The ancestry and geographical origins of St Helena's liberated Africans
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The island of St Helena played a crucial role in the suppression of the transatlantic slave trade. Strategically located in the middle of the South Atlantic, it served as a staging post for the Royal Navy and reception point for enslaved Africans who had been “liberated” from slave ships intercepted by the British. In total, St Helena received approximately 27,000 liberated Africans between 1840 and 1867. Written sources suggest that the majority of these individuals came from West Central Africa, but their precise origins are unknown. Here, we report the results of ancient DNA analyses that we conducted as part of a wider effort to commemorate St Helena's liberated Africans and to restore knowledge of their lives and experiences. We generated partial genomes (0.1–0.5×) for 20 individuals whose remains had been recovered during archaeological excavations on the island. We compared their genomes with genotype data for over 3,000 present-day individuals from 90 populations across sub-Saharan Africa and conclude that the individuals most likely originated from different source populations within the general area between northern Angola and Gabon. We also find that the majority (17/20) of the individuals were male, supporting a well-documented sex bias in the latter phase of the transatlantic slave trade. The study expands our understanding of St Helena's liberated African community and illustrates how ancient DNA analyses can be used to investigate the origins and identities of individuals whose lives were bound up in the story of slavery and its abolition.
| Originalsprog | Engelsk |
|---|---|
| Tidsskrift | American Journal of Human Genetics |
| Vol/bind | 110 |
| Udgave nummer | 9 |
| Sider (fra-til) | 1590-1599 |
| Antal sider | 10 |
| ISSN | 0002-9297 |
| DOI | |
| Status | Udgivet - 2023 |
Bibliografisk note
Funding Information:
We thank the community of St Helena, the St Helena Government, the St Helena National Trust, and the St Helena Research Institute for enabling us to carry out this project, and we acknowledge the historical individuals whose DNA we studied, recognizing that they could not themselves consent to participate in this study. We hope that by telling their story we can ensure that their lives and fates are not forgotten, and we thank Rebecca Cairns-Wicks, Annina Van Neel, and Peggy King Jorde from the Liberated African Advisory Committee (LAAC) for their support and ongoing efforts to preserve the memory of St Helena's liberarted Africans. We also thank Fatimah Jackson, Filipe Vieira, José Samaniego, Hakon Jónsson, and the staff of the GeoGenetics Sequencing Core for their help and valuable input at various stages of the project as well as Nathan Wales, Ian Dull, and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this manuscript. The research was supported by the European Union through the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions under grant agreement no. 290344 (EUROTAST). H.S. K.R.B. A.H. and M.T.P.G. designed the research and acquired funding; J.W. and E.J. carried out sampling; A.P. J.W. E.J. K.R.B. and H.B. provided historical and archaeological background information; M.S.V. performed the lab work; M.S.V. A.J. J.R.M. C.F.L. M.C.Á.A. S.G. J.V.M.M. G.R. D.I.C.D. A.H. and H.S. performed the data analyses; M.S.V. J.R.M. A.P. H.B. A.H. and H.S. interpreted the results; H.S. and M.S.V. wrote the manuscript with contributions from J.R.M. A.P. H.B. A.H. and the remaining authors. The authors declare no competing interests.
Funding Information:
We thank the community of St Helena, the St Helena Government, the St Helena National Trust, and the St Helena Research Institute for enabling us to carry out this project, and we acknowledge the historical individuals whose DNA we studied, recognizing that they could not themselves consent to participate in this study. We hope that by telling their story we can ensure that their lives and fates are not forgotten, and we thank Rebecca Cairns-Wicks, Annina Van Neel, and Peggy King Jorde from the Liberated African Advisory Committee (LAAC) for their support and ongoing efforts to preserve the memory of St Helena's liberarted Africans. We also thank Fatimah Jackson, Filipe Vieira, José Samaniego, Hakon Jónsson, and the staff of the GeoGenetics Sequencing Core for their help and valuable input at various stages of the project as well as Nathan Wales, Ian Dull, and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this manuscript. The research was supported by the European Union through the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions under grant agreement no. 290344 (EUROTAST).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors
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