# What percentage of African Americans are descendants of slaves? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 11, 2008, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-african-americans-are-descendants-of-slaves/441002 "2008-03-11T19:18:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2008, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-african-americans-are-descendants-of-slaves/441002/21 "2008-03-12T14:33:13Z")
I think that pointing out the logical fallacy of any significance of ancestry is a useful example of fighting ignorance. Ancestry and genealogy are fairly trivial matters except as they apply to genetic consequences for those living now. Unfortunately, the matter is given enormous importance by a very large segment of our population. Tris ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2008, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-african-americans-are-descendants-of-slaves/441002/22 "2008-03-12T14:41:07Z")
[QUOTE=Triskadecamus] I think that pointing out the logical fallacy of any significance of ancestry is a useful example of fighting ignorance. Ancestry and genealogy are fairly trivial matters except as they apply to genetic consequences for those living now. [/quote] The OP’s question really isn’t trivial. Someone who is a 1st or 2nd generation immigrant from another country is probably going to be cultural different from someone whose ancestors have been in the US since the mid 1800’s and are from nations unknown because of the mess that was the slave trade. There’s nothing “logically fallacious” about that reality. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2008, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-african-americans-are-descendants-of-slaves/441002/23 "2008-03-12T14:47:26Z")
[QUOTE=you with the face] The OP’s question really isn’t trivial. Someone who is a 1st or 2nd generation immigrant from another country is probably going to be cultural different from someone whose ancestors have been in the US since the mid 1800’s and are from nations unknown because of the mess that was the slave trade. There’s nothing “logically fallacious” about that reality. [/QUOTE] I agree with this. However, slavery as an institution also existed in the Caribbean and in Latin America, so arguably is part of the same African-American cultural heritage – though with some differences. However, the differences are much less that those with slavery in Europe during the Roman Empire, or serfdom in medieval Europe. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2008, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-african-americans-are-descendants-of-slaves/441002/24 "2008-03-12T15:00:51Z")
[QUOTE=Giles] I agree with this. However, slavery as an institution also existed in the Caribbean and in Latin America, so arguably is part of the same African-American cultural heritage – though with some differences. [/quote] But those countries imparted their own cultural influences on the people living there. Food, language/dialect, style of dress, music, religion, social customs…there are some big differences between Caribbean and Latino blacks and African-Americans\*. Yes, slavery was common to those places and they descend from Africans, but their differences are neither trivial nor insignificant. \*African-American = descendants of US slaves ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2008, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-african-americans-are-descendants-of-slaves/441002/25 "2008-03-13T00:22:16Z")
[QUOTE=Quartz] Cite? Remember that under the feudal system, in Britain at least, very many people were effectively slaves. Or you could go back to Roman times - plenty of slavery there. [/QUOTE] Indeed–the system of manorial serfdom largely superseded formal slavery by ~1000CE. IIRC serfs did have some rights and protections that slaves did not. For instance, since they were bound to the land, they couldn’t be “sold down the river”. BTW, don’t terms such as feudalism and vassalage apply more to relations among the greater and lesser nobles and knights? For instance, a knight could be a vassal to a baron who in turn was vassal to an earl. ---
**Author:** ![justme74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/48db29/32.png) [@justme74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/justme74)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-african-americans-are-descendants-of-slaves/441002/26 "2017-01-05T01:49:52Z")
Technically, Obama is an Arab-American. He’s 50% white, 43.75% Arab and 6.25% African. Barack Hussein Obama, those are all three Arab names. No matter how he tries to hide it, he’s an Arab. According to the US law, you have to be 12.5% of a certain ethnicity to be able to claim minority status (which means, 1 in 8 great grand parents). Barack Obama therefore does not under US law, qualify as an African American. His father had mostly Arab ancestors. Genealogical Researchers investigated Barack Obama’s genealogy in detail, examining official government birth records in both the United States and Kenya. From this primary source documentation, the researcher came to the conclusion – Obama IS NOT BLACK. To be precise, the researchers determined that Barack Obama is: 1. 50% Caucasian 2. 43.75% Arab, and 3. 6.25% African Negro This corresponds to a demographic breakdown of his 16 Great-Great-Grandparents as follows: 8 Caucasians, 7 Arabs, and one Negro. ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-african-americans-are-descendants-of-slaves/441002/27 "2017-01-05T01:51:33Z")
Fascinating. Can you link to the source of this research? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-african-americans-are-descendants-of-slaves/441002/28 "2017-01-05T02:00:58Z")
> [@](#): > > According to the US law, you have to be 12.5% of a certain ethnicity to be able to claim minority status (which means, 1 in 8 great grand parents). Which law would that be? EDIT: And wouldn’t “Caucasian-American” then be an even more accurate description of Obama than “Arab-American”? ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-african-americans-are-descendants-of-slaves/441002/29 "2017-01-05T06:17:19Z")
