ethnic identities separate through choice of living space and custom. In New York City, on the other hand, where, in spite of a settlement of Mohawks in Brooklyn, Indians are quite rare, many Indians in western dress are likely to be mistaken for orientals. Indian identity will be assigned only if an individual happens to be one of the few "typical Indian" types with a large nose, an image burned into the minds of my generation of Americans by the buffalo nickel. In the eastern social milieu an individual who is of mixed Indian-white origin is likely to be taken for a Eurasian. In effect, the definition is cultural, not biological.

An individual is also an Indian by definition if he is a registered legal inhabitant of an Indian reservation or is on the official roles of the American Indian Service. This.will hold true even if he has no phenotypic characteristics remotely suggesting Asiatic traits. An individual may be phenotypicary white and behaviorally Indian. As a student at the University of Wisconsin I had occasion to meet a blue-eyed, blond Shaman with a Polish last name who believed in and played a part
in the local Indian religion on a nearby reservation. In some states it is good to be an Indian. It adds to one's prestige, particularly if the amount of so-called Indian blood is minimal. That is, it is nice to have a distant relative, preferably a great-grandfather, who was a member of "such and such a tribe." "Original American" ancestry might even turn out to confer some political advantage in certain areas; but in states where the Indian population is large, it is more often a disadvantage, at least among non-Indians.
There are, then, at least three ways of being Indian in the United States: (1) the legal Indian, a reservation member, who in his lifetime may lose both his legal and racial identity by moving off the reservation; (2) the phenotypic Indian, who may or may not be so identified depending on where and under what conditions he is living; and (3) the self-identified Indian who, although he may have no characteristic phenotypic traits, claims membership within what has been defined as a race. It must be noted also that certain Americans claim Indian ancestry but paradoxically consider themselves to be whites racially. In other words, genetic ancestry is not necessarily used to define racial status!"

Originally Posted by searcher of truth

Someone at Skadi Forum said that the reason why Americans liked so much making genealogical research was because they were obssesed by the idea of finding an amreindid or a afro forefather.

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by svin

The address of the site: "kempcountrymen" is suspicious... I don't think that in country with apartheid it's possible to have such high admixture.

It is not suspicious, it is biased. However, the pictures in that site are more than just suspicious.

I visited South Africa in two occasions, first one two years before the end of Apartheid and second right after the end of it. Before going there the first time I took care to do some reading that would allow me to get a better picture of what to expect from those people. Not that I was going to be there on my own, as my wife was a South African.

One reason why Apartheid was so strict and did not allow Blacks in the cities without a pass was that the Boer were mixing. This was not something new, and Afrikaners had their Kaffirs who they enjoyed from time to time.

Even with the Apartheid enforced, racial classifications were not always clear. Some Caucasoids would be erronously classified as non White, whereas some light Coloureds and Indians as White. There was even cases where in a family one member would be classified as White but not his parents and brothers. Coloureds (Mulattoes) mothers sleeked their hair and that of their children to pass as White. Something that would be impossible if they were not very light Mulattoes.

The main groups there were Blacks (Venda, Xhosa, Zulu, Ndebele, Sotho, Tswana...), Coloureds, Cape Malay (in Western Cape), Indian, Jewish, English and Afrikaner. There was two branches of the Afrikaner, the White Afrikaner and the Brown Afrikaner. The Brown Afrikaner were Coloureds of Afrikaans language and culture. You can expect the borders between the two to be thin.

But Apartheid also existed beyond the official guidlines. The English kept themselves apart from the White Afrikaner, and you can expect the White Afrikaner being closer to the Brown Afrikaner than to the English.

If you study well Apartheid, you may come to realize that there are Judaic elements both in its conception and in its implementation.

Hendrik Verwoerd, the architect of Apartheid, was the child of a Dutch pastor from the Reformed Church of Holland, which is a Neo-Judaic sect. They never intended to completely separate the people into different racial or ethnic countries. They had more than enough time for it and most they did was to create puppet states which were not viable but which provided a source for cheap immigrant labour. Cheap.. in fact even cheaper than it was already.

Have a look at a map of South Africa during Apartheid. Those Black homelands of Bophuthatswana, Venda, Transkei, Ciskei, ... are a joke. Now have a look at a map of the Middle East with Israel and the Palestinian territories. See a pattern there?

Hardly surprising. The only country which officially supported South Africa during the Apartheid regime was Israel. They even shared military technology.

Back to the Afrikaners..

You can't deny that the Afrikaner, South African Patriot and Statesman Paul Kruger looks suspicious.


Or General Louis Botha, and Afrikaner leader and hero, the child of voortrekers.

