The founding family you’ve never heard of: The black Tuckers of Hampton, Virginia

[Disir]

HAMPTON, Va. – As Walter Jones walks his family’s ancient cemetery, shovel in hand, he wonders about those who rest there.

The gravestones date back as far as the 1800s. Some bear the names of folks Walter knew; some have faded to illegibility; some are in pieces. And, under the brush he’s cleared away and the ground he’s leveled, there are burial sites unmarked by any stone.

The cemetery means so much to Walter because his extended family – the Tuckers of Tidewater, Virginia – believe they are as much an American founding family as any from the Mayflower.

They have a widely recognized but possibly unprovable claim: that they are directly descended from the first identified African American people born on the mainland of English America, an infant baptized “William” around 1624.
DNA tests, black history: Tucker family ties to 1619 Virginia slaves

This is a lengthy read but it's really interesting.

 

[Mikeoxenormous]

HAMPTON, Va. – As Walter Jones walks his family’s ancient cemetery, shovel in hand, he wonders about those who rest there.

The gravestones date back as far as the 1800s. Some bear the names of folks Walter knew; some have faded to illegibility; some are in pieces. And, under the brush he’s cleared away and the ground he’s leveled, there are burial sites unmarked by any stone.

The cemetery means so much to Walter because his extended family – the Tuckers of Tidewater, Virginia – believe they are as much an American founding family as any from the Mayflower.

They have a widely recognized but possibly unprovable claim: that they are directly descended from the first identified African American people born on the mainland of English America, an infant baptized “William” around 1624.
DNA tests, black history: Tucker family ties to 1619 Virginia slaves

This is a lengthy read but it's really interesting.

For some reason, I have a conflicting report against the 1619 Virginia slaves account.

Now I do know that before 1654 all people brought to the America's were indentured servants who after 7 years were set free so they could be citizens of the British Crown thus getting land of their own. So this 1619 project of the liberals, is just another lie for propaganda purposes..

 

[Dekster]

There are a lot of old cemeteries, especially black cemeteries forgotten across the south. The first place I work had one and they only knew it was there first because of me and second because eventually some really old family member of the deceased showed up and had a cow that the thing had never been maintained. I knew it because my great uncle had worked there when I was a kid and he had told me it was there. When I worked there, I told my boss that there was a black cemetery under this grove of pine trees that was so thick with thorns, poison ivy, and privet nobody dared ever tackle taming it. They didn't really believe me until the old lady showed up and started threatening to sue them. At that point they forced us to clean it up. Once we cleaned it off you could see the indention from a few graves and a few rocks turned up on their ends set in the ground as headstones.

 

[whitehall]

The "Founding Fathers" refers to the leaders who wrote the documents and created the United States but who are "founding families"?

 

[mikegriffith1]

"Founding family"???

 

[CarlinAnnArbor]

The "Founding Fathers" refers to the leaders who wrote the documents and created the United States but who are "founding families"?

New York Times has an agenda to corrupt history.

 

[CarlinAnnArbor]

"Founding family"???

Yep. They "founded" nothing

 

[Picaro]

The Irish Slave Trade – The Forgotten “White” Slaves | Rasta Livewire

The Irish slave trade began when James II sold 30,000 Irish prisoners as slaves to the New World. His Proclamation of 1625 required Irish political prisoners be sent overseas and sold to English settlers in the West Indies. By the mid 1600s, the Irish were the main slaves sold to Antigua and Montserrat. At that time, 70% of the total population of Montserrat were Irish slaves.

Ireland quickly became the biggest source of human livestock for English merchants. The majority of the early slaves to the New World were actually white.

 

[Disir]

I like genealogy. Yours, mine, whomever. My founding families
:William Bradford (governor) - Wikipedia
William Penn - Wikipedia

And some others that would actually be classified as First Families rather than founding families and even more nobody important peeps. If I look at the other side of my family...........I am the Roman Empire.

The NYT always has an agenda. I wouldn't trust those people as far as I could throw them. Ya, I know they are all out on capitalism............which is why everyone is flipping out. AND they say so behind a paywall. I didn't read through the essays they have on the 1619 project. I'm not interested in hunting that down.

Be that as it may, there are some interesting stories . The DNA test from an elder in the family showed they were from Ghana rather than Angola. The reality is that they might not ever know but they are taking care of a cemetery with about 100 unmarked graves involved. I'm ok with some of the stories that come out of this. They are just ordinary people.

 

[Natural Citizen]

"Founding family"???

There were the first families of Virginia. They were the prominent social class but not the earliest settlers. My own namesake landed in Virginia in 1624. Then somehow bred with the natives.

I've always found that part of pre-American history far more interesting than the founding era.

 

[OldLady]

"Founding family"???