Kenyans are Arab now? As it is in the 9 years since the thread was fresh has it not come out that _President_ Obama is in fact did descended from from black slaves; on his mothers side? ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-african-americans-are-descendants-of-slaves/441002/30 "2017-01-05T06:44:34Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > Some of those 13% will be from the Caribbean, and also descended from slaves brought over by British (French, etc.) colonists. > > Also, as a technical nitpick, there were plenty of slaves in the Roman empire and in various countries of Europe, not to mention serfs and other unfree-but-not-technically-slaves. I’d wager that most or all humans can count at least one slave among their ancestors. Needless to say, I’m not trying to say that medieval European slavery was the same as the institution of slavery in the American South, just that “slaves” is a pretty broad category. Even more technically, slavery only ceased in Europe in the XIXth century - it’s been a continuous, unbroken tradition before that. Only the place(s) where the slaves came from and the extent of the practice varied from place to place and time to time. At some point it became unfashionable to enslave other West/North Europeans but Slavs were still fair game. And Africans of all stripes of course. [QUOTE=Bridget Burke] The word “serf” is, of course, derived from the Latin _servus_. But chattel slavery in Europe ended when Rome & came back in fashion during the Renaissance. (Not to say that serfdom was fun!) [/QUOTE] Wrong. Serfs and slaves co-existed for a good long while after Rome fell - the conditions were similar but legally distinct under the Merovingians & Carolingians. Then they kind of mushed together (along with “free peasant”) over time until most every rural laborer was considered the helpless pawn of the local aristocracy and/or the closest Free City. But as I said, even as European chattel slavery faded due in part to the action of the Church (which, for its part, kept its slaves - they were really God’s property you see) and in larger part because the wars that were the source of slaves died down ; there were still slaves being taken and traded by Europeans throughout the Middle Ages, for various purposes. The discovery of sugar during the Crusades was a major driver there as Euros tried to move its culture westwards, but there never was a shortage of shit physical jobs that needed doing. Mining for example. (full disclosure : don’t take me for some grand expert on medieval slavery, but it’s what we’ve been studying this semester, so :p) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-african-americans-are-descendants-of-slaves/441002/31 "2017-01-05T07:09:08Z")
> [@justme74](#): > > Barack Hussein Obama, those are all three Arab names. No matter how he tries to hide it, he’s an Arab. Barack is a Kenyan variant spelling of Barak, which is the Hebrew word for lightning. It’s the name of an ancient Israeli military leader. Obama is a common name among the Luo tribe of Kenya. Surprisingly, you got one right. Hussein is a Kenyan variant of Hasayn, which is an Arabic name. I’ll point out that having an Arabic name doesn’t make President Obama an Arab just as having an Israeli name doesn’t make him Jewish. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-african-americans-are-descendants-of-slaves/441002/32 "2017-01-05T07:11:14Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And wouldn’t “Caucasian-American” then be an even more accurate description of Obama than “Arab-American”? I’m guessing this particular group of “genealogical researchers” weren’t going to go that far. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-african-americans-are-descendants-of-slaves/441002/33 "2017-01-05T07:33:19Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > Also, as a technical nitpick, there were plenty of slaves in the Roman empire and in various countries of Europe, not to mention serfs and other unfree-but-not-technically-slaves. I’d wager that most or all humans can count at least one slave among their ancestors. Needless to say, I’m not trying to say that medieval European slavery was the same as the institution of slavery in the American South, just that “slaves” is a pretty broad category. Wandering further away from what one assumes to be the OP’s intended target population, there were also European slaves taken to North Africa by what were then known as “Barbary pirates”, by capturing ships and in raids along the Atlantic coasts, up as far as Cornwall and Devon in England. Some became fully assimilated, and one or two even achieved high office and owned slaves themselves in their new countries; they must have contributed just a little to the gene pools in Morocco and Algeria. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-african-americans-are-descendants-of-slaves/441002/34 "2017-01-05T11:52:33Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Kenyans are Arab now? > As it is in the 9 years since the thread was fresh has it not come out that _President_ Obama is in fact did descended from from black slaves; on his mothers side? More specifically, a descendant of John Punch, one of the earliest slaves in colonial Virginia. [See this _Washington Post_ article](https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/post/obama-descended-from-slave-ancestor-researchers-say/2012/07/30/gJQAUw4BLX_blog.html?utm_term=.5ef6b9153e63). Also wondering how Obama’s African ancestors were defined as “Arab”. Or is this another situation where someone can’t tell the difference between Arabs and Muslims? There are millions of non-Arab Muslims all over the world, his immediate ancestors being Muslims does not automatically make them Arab, nor does the use of Arabic names automatically make them Muslim any more than the fact my first name is French in origin means I am of French descent (which I am not). ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-african-americans-are-descendants-of-slaves/441002/35 "2017-01-05T12:36:15Z")
