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Anita Talks Genealogy is a show about, Genealogy. Host Anita Wills is an author (Notes and Documents of Free Persons of Color, Pieces of the Quilt: The Mosaic of An African American Family. She also Speaks and Lectures on writing Family History Books, Free Persons of Color, and How To Research and Document your Multi-Racial Ancestors.
Anita Wills
Date / Time: 11/28/2009 4:00 AM UTC
Category: Books
Call-in Number: (347) 324-5846
Author Anita Wills shares tips on researching and documenting your Family History. The author shares tips from her books, Notes and Documents of Free Persons of Color, and Pieces of the Quilt: The Mosaic of An African American Family. Historical Topics will vary each week, and will cover American History, topics of interest to Multi-Racial researchers, and Historical Figures like Frederick Douglass and Sitting Bull.
Upcoming Episodes
12/5/2009 4:00 AM UTC - Anita Talks Genealogy
12/12/2009 4:00 AM UTC - Anita Talks Genealogy
12/19/2009 4:00 AM UTC - Anita Talks Genealogy
Date / Time: 6/20/2009 3:00 AM UTC
Author Anita Wills, gives excerpts from her newly released book, Pieces of the Quilt: The Mosaic of An African American Family (Wills, Anita L., Booksurge, May 2009). Segment will include excerpts from the book, and tips for those who interested in researching and documenting their family history. Ms. Wills will share some of the stories of her ancestors, whose stories are in the book. Over a twenty year period she was able to document her family lines. The book is written from a Historical and Genealogical Perspective. The segment will include, topics such as, The Underground Railroad, Free Persons of Color, Indentured Servants and The Civil War.
Original Air Date: 9/26/2009 3:00 AM UTC
Original Air Date: 9/19/2009 3:00 AM UTC
Date / Time: 9/16/2009 4:55 AM UTC
Few people know of the Welsh Mountains, an area located in Southeastern Pennsylvania, bordering on Berks, Chester, and Lancaster Counties. It was not that long ago, when only those who lived there, ventured into the Mountains. There are still some people in Pennsylvania, who do not know the area as the Welsh Mountains. It is not on the maps, except some made by local officials, but is part of the Blue Ridge mountains. The Blue Ridge Mountain Range extends from Georgia to Pennsylvania. The Welsh Mountain Range rises about one thousand feet, in Lancaster County, making it more of a Ridge than a Mountain.
The Conestoga Indians (Susquehannock), inhabited the region for thousands of years. The name Susquehannock refers to an Algonquin name meaning, “People of the Muddy River" (Susquehanna). They were also referred to as Black and/or white, Minqua, and separated along racial lines. Another name given them by Europeans was Conestoga (derived from Kanastoge), which the Conestoga Trail was named after. Conestoga was the name of the last Indian village in Pennsylvania.
Their villages lined the Susquehanna River from Southern New York to Maryland. There were also smaller tribes in the area like the Lenai-Lenape, who are now referred to as the Delaware. These tribes did not have a concept of borders, or land ownership, they followed game, and moved from place to place freely. Warring tribes tended to stay away from each other, and respected each other’s sovereign rights. Eventually the Trail of Tears, disease, and attacks by settlers, caused the First Families of America (Natives), to decline in numbers.
Slaves escaping from Pennsylvania, and Southern States, ran to the mountains, with the assistance of Natives. Slavery was a foreign term to Natives, who accepted members of conquered tribes into their Villages. To own another human being, or even to own property was a foreign concept. The whites who escaped into the mountains were usually Indentured Servants fleeing from abuse. This trio made up the Tri-Racial Isolates in the Welsh Mountain Region of Pennsylvania.
My Grandfather, Charles Martin, his father, and his father before him, spent their childhood in the Welsh Mountains. They were descendants of the Natives that lived there and often visited relatives who remained their. My mother told of going to the Eastern Shore of Maryland in the summer on vacation, as a child. She talked about the Blue Crabs that they plucked out of the River and dined on. My Grandfather, Charles Martin was an Entrepreneur, who brewed and sold Corn Liquor.
With only a limited education his options were to work on a Farm, or in the Steel Mill. He learned how to brew Corn Liquor from his cousins in the Welsh Mountains. They stored the Liquor in caves there, and moved it by night. He also owned a Mechanic Shop and worked on cars, on his property (according to the 1930 census). Some of my family Surnames from the Mountains are Boots, Page, Martin, Parker, Harris, Green, Nocho, and Johnson.