There were the first families of Virginia. They were the prominent social class but not the earliest settlers. My own namesake landed in Virginia in 1624. Then somehow bred with the natives.

I've always found that part of pre-American history far more interesting than the founding era.

It is really interesting, but super hard to "prove." How did you know about your namesake? Was it a family story like the Tuckers, or even Elizabeth Warren's? It's easy to see how families believe these things without being able to verify them.

I love genealogy. It's such an interesting puzzle and challenge.

 

[Picaro]

I like genealogy. Yours, mine, whomever. My founding families
:William Bradford (governor) - Wikipedia
William Penn - Wikipedia

And some others that would actually be classified as First Families rather than founding families and even more nobody important peeps. If I look at the other side of my family...........I am the Roman Empire.

The NYT always has an agenda. I wouldn't trust those people as far as I could throw them. Ya, I know they are all out on capitalism............which is why everyone is flipping out. AND they say so behind a paywall. I didn't read through the essays they have on the 1619 project. I'm not interested in hunting that down.

Be that as it may, there are some interesting stories . The DNA test from an elder in the family showed they were from Ghana rather than Angola. The reality is that they might not ever know but they are taking care of a cemetery with about 100 unmarked graves involved. I'm ok with some of the stories that come out of this. They are just ordinary people.

The NYT still pays a few columnists and editorial writers who are not on the Reservation, but their days are limited, true enough. Re the ]1619 Project', the only people I see touting that up have been racists cop killer fans like IM2 and his ilk, so I'll wait until somebody credible comes along and fill us in on it before I waste time researching it.

My brother had his DNA done, and it had a few surprises, but still mostly northern European, Norman, and Huguenots, the latter immigrating to South Carolina via Brittany and England, and the German relatives immigrating to first Georgia, then Tennessee, eventually fighting in the Civil War for the North in a Tennessee volunteer regiment; many Germans settled in Georgia were opposed to slavery, and were driven out of the 'Cotton Kingdom' early on, and migrated north. The poorer ones stayed and many died along with poor Irish immigrants building the levees around New Orleans and along the Mississippi; black slaves were too valuable to risk, so white laborers got the deadly dangerous low paying crap jobs in the south as well in the north. There are 10's of thousands of skeletons in those levees, just buried over where they fell dead on the job.

 

[Picaro]

I like genealogy. Yours, mine, whomever. My founding families
:William Bradford (governor) - Wikipedia
William Penn - Wikipedia

And some others that would actually be classified as First Families rather than founding families and even more nobody important peeps. If I look at the other side of my family...........I am the Roman Empire.

The NYT always has an agenda. I wouldn't trust those people as far as I could throw them. Ya, I know they are all out on capitalism............which is why everyone is flipping out. AND they say so behind a paywall. I didn't read through the essays they have on the 1619 project. I'm not interested in hunting that down.

Be that as it may, there are some interesting stories . The DNA test from an elder in the family showed they were from Ghana rather than Angola. The reality is that they might not ever know but they are taking care of a cemetery with about 100 unmarked graves involved. I'm ok with some of the stories that come out of this. They are just ordinary people.

They could be from anywhere. Ghana was a major slave market, and its trading posts the market of choice for many of the tribes who hunted other tribes and sold them. The Gold Coast tended to retain the healthier and brighter ones for their own gold mining operations. See Raymond Kea's excellent history of the Gold Coast in the 17th century. It's a very well written and documented book, one of my favorites in my personal library.

https://www.thriftbooks.com/a/ray-a-kea/808233/

Settlements, Trade, and Politics in the 17th Century Gold Coast (Johns Hopkins Studies in Atlantic History and Culture)

I don't have the Ghana slave trade book yet, but will eventually, as my budget allows. I'm sure the quality is as high as the one above.

 

[Agit8r]

HAMPTON, Va. – As Walter Jones walks his family’s ancient cemetery, shovel in hand, he wonders about those who rest there.

The gravestones date back as far as the 1800s. Some bear the names of folks Walter knew; some have faded to illegibility; some are in pieces. And, under the brush he’s cleared away and the ground he’s leveled, there are burial sites unmarked by any stone.

The cemetery means so much to Walter because his extended family – the Tuckers of Tidewater, Virginia – believe they are as much an American founding family as any from the Mayflower.

They have a widely recognized but possibly unprovable claim: that they are directly descended from the first identified African American people born on the mainland of English America, an infant baptized “William” around 1624.
DNA tests, black history: Tucker family ties to 1619 Virginia slaves

This is a lengthy read but it's really interesting.

For some reason, I have a conflicting report against the 1619 Virginia slaves account.

Now I do know that before 1654 all people brought to the America's were indentured servants who after 7 years were set free so they could be citizens of the British Crown thus getting land of their own. So this 1619 project of the liberals, is just another lie for propaganda purposes..

