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Nexdim Empire
Atlanta-based family researcher William Holland sits alongside one of the Oku elders, Samuel Nshiom "Pa" Wambeng, during a visit to Cameroon in March. Wambeng passed away weeks after this picture was taken.
If you're an African-American, tracing your roots back to the ancestral continent is hard enough — but tracing them back to the ancestral family? That requires genetic testing, plus family-history scholarship, plus trips to Africa, plus a little bit of faith. William Holland has filled all of those requirements, and to celebrate, he's planning a cross-continental family reunion for Memorial Day weekend in Virginia, where his ancestors were once held as slaves.
"Memorial Day is a time for remembering the loved ones you lost, right?" Holland said. "So it's a good time to remember all those generations that were lost."
It's taken more than a decade for the 43-year-old Atlanta genealogist to fill in the story of those lost generations — a story that leads back to Cameroon, and then even further back to present-day Syria. The historical record is so fragmentary, and the genetic analysis is so imprecise, that Holland couldn't possibly achieve iron-clad scientific certainty about the precise family relationships. But the story that Holland has pieced together is consistent with the genetic tests as well as with the tales told by families in Africa and America. And just as importantly, the story finally feels right.
"What makes this more conclusive is that they had an authentic story that many people could verify," Holland said.
Holland's initial investigative work took him back to the Civil War era in Virginia, where he found that his great-grandfather, Creed Holland, was a slave who was put to work as a wagon driver for the Confederate Army. That led Holland and his brothers to sign up for membership in the Sons of Confederate Veterans — which was a controversial move at the time.
But Holland didn't stop there: He wanted to know how it was that Creed's ancestors became slaves in the first place. So he took advantage of a trend that was just getting started back then: genetic testing for the purpose of finding family connections. After a couple of false starts, Holland found enough matches to justify focusing in on a region of Cameroon in West Africa.
When I first started writing about Holland's quest, two years ago, he was following up on connections to royalty in northwest Cameroon's Mankon tribe. Holland visited the tribal leader, or Fon, in the regional capital of Bamenda — and received an African name (Ndefru) from the Fon of Mankon himself during a ceremony. Holland reciprocated the next year by inviting the royal family to a gathering in Franklin County, Va. The idea was to bring together the descendants of slaves and their African relations, and even the descendants of slaveowners. But something about the event felt wrong.
"The rest of the Mankon family really resisted the fact that they were coming over," Holland recalled. "That told me that 'this is not your family, because they should be happy, they should be welcoming you.'"
During follow-up trips to Africa, Holland learned more about the reason for the Mankon tribe's reluctance: Their ancestors were among several ethnic groups in that region of Cameroon who played a murky role in the slave trade of the 18th century. "Mankon didn't trade in their own people, but they were the middlemen for people [from other tribes] going down the coast," Holland said. "The Europeans would come to the coast and provide them with whiskey and guns to make people fight."
Some of this information came from the leaders of a different group, the Oku, who live in a region of Cameroon about 20 miles northeast of Bamenda. After visiting the region, hearing the tales of the elders and double-checking the genetic results, Holland feels confident that he now has the right story.
"You felt the sense of coming back," Holland told me. "You felt the welcoming that you should have gotten. They were running down the hill to come and meet us. That's how it was."
One of the Oku elders, Sam "Pa" Wambeng, told Holland that the Oku and other groups trace their heritage back to 7th-century Syria. When Islam took hold in the region, those groups made their way through the Middle East and Africa, eventually settling in Cameroon. In addition to the Oku, the settlers included the Mboum, Nso and Foumban peoples.
Wambeng and other elders said there was a widely respected member of the Oku tribe named Bailack who lived in the 1700s. Bailack had several wives and scores of sons, but many of them were abducted and passed on to the European slavers during the reign of a ruthless fon named Ney.
"They say 70 individuals were taken directly from the family," Holland told me. "They would have been the children of Bailack. Two or three escaped, and that's how they continued with the family. The family has spread to more than eight villages in Oku, despite the number captured as slaves in the reign of Ney."
The time frame for that abduction, in the 1770s, matched up with the time frame for the voyage of Holland's great-great-great-great-grandfather to Virginia, where he was sold as a slave. And the rest is American history.
Courtesy of William Holland
Residents of an Oku village turn out to welcome William Holland during his visit to Cameroon.
Courtesy of William Holland
William Holland (at right) and his brother Marvin flank the Fon of Oku during a visit in March.
Courtesy of William Holland
The house of an Oku patriarch named Bailack was built in the 1700s and is still standing in a Cameroonian village.
