# Is Obama really the first African-American President? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 26, 2016, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-obama-really-the-first-african-american-president/750221 "2016-03-26T08:35:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2016, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-obama-really-the-first-african-american-president/750221/41 "2016-03-27T17:13:16Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Well, [maybe](http://youtu.be/y5ogJjmgpLM). > > Stranger Well, I was talking about human language. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2016, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-obama-really-the-first-african-american-president/750221/42 "2016-03-27T17:18:43Z")
re: famous Americans with NA ancestry not Algonquian… How could I have forgotten **Senator Ben Knighthorse Campbell** , who is part Cheyenne. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2016, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-obama-really-the-first-african-american-president/750221/43 "2016-03-27T17:31:44Z")
I suspect the reason that more famous Americans have some Algonquian ancestry than any other Native American group is that Algonquian territory happened to coincide with the first places in the U.S. that British colonists happened to reach. There was a certain amount of intermarriage with them then even before the American Revolution. Descendants of these marriages thus often have only a small proportion of Native American ancestry, while descendants of the groups from farther west tend to have a larger proportion of it. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2016, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-obama-really-the-first-african-american-president/750221/44 "2016-03-27T20:31:03Z")
Yes, those East Coasters got a big head start over those Americans encountering the more Western tribes a century or so later. But, interestingly, looking at Pocahontas’ line we can see that it was pretty precarious, and could easily have ended. She had one son (and only one son) who in turn had only one daughter (at least how survived until adulthood). That’s two generations where one early death would have ended it right there. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2016, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-obama-really-the-first-african-american-president/750221/45 "2016-03-28T01:03:07Z")
Incidentally, it’s Ben Nighthorse Campbell, not Knighthorse. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2016, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-obama-really-the-first-african-american-president/750221/46 "2016-03-28T04:06:45Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Incidentally, it’s Ben Nighthorse Campbell, not Knighthorse. I could have been worse. I could have spelled it Knighthoarse. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2016, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-obama-really-the-first-african-american-president/750221/47 "2016-03-28T14:43:05Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > I propose that we elect to the presidency the following in any order: a Chinaman, a Polock, a Jew broad, a Pakistani cab driver, a queer barber, a Mexi-Can, a Caribbean dancer, and Kate McKinnon so we can knock out all of our ‘firsts’ and get onto trying to elect our “best”…which would obviously be Bill Murray, but he’s getting older by the minute, so we’d better hurry up with it. Shit, start with a Polish-Chinese Jewish woman and you’ve got half the quotas… ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2016, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-obama-really-the-first-african-american-president/750221/48 "2016-03-28T14:55:06Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > re: famous Americans with NA ancestry not Algonquian… How could I have forgotten **Senator Ben Knighthorse Campbell** , who is part Cheyenne. Technically, the Cheyenne are Algonquian; the Cheyenne and Arapaho are probably the westernmost of the Algonquian peoples. > [@septimus](#): > > Vice President Curtis also had Algonquin blood. Charles Curtis was of Kaw, Osage, and Potawatomi descent; the Potawatomi are an Algonquian group, but the Kaw and Osage are Siouan groups. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2016, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-obama-really-the-first-african-american-president/750221/49 "2016-03-28T15:35:33Z")
> [@slash2k](#): > > Technically, the Cheyenne are Algonquian; the Cheyenne and Arapaho are probably the westernmost of the Algonquian peoples. Good catch! I did not know that, but I do now! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-obama-really-the-first-african-american-president/750221.md?page=2)