It is the opinion of those from the lowlands, that those in the Welsh Mountains were lawless. That is a matter of opinion, to Natives those who massacred their tribe members were breaking the law, yet no one was prosecuted. The slaves who escaped into the mountains did not believe they were breaking laws. The whites who escaped from the abuse of those who held Indentures on them, did not believe they were breaking laws. Those who hid in the Mountains, to avoid being killed or sent to reservations were not (in their opinion) breaking any laws. In many minds, the laws that were broken were the ones allowing slavery and abusive of Natives on their own land. When I was a child, my father took us on a trip to the Mountains to visit the Boots who lived up there. I remember how breathtakingly beautiful it was up there, and how vapor came from the trees. Some of the people there lived in buses and run down shacks, but there were also nice homes on the Mountain. The skin coloring of the interracial families alternated between generations, and a person with very light skin, could produce a dark skinned child.
My Green relatives were light brown skinned with Hazel Colored eyes. There were light-skinned persons with blue eyes, and dark skinned persons with straight black hair. Because of the intermixing, some were almost white looking, with light eyes, and fuzzy hair. The influx of those who comprised the community slowed down after the end of slavery, and eventually, those who were able left. The ones left behind were the elderly and infirmed .
In 1780, the slave register of Chester County, Pennsylvania, shows mulattoes made up twenty percent of the population.
“The “Pennsylvania Chronicle” from 1767-73 advertised sixty-one fugitives, of whom about twenty percent had white blood in some degree. In some cases, the proportion was so high that the advertisers warned the fugitive slave could pass for white and probably would attempt to do so.”
Prior to the influx of Europeans Natives lived by the Rivers and Creeks in the Welsh Mountains and surrounding areas, as either Grandmother (Female) or Turtle (male) Clans. The villages were situated near River and Waterways throughout Welsh Mountains. They traveled the trails from the mountains as far North as Canada, and as far South as Florida. The Conestoga Trail was used by the Susquehannock tribe for thousands of years.
The Moors of Delaware
The Moors of Delaware are one of a group of Tri-Racial Groups, who developed their own culture. The predominance of a limited number of surnames within each group at present is in line with such a conclusion, and is indicative of their high degree of endogamy, resulting from their intermediate status and their relative geographic isolation from the mainstream population. The Moors generally reside in the Kent and Sussex Counties of Delaware, and across the Delaware Bay in Southern New Jersey. There are some remnants of this group in Pennsylvania as well, for instance within my family are the Davis and Green lines. Both lines were moved back and forth from Delaware to Lancaster and Chester County in the 1800’s. They are classified as Mulatto in the early 1800’s, and in the 1900 census, the classification changes to black.
Moors make up the largest portion of the total population, (a little over three hundred persons), of the small community of Cheswold, Kent County , Delaware . (Cheswold is about five miles north of the larger state capital, Dover). These people also inhabit the rural area surrounding Cheswold. A number of Delaware Moors make their homes in and around the small town of Millsboro, and along the north shore of the Indian River in Sussex County, Delaware. In addition to the Moors living in and around Cheswold and Millsboro, Delaware, a similar, but more dispersed, number of Moor families live in rural, southern New Jersey. One finds Moor families in the farming territory outside of Bridgeton, Millville, and Vineland, New Jersey.
A Wilson Davis is listed as a Delaware Moor as late as 1974. He states that the Moors of Cheswold originally lived about ten miles to the northeast at Woodland Beach, a more marshy area along the Delaware Bay. According to Mr. Davis, the Moors moved to farm farther inland and to settle in Cheswold during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, as the result of a large storm, which inundated much of the land surrounding Woodland Beach.
The Melungeons are the largest of these groups, ranging from about five thousand to fifteen thousand. They are scattered throughout East Tennessee, Southwest Virginia, and Southeastern Kentucky. The 1950 census identified over twenty of these populations in the South, numbering from a few hundred to a few thousand, often isolated in swamps or mountain communities. Like most of the other, “Isolates” they have been stereotypes as inbred, violent, and degenerate.
Return to Welsh Mountains
A Project to Record the oral history of those who lived in the Welsh Mountains was completed by the State of Pennsylvania. How much they were willing to tell has yet to be determined. Within my family, there are elders who will not speak openly about life on the Mountain. My mother often made potions and teas, for us, especially during the winter months. One of her favorites was Sassafras tea, made with bark brought in from the Welsh Mountains. She said that her father taught her about the teas and potions, which she fed us. Root Vegetables, which grow in the earth, are good for healing, at least according to my mother. Everything that came out of the Welsh Mountains was surrounded by Myth and Folklore.
