Barack Obama’s Ancestor’s Were Slave Owners
Update (6 Nov., 2008): The election is finally over! I was glad to not hear much about this non-issue during the campaign. I was disappointed (but not surprised), however, to hear about many other non-issues from both sides. Oh well. No sense in getting upset over politics.
We recently heard that Strom Thurmond’s ancestors “owned” Al Sharpton’s ancestors. Now it appears that Barack Obama’s white ancestors also owned slaves.
For anyone who has been living in a cave recently, Obama’s mother is a white American woman and his father is a black man from Kenya. According to a researcher, William Addams Reitwiesner, his mother’s ancestors owned slaves:
One of Obama’s great-great-great-great grandfathers, George Washington Overall, owned two slaves who were recorded in the 1850 census in Nelson County, Ky., the research shows.
The same records show that one of Obama’s great-great-great-great-great-grandmothers, Mary Duvall, also owned two slaves. [Read more]
While this is interesting from a genealogical and historical perspective, all I can say about it politically is:
WHO CARES?
No, really. Why get all upset over things that happened 150 years ago? This will certainly be used against Obama, though. Politicians are great at using the past to destroy a person’s credibility and reputation. It doesn’t matter that he wasn’t even alive back then. Just imagine if he were a Republican!
Joann Sovelenko:
I have tons of genealogy on Obama. He is related to John McCain, Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton and Mike Huckabee. Also to most of the past presidents and quite a few of their spouses. He is related to about 1/2 of the people that came over on the Mayflower. I just put up a web site that discusses Obama genealogy. Here is the link to it.
http://www.topix.com/forum/news/topix/T7DOFLAA22NOIBIQ8
I will be putting stuff on shortly. Why don’t you put what you have on.
3 April 2008, 8:44 amSue:
I hope they use everything they can find against him.
10 April 2008, 7:11 pmFart:
Sue, how come? I hope that people will eventually learn from Washinton’s wise departing speech to stay away from partisan politics. But alas, humans are too freakin dim.
I researched Obama: His male slave-owning ancestor lived in Kentucky, a slave state on the Union side of the Union/Confederate border. Of course, this was before the civil war. During the Civil War, the states may have had a choice between being slave states or not, but I’ll need to look into that more.
So we have a male who owned slaves before the Civil War. He also lived in a slave state. Common? Yessiree. Many of the founding fathers owned slaves, but we don’t hold that much against them, do we…?
Don’t forget history, people.
22 May 2008, 2:21 pmMichael Davis:
Sue, I agree with you.
The man is wrong on all three issues and all three issues he is the same as McCain. On economics, he wants to give the federal reserve more authority, on immigration he wants to reward illegals with citizenship, and when it comes to war, the man wants war with iran, pakistan, and to use our military even in Africa to figure out their political disputes. Look at John McCain, he wants the same things except he does not want to increases taxes across the board like Obama and he wants to stay in Iraq as well as attack Iran.
Both are pure globalists, CFR members, and pieces of scum who should not be allowed to make American policy decisions.
27 July 2008, 3:03 amkhawar riyaz:
question is whearther he would follow agreesive policy like bush or moderater loike clinton.
11 August 2008, 6:50 amsuch a good man was clinton
Rita:
Ohmigosh! Obama and I both have roots in Nelson Co., Kentucky! Wouldn’t it be cool if we were related?
I wonder if he’ll get some of the racist vote now that he can prove he has ancestors who owned slaves. Hmmm.
But if any THINKING voter cares about such things and is too lazy to do their homework, they’ll find that McCain has an ancestor, two generations closer than Obama’s slave-owning ancestor, who owned 50 slaves in Mississippi. Hmmm. Two slaves. 50 slaves. You do the math.
Just to add to Fart’s historical info, Kentucky was not on the Union side in the Civil War. It was a border state that never took a side, but was occupied by the Union in many places, including Louisville.
Go Obama! I’ll have to mention this Kentucky connection to the Nelson County Genealogical Society and the Kentucky Standard newspaper. Maybe we’ll win more votes in rural Kentucky in the general election as a result!
Rita
17 August 2008, 4:06 pmEaglesinger:
Irregardless of color, ancestry, gender or religion, politics in America is due for change. I’ve been sceptical of all the rhetoric, but all the hoopala about Obama’s race/color is nonsense, whether it’s pro or con. It’s the person we elect, not their ‘blood’ or race.
5 November 2008, 12:13 pmI have Native ancestry (1/4 Blackfeet), Irish and Welch (like Obama), French aristocracy who owned slaves in the South and English who were on the Mayflower (maybe they knew Obama’s relatives?). And what about his Dutch ancestors?
But we are who we are , not where we came from. If Obama can lead with intelligence and integrity, that would be great! We’ll see. It certainly would be a switch from the present politicians. And they’ve all been melting pots too!
lee:
Most people that we refer to as African American ancestors owned slaves. Since there was a lot of relations between slave owners and slaves, approximately 70% of all African Americans decendant from slaves in the USA have white ancestry, the bulk of whom owned slaves. Check out John McCain’s slave decendant relatives. Granted we cannot do a thing about the past accept acknowledge it and move on.
16 November 2008, 9:32 pmjames robinson:
write me if you know about michael robinson o’bama genealogy..she maybe my same family…robinson originally from virginia, 1645 . one of first of the robinson in america..christopher robinson.urbanna,va…
20 January 2009, 2:16 pm