Wikipedia says that there _were_ [slaves](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_medieval_Europe) in medieval Europe, who, like others have said, had fewer rights than serfs. My understanding is that until the cotton gin, slavery in America was a lot like slavery in other period and places – that is, not based on formal racism (while perhaps based on _race_ if that makes sense) and while harsh, comparable to other period’s slavery. It’s only in the early 1800’s when a formalized system of racist theory and harsher laws combined with the cotton gin’s productivity led to the rise of the amount and brutality of slavery that “slavery” as we know it in the American South crystallized. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-african-americans-are-descendants-of-slaves/441002/36 "2017-01-05T13:29:22Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > Wikipedia says that there _were_ [slaves](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_medieval_Europe) in medieval Europe, who, like others have said, had fewer rights than serfs. > > My understanding is that until the cotton gin, slavery in America was a lot like slavery in other period and places – that is, not based on formal racism (while perhaps based on _race_ if that makes sense) and while harsh, comparable to other period’s slavery. It’s only in the early 1800’s when a formalized system of racist theory and harsher laws combined with the cotton gin’s productivity led to the rise of the amount and brutality of slavery that “slavery” as we know it in the American South crystallized. Depends on what you mean by racism. People have generally opposed having their own kind enslaved. Its a courtesy not extended to “others”; White-European descended peope were for Americans, “their kind”. Its not like Americans were horrified at the thought of enslaving Red Indians either, they just kept dying at ridiculous rates. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-african-americans-are-descendants-of-slaves/441002/37 "2017-01-05T15:05:58Z")
> [@justme74](#): > > According to the US law, you have to be 12.5% of a certain ethnicity to be able to claim minority status (which means, 1 in 8 great grand parents). There is no such law. Florida adopted [a statute](https://books.google.com/books?id=kAI4AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA30&lpg=PA30&dq=Laws+of+the+State+of+Florida,+First+Session+of+the+Fourteenth+General+Assembly+Under+the+Amended+Constitution+1865-6&source=bl&ots=itF_t21WYg&sig=kLxpaFDXlBW6JaPj95kS972f5iQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=21o7UqTEHLaz4AOR7IG4CA&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Laws%20of%20the%20State%20of%20Florida%2C%20First%20Session%20of%20the%20Fourteenth%20General%20Assembly%20Under%20the%20Amended%20Constitution%201865-6&f=false) which defined “negroes” as any persons having 1/8th black ancestry in 1865, and a half-dozen states followed suit. None of those laws remained in effect beyond 1930, and they were never “the US law” in any case. ---
**Author:** ![busterpickle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/258eb7/32.png) [@busterpickle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/busterpickle)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-african-americans-are-descendants-of-slaves/441002/38 "2017-01-05T15:07:05Z")
Hate to beat a dead horse, but it’s fairly obvious the OP was referring to “black” people in the USA who are descended of slaves. No idea why people are splitting hairs. We could start with when immigration control kicked in to actually regulate. Even after the USA declared independence I can’t imagine it being that difficult to just land on “US Soil” and start a life without contacting the Federal government. Going by the [SSA FAQ](https://www.ssa.gov/history/hfaq.html) they did not exist until 1935. So, just to keep things simple, we probably have some extremely terrible record keeping until then. This would be a lot of work to sleuth down every local census until then, and would not be very accurate. The reason I am bringing this up is so that we have a common point to pivot off of as to when we can start to trace back USA ancestry of someone. With it being less than 100 years ago and slavery was before then, we are going to have a really hard time figuring this out precisely. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-african-americans-are-descendants-of-slaves/441002/39 "2017-01-05T15:17:41Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Depends on what you mean by racism. People have generally opposed having their own kind enslaved. Its a courtesy not extended to “others”; … The biblical Hebrews weren’t opposed to slavery of _any_ kind, and their god gives detailed instructions on how to treat Hebrew slaves (i.e., beat them a little less than the others). ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-african-americans-are-descendants-of-slaves/441002/40 "2017-01-05T15:33:05Z")
Standards like the 1/8 law are inherently logically problematic, too. Suppose, for instance, that your great-great-grandmother was brought over from Africa as a slave, but that all the rest of your ancestors were completely European-descended, too. Does that mean that you’re only 1/16 black, and hence officially white? Well, maybe… But what race was your mother? Well, she was 1/8 black, so she counts as black. And if your mother was black and your father was white, what does that make you? Half-black, and hence black. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-african-americans-are-descendants-of-slaves/441002.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-african-americans-are-descendants-of-slaves/441002.md?page=3)