[Menydh]

An interesting text

What's in a (South African) name?
Sharon Marshall

Saddled with the burden of apartheid and colonial-slanted textbooks, South Africans have tended to take their identities from their political leanings. But "mixed marriages" are as old as South Africa itself. As the meaning of democracy dawns, more people are finding family tree research the key to understanding their own heritages.

The first written records of births, deaths and marriages, imcomplete though they are, came with Dutchman Jan van Riebeeck in 1652, when he set out to establish a way station at the Cape of Good Hope with the aid of Robben Island.

The case of the Khoi interpreter
Perhaps the most representative of the mix of South African ancestry lines dating from those early days is the marriage of Krotoa, a Khoi interpreter who worked for Van Riebeeck and married a colleague of his, Danish explorer Pieter Meerhof.

Burdened with the double obligation of fitting into European society and being loyal to her own people, Krotoa's life was made even harder when Meerhof was seconded to Robben Island as superintendent.

Left as one of only two women on the island when her husband was killed on a slaving expedition, and shunned by both societies, Krotoa succumbed to depression and an alcohol-related death, but left behind at least eight children, the descendants of one of whom was the progenitor of the Zaaiman family in South Africa.

Some of them went on to become key figures from all spectrums - including white ex-premiers Paul Kruger, Jan Smuts and FW de Klerk.

Slave routes, slave roots
Then came the slaves: in 1658 the first two boatloads - one from Angola and one from west Africa - arrived, and some of these went on to marry Dutch citizens of the Cape or bear children by them after intermarriage became outlawed.

One couple, Anna and Evert, who were purchased by the Dutch from African slave lords in Benin in 1658, produced a daughter who went on to have a son by prosperous Dutchman Bastiaan Colyn. Her son, Johannes, married a descendant of the wealthy Cloete family and purchased De Hoop op Constantia, still one of the finest estates in the Cape.

After west Africa was declared out of bounds, the Dutch East India Company began bringing in slaves from the east - either from their base in Djakarta or China, Sri Lanka or India, often with Arabs as middlemen. The first boatloads arrived in 1681, and by 1730 they had extended their operations to include the Mascarenes, Mozambique and Zanzibar, with Portuguese colonists as middlemen.

With only 19 European women and 100 white free burghers at the Cape in 1677, most 13th generation South Africans with colonial ancestry have at least one slave ancestor from these parts. Though European female numbers increased 30 years later, slave women were often favoured for their beauty, and many became the ancestral mothers (or stammoeders) of generations of families in South Africa.

Angela of Bengal
Before the first official slave consignments had been sanctioned, Angela of Bengal (or Maaij Ansela) was bought by Jan van Riebeeck, the founder of the Dutch colony, was resold and freed by her master. She then married Arnoldus Willemsz Bason, and became the stammoeder of the Basson family in South Africa.

Through marriages of her children, Maaij (or Mooi, Beautiful) Ansela is also the stammoeder of the Bergh and Van As families. One of her descendants was Voortrekker leader Andries Pretorius, who married Anna Retief, niece of slain trekboer Piet.

In 1692, four of the 34 Cape Town free burghers had ex-slave wives, but according to "Cape Town, Making of a City", compiled by Nigel Worden et al, this mestizo culture was gradually discouraged by the ruling Dutch, although this did not discourage illicit affairs - and illegitimate children borne out of such unions.

One well-researched case is that of Isabella of Angola, who had children by a Dutchman thought to be Cornelis Claassen.

One of Isabella's children is believed to be Armosyn van de Kaap, who became matron of the Slave Lodge and went on to have a daughter by a European. Armosyn's daughter later married German soldier Hermann Combrink, the stamvader of that prolific dual-hued family in South Africa.

Often the only ticket for freedom for slave women - or their children - was through marriage to a white man. In terms of a 1685 decree, male halfslag Company slaves of European ancestry were permitted to buy their freedom at 25, females at 22, provided they had been confirmed in the Dutch Reformed Church and could speak Dutch. Because of this, many Muslims officially converted religions, providing yet another marriage barrier.

Other Easterners taken as slaves were Muslim political leaders who objected to Dutch domination in the East Indies, perhaps the most well-known being Shaykh Yusuf, whose kramat near Faure is today an important pilgrimage destination for South African Muslims.

It is still not known whether Yusuf's remains lie in the tomb or were transported back to Macassar, as the Dutch government reported, but some of his descendants did remain. One of his grandsons married Marie Jordaan, whose origins were in France.

The Huguenots
In 1688, a new influence brought with it another European aspect to the cultural kaleidoscope: the first French Huguenot Protestants escaping Catholic persecution in France were brought out by the Dutch.