A factor that affected my ancestors who lived in the Mountains was the Europeans control of, or ownership of land. Although my Native Ancestors lived there for thousands of years, they had no ownership of the land. Even though William Penn had a fondness for Natives, he did not allow lands to be set aside for them. The Natives, Free Blacks, and Whites inhabiting the land, had no or rights to it. After the older generation died off, the Welsh Mountains became a part of Lancaster County, and much of it has been developed.
The History and Culture of Tri-Racial Isolates, is only recently being explored. The Culture depends on the part of the country they lived in, and how isolated they were. They were affected by the movement of educated and young people out of the community. There was more than likely, more people leaving than entering the communities, low birth rates, and an increase of elderly and infirmed people. The Welsh Mountains lost many of its young men when World War II broke out. The men went off to war, and few returned to the Mountains. Other factors worked against the Mountain Community, including a more liberal attitude from the Dominant Community.
We are just beginning to open up and talk about this part of our Culture and History. We must not allow ourselves to be shamed into silence by those who do not believe Oral History is relevant. After all, it is a history that sustained Native Americans for thousands of years. There is a History and Culture that was created from the communities of Tri-Racial Isolates. They, like similar communities all over the world had a strategy to survive, that was passed to succeeding generations.
Original Air Date: 9/12/2009 3:00 AM UTC
Date / Time: 9/12/2009 12:20 AM UTC
President Obama's father is from Kenya on the Coast of East Africa. Most of the slave trade in the America's came from West Africa, in the region of present day, Guinea, Nigeria, and Ghana. I traced my maternal Great-Great Grandmother, Leah Warner, to Guinea West Africa. She was born there, about 1818. nd enslaved at the age of twelve (1830). She was born to the Malinke, a Muslim Tribe, who entered Guinea from Mali. They were part of the Malie Empire, who were the Architects of Timbuktu. After winning a war against the Ghanian Rulers, Guinea came under rule of the Malinke. The Malinke counted their wealth in Gold, and their trade routes stretched to Mecca. Great-Great Grandmother Leah's father was a descendant Keita, and a descendant of Sundiata Keita.
When the Royal Children were kidnapped an enslaved in 1830, selling African slaves in America was illegal. However, the Southern States got around the law by sending their captives to the Caribbean for seasoning. The ship Leah was on went to Bermuda, where the young captives were seasoned, and subsequently sold at auction in Charleston South Carolina. None of the census records on Leah mentions that she was born in Africa. The seasoning she endured was successful in that she only mentioned being born in Guinea to her children and Grandchildren. I confirmed Leah’s story in 2000, when I contacted the Guinea Embassy in Washington DC. I received a response from, President Conte’s Christian wife, who stated that the Royal Children were taken in 1830. She traced their route and stated that they were taken first to Bermuda, and then to Charleston South Carolina.
The Malinke are also referred to as Mandingo, Maninka, Manding, Mandingo, Mandin, and Mande. They live in areas of sub-Saharan Africa that have a history of agricultural settlements dating as far back as 7,000 years. The Malinke are heirs to the great Mali Empire, a medieval merchant empire that flourished from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century and greatly influenced the history of western Africa. The Malinke, who occupied the northern region of Africa, were Muslim converts beginning in the eleventh century. The renowned city of Islamic teaching, Timbuktu, was also part of the vast and prosperous Mali Empire. The empire declined in the fifteenth century and was gradually absorbed by the Songhai Kingdom, which extended to the seventeenth century.
As early as 1444, Portuguese traders had enslaved the first Malinke people, and in the next three and a half centuries, thousands of Malinke and other peoples were transported by Portuguese, British, French, and Dutch merchants to the Caribbean and the Americas to work as slaves on plantations. During the nineteenth century, the kingdoms of the Malinke peoples were subjugated by the British, French, and Portuguese and incorporated into their colonial systems. The Malinke gained attention when Author Alex Haley published his best-selling book, Roots (1974), and it was later made into a television series. The story of Haley's ancestral family and the book's main character, Kunta Kinte of the Mandinka (Malinke) people, personalized the terrible plight of African slaves and their families who were sold into slavery.