Well, I mean technically there was slavery here, before Europeans even showed up.

 

[Dan Stubbs]

HAMPTON, Va. – As Walter Jones walks his family’s ancient cemetery, shovel in hand, he wonders about those who rest there.

The gravestones date back as far as the 1800s. Some bear the names of folks Walter knew; some have faded to illegibility; some are in pieces. And, under the brush he’s cleared away and the ground he’s leveled, there are burial sites unmarked by any stone.

The cemetery means so much to Walter because his extended family – the Tuckers of Tidewater, Virginia – believe they are as much an American founding family as any from the Mayflower.

They have a widely recognized but possibly unprovable claim: that they are directly descended from the first identified African American people born on the mainland of English America, an infant baptized “William” around 1624.
DNA tests, black history: Tucker family ties to 1619 Virginia slaves

This is a lengthy read but it's really interesting.

Just like the first person killed during the war of the Revolution was a guy named Cripus, Attutus Black man. Spelling in question.

 

[Dan Stubbs]

There are a lot of old cemeteries, especially black cemeteries forgotten across the south. The first place I work had one and they only knew it was there first because of me and second because eventually some really old family member of the deceased showed up and had a cow that the thing had never been maintained. I knew it because my great uncle had worked there when I was a kid and he had told me it was there. When I worked there, I told my boss that there was a black cemetery under this grove of pine trees that was so thick with thorns, poison ivy, and privet nobody dared ever tackle taming it. They didn't really believe me until the old lady showed up and started threatening to sue them. At that point they forced us to clean it up. Once we cleaned it off you could see the indention from a few graves and a few rocks turned up on their ends set in the ground as headstones.

I found that my familys old Bury ground was a part now of a cow pasture. In passing there use to be a Black Cem at the corner of Sunrise Blvd and NW 27th Ave in Fort Lauderdale, Fla, many year ago. Now its a Drug Store and small shopping Center. History dies a little at a time.

 

[Dekster]

There are a lot of old cemeteries, especially black cemeteries forgotten across the south. The first place I work had one and they only knew it was there first because of me and second because eventually some really old family member of the deceased showed up and had a cow that the thing had never been maintained. I knew it because my great uncle had worked there when I was a kid and he had told me it was there. When I worked there, I told my boss that there was a black cemetery under this grove of pine trees that was so thick with thorns, poison ivy, and privet nobody dared ever tackle taming it. They didn't really believe me until the old lady showed up and started threatening to sue them. At that point they forced us to clean it up. Once we cleaned it off you could see the indention from a few graves and a few rocks turned up on their ends set in the ground as headstones.

I found that my familys old Bury ground was a part now of a cow pasture. In passing there use to be a Black Cem at the corner of Sunrise Blvd and NW 27th Ave in Fort Lauderdale, Fla, many year ago. Now its a Drug Store and small shopping Center. History dies a little at a time.

It often comes down to knowing it is there. My state has a somewhat cumbersome process to go through if there is a known grave on a property. You have to file a lawsuit, attempt to contact descendants if possible, and ultimately the state archaeologist has to come in to exhume the grave and reintern the remains. Often there is really nothing left though with the old black/slave graves. Happened to an industrial development project in our area. Took about a year and a half before they could move forward.

 

[Natural Citizen]

"Founding family"???

There were the first families of Virginia. They were the prominent social class but not the earliest settlers. My own namesake landed in Virginia in 1624. Then somehow bred with the natives.

I've always found that part of pre-American history far more interesting than the founding era.

It is really interesting, but super hard to "prove." How did you know about your namesake? Was it a family story like the Tuckers, or even Elizabeth Warren's? It's easy to see how families believe these things without being able to verify them.

I love genealogy. It's such an interesting puzzle and challenge.

No, not really so hard. The best source of info is the family Bible if you're fortunate enough to have it. Which I, for one, am. A good family bible will have the family tree maintained in the first several blank pages. The colonials kept great records of who came in on what boat, too. Mine came in on the Charles. One male. It might have been 1626 instead, now that I think on it. I'll have to look at it whenever I find the time and feel like difgging through all of that. Technically indentured with the promise of land. The first of his namesake to touch down in Virginia.

Really, the hardest part for me was to prove my tribe on the native side. It's a very strict process.

There's a lot of really interesting colonial history that exists in little black books that fit just in the palm of your hand that have been passed down. Really neat stuff.

 

[Picaro]

One thing about having 'native American blood': Many eastern tribes adopted whites, along with their families, and one won't necessarily have 'indian DNA' show up in a test, or very small percentages, if any.

 

[Likkmee]

I knew a buncha black fuckers in VA