Settling the area now known as Franschhoek, many of the Huguenots owned slaves to cultivate the winelands, and half-caste children, born mainly out of wedlock, were among the unfortunates who produced children who failed to pass the apartheid government's pencil test over two centuries later.

By the early 1700s Dutch farmers had started moving inland. Though they were not officially allowed to be enslaved, Xhosa and Khoi were employed by the Dutch under conditions often equivalent to slavery, and inter-breeding among all three continued, often in the capacity of mistress or cuckold.

1820 settlers, shipwreck survivors
In 1795, the British occupied the Cape for the first time, and after losing it to the Dutch again in 1803, seized it as their own in 1806. With the British occupation came the impoverished 1820 settlers, who were sent to help wrest land from the Xhosa in the Eastern Cape and the Zulu in KwaZulu-Natal.

One of the better-known of these settlers to cross the racial divide was Henry Fynn, who befriended Zulu King Shaka and fathered children by many Zulu wives.

Other English names which crop up regularly in the history of the Wild Coast, traditionally the home of the Pondo, are King and Cane, explorers who lived among the local tribes.

Shipwreck survivors through the centuries have also produced many a blue-eyed black child in the area. In his book "The Caliban Shore", Stephen Taylor describes the meeting of survivors from The Grosvenor with an escaped Cape slave who had made his home on the Eastern frontier, an indication of other possible influences in tribal ancestry.

Inter-tribal marriage was another influence, as Shaka absorbed smaller tribes in his quest for dominance.

With British rule came the banning of slave importation in 1807, but boatloads of "prize negroes", slaves secured by the government from illegal slave ships, were still introduced into the colony as cheap labour. A number of British settlers married Madagascans and Mauritians imported in this way.

St Helena servants
In 1834, slavery was officially abolished, and mission stations dotted around the Cape absorbed many of those left jobless by the system.

Another much-contested scheme to compensate for the loss of slave labour saw a wave of St Helena servants imported, which continued to the end of the 19th century. A large portion of Cape Town's Cape Flats today is the product of intermarriages, and many can remember their St Helena ancestors being broken by the system which crushed their progress with forced removals in the 1960s.

For brief spells between frontier wars, there was relative peace among the many nations of the land, but it was not long before the Boer Dutch farmers grew unhappy with their lot under British rule without slaves, and headed north.

By the time of the South African (or Anglo-Boer) War in 1899, after the diamond rush and the discovery of gold, Boers had married Brits, who had followed the original settlers in droves, both had married across the colour line, and slaves had married Khoi and Bantu.

Walter Sisulu, Simon van der Stel
Though marriage across the colour line was outlawed, it was little deterrent to those with soul aspirations. Perhaps the most well-known and most ironic product of such unions was ANC stalwart and pragmatic long-time adviser and friend of Nelson Mandela throughout his exile on Robben Island, Walter Sisulu, born in 1912 in Qutubeni, Transkei.

Though he had little to do with him, Sisulu's white father, Albert Dickinson, a Port Elizabeth government worker, went on to have another child by his mother, Alice. They never officially married, and Walter took on his mother's surname, adding Max Ulyate as his middle names. Though it has not been explored, the name Ulyate was a surname of a prominent family of 1820 settlers.

It only takes a trip or two out of Cape Town to be reminded just how much craziness the system bred. Simonstown, a naval base and popular tourist spot, and Stellenbosch, the home of the Afrikaans language, are just two of the many spots named after Dutch governor Simon van Der Stel, who set about seizing land from the Khoi on his arrival in 1679.

Though Van der Stel is widely accepted as being the greedy progenitor of apartheid whose sprawling, slave-worked estates were the elite homes of generations of Afrikaners, a little-known fact is that Van der Stel, born in Mauritius, was probably just a generation away from slavery.

It is almost certain that his grandmother was from the south coast of India, and evidence shows that he and his sister covered up their mother's origin in order to be given white status when they emigrated to Holland. The only proven picture of the man disappeared in 1934, but another which is thought to be his portrait shows an arguably Eastern demeanour.

As veteran genealogist Hans Heese, himself a white descendant of Krotoa, puts it in his book "Die Herkoms van die Afrikaner 1657-1867", the modern-day white Afrikaner is of 34% Dutch, 33% German, 13% French, 6.9% coloured and 5% British origin - a formidable array of genes for the South African genealogist to contend with.


http://www.southafrica.info/ess_info...-genealogy.htm

[Galmudug]

Today the black man in North America and south America also including the Caribbean looks very different or almost completely different to the black man in west Africa.

[Marcus Marulus]

Originally Posted by svin

I don't think that in country with apartheid it's possible to have such high admixture.

Bear in mind that Apartheid existed there only from 1948 to 1994. Afrikaners have been living in the area since 17th century.