The epic poem "Sundiata" (also spelled Sundjata) chronicles the life of Sundiata Keita (ca. 1210-1260), the son of the king who defeated the Ghana king Sumanguru and founded the empire of Mali. Details of the early days of the Mali Empire and the lifestyles of the people have been kept alive for centuries through the epic poem, which has been sung for generations by the griots, bards or praise-singers of West Africa. In over 3,000 lines of poetry in the oral tradition, the epic tells the story of Sundiata, a legendary leader who, after countless obstacles and trials, unites the Malinke clans and chiefdoms at the beginning of the thirteenth century.
Sundiata is unable to walk as a child because of a spell put on him by his father's jealous second wife. Sundiata finally learns to walk and becomes a hunter, giving up his claim to the throne during a long exile with his mother and siblings. A delegation from Mali comes to him and begs him to return and save them from an evil sorcerer-king, Sumanguru. Sundiata organizes an army to regain his throne. With help from his sister, who seduces Sumanguru. Sundiata learns his weaknesses, and after many bloody battles, his army defeats the forces of Sumanguru.
The emergence of the three centralized states at given points in history can be attributed to the coupling of the lucrative gold trade from the Sudan with the salt brought by North African Muslim traders. Ghana was the richest of the three in c. 1150, owing its wealth primarily to the vast gold fields of Buri and Bambak. The acceptance of Islam by the rulers of Ghana, Mali and Songhay (also spelled Songhey and Songhai) in c. 1000 encouraged trade between the empires and North Africa.
At its peak, the Mali Empire extended across West Africa to the Atlantic Ocean and incorporated an estimated forty to fifty million people. The administration of such an enormous territory was and accepting of the indigenous rulers and their customs. What distinguished the empires of West Africa, particularly Mali and later Songhay, was their ability to centralize political and military power while allowing the local rulers to maintain their identities along side Islam. The imperial powers were located in active commercial centers like Djenne, Timbuktu and Gao.
The wealth of the Mali Empire is illustrated by the Mali emperor Mansa Musa's pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324. His entourage reportedly included thousands of soldiers, officials and attendants, one hundred camels each carrying three hundred pounds of gold, and five hundred maids and servants to serve Mansa Musa's senior wife. Once in Egypt, Mansa Musa paid homage to the sultan with gifts of gold. He distributed so much gold that its value was decreased by 10 to 25 percent.
The majority of the Malinke are Muslim (followers of Islam) and have adapted the teachings of Islam into their native beliefs. Most Malinke villages have a mosque, and women sit separate from the men, both in the mosque and during outside religious services. Those villagers who have made the hajj (pilgrimage) to Mecca, or even descendants of those who have made the journey, are highly respected.
The principal religious leader is the elected Imam, an elder who leads prayers at the mosques and has great religious knowledge. The other Islamic clerics who play major roles as healers and religious counselors are the Marabouts. They are respected as preservers of morality through oral tradition and teachers of the Koran (sacred text of Islam). They are perceived to be experts at preventing and healing ailments or injuries inflicted by mortals or those that are believed to have been inflicted by evil spirits.
Much of the cultural heritage of the Malinke is embedded in the great Mali merchant empire of the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries and the Islamic religion that was adopted by the chieftains. There was a flourishing trade in gold, and many ornate ornaments, jewelry, and staffs of gold date from that period.
The first Europeans to use African slaves in the New World were the Spaniards who sought auxiliaries for their conquest expeditions and laborers on islands such as Cuba and Hispaniola, where the alarming death rate in the native population had spurred the first royal laws protecting the native population (Laws of Burgos, 1512-1513). The first African slaves arrived in Hispaniola in 1501.
From A.D. 700 to 1600, the ancient empires of Ghana (700-1100), Mali (800-1550) and Songhay (1300-1600) controlled vast areas of West Africa. Although each empire rose to assert its power, they coexisted independently for centuries. At its peak (1200-1300), the Mali Empire covered an area that encompasses significant portions of the present-day country of Mali, southern and western Mauritania and Senegal. Note that the old kingdoms of Mali and Ghana are not the present-day countries of Mali and Ghana.
Footnotes:
1. World Cultures , http://www.everyculture.com/wc/Japan-to-Mali/Malinke.html, Malinke, September 11, 2009
2. The African Slave Trade, wikipedia, The Atlantic Slave Trade, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_slave_trade, September 11, 2009
3. National Museum of African Art, http://africa.si.edu/exhibits/resources/mali/index.htm, September 11, 2009
Original Air Date: 9/5/2009 3:00 AM UTC
Date / Time: 9/5/2009 2:42 AM UTC
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