Do the genetics support Holland's status as Bailack's great-great-great-great-great-grandson? The evidence isn't indisputable. Thirty-one of the 36 genetic markers on the test that Holland took match up with the results from the Cameroonian clan. Genetic genealogy is a matter of probabilities, and the more markers two people have in common, the more likely it is that they're closely related. Thirty-one out of 36 is not super-close, but close enough for Holland to feel as if he's on the right track.
"The results from different family lines show that there were strong mutations that occurred in the 1600s and the 1700s. Given the amount of time from 1772 to this generation, it fits in a time frame where you can have those mutations occur," Holland told me. "I'm no geneticist by any means, but it sounds logical that could happen."
It's logical enough that Holland has scheduled another gathering, this time with members of the extended Oku clan as the special guests. It's due to take place around 1 p.m. ET on May 27, at the Franklin County Recreational Park near Rocky Mount, Va. Holland hopes that some of his long-lost relatives will be in attendance — but one of the dearest friends he made in Cameroon won't be there. Pa Wambeng, the elder who told the story that Holland has now made his own, passed away just a few weeks ago.
"I'm very honored to have gotten there and met him," Holland said, "because if we put off our trip, it would have been too late."
Previous chapters in the African saga:
- Sept. 8, 2010: DNA points to royal roots in Africa
- Feb. 1, 2011: Family roots get tangled up in Africa
- Feb. 28, 2011: Black history saga comes full circle
- July 3, 2011: Africans visit their American cousins
- Nov. 4, 2011: Genes tell a tale as big as Africa
- African American news from theGrio
Holland says the Memorial Day weekend reunion will serve as a memorial for "all the ancestors who traveled this path that affected our family line," including Pa Wambeng as well as Grace Ngum Tamufor, the recently deceased daughter of the previous Fon of Oku.
Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
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The ability to do what William Holland is attempting to do ....
Can only be done in thanks to "The Genome Project" ....
Which has made identification of gene sequences possible ....
Here's a piece from "genomics.energy.gov"....
Completed in 2003, the Human Genome Project (HGP) was a 13-year project coordinated by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health. During the early years of the HGP, the Wellcome Trust (U.K.) became a major partner; additional contributions came from Japan, France, Germany, China, and others. See our history page for more information.
Project goals were to
Thanks Alan ....
Speaking from an evolutionary standpoint, are we not all African Americans?
I did read an article a while back pointing to new evidence that suggests our modern ancestral line actually originates from parts of Asia and not Africa, but I haven't kept up with the new data ... anyone got the latest ... Alan, potential article?
Maybe so... The "Out of Africa" vs. multiregional origin debate has been going on for a long time...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43299152
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19832535/ns/technology_and_science-science/
But there are always new twists to catch up on...
There is a lot of interesting evidence on that. Multiple migrations, even evidence of some form of evolutionary bottle-neck that reduced the numbers of the species to about 10,000 individuals at one point almost extinction levels. There was one genetic study that traced back to 7 individual "eves" responsible for the various race groups around the world.
True, all peoples are of whiter origin, not black. The hair thing never made sense. Most other species, especially primates, have Asian European hair types. Only sheep have anything similar to African hair.
That means blacks darkened and changed to adapt to the heat of Africa.
And noses got broader and lips got thicker.. because of the heat?
Please state your evidence? Unless I'm missing something, it just sounds like you are a racist.
There's actually ample evidence to suggest that once we migrated further from the equator is when skin pigmentation began to fluctuate. Here's a great TED talk that highlights the illusions of race.
I've long said, the single greatest tool we could use in our arsenal of reason to shatter racism in the world is a better global understanding of evolution. How petty our differences are.
http://www.ted.com/talks/nina_jablonski_breaks_the_illusion_of_skin_color.html
Could be. You could postulate that the nose got broader to accept more air should humans in the area have a need to inhale more oxygen (hunting over long stretches, etc.). Lips get thicker to better absorb/retain moisture. The hair is a natural by-product of the level of exposure to the intense heat and light. The darkened skin as well. It makes sense either way at the moment to say they either adapted with these changes as they migrated back in to Africa or they retained them from inhabiting the land and other cultures lost these features as they moved out and into different climates. It's ongoing of course and hard to pin down but I think we'll get a definitive answer eventually.
Really I was just being a little facetious. I realize there's considerable uncertainty and debate about whether humans first evolved in Africa or elsewhere, but kinky hair notwithstanding, the skin color of our nearest living relatives, who live in Africa, is dark - generally as dark as the darkest humans (who live in Africa). Considering the sense of continuity which gives evolution its 'elegance,' that will cause people to tend to stay with the idea of African origin, until some pretty strong evidence moves them away.
Africa (Ethiopia) has been long known to be the birthplace of the earliest humans. Guess most Europeans would like to disclaim that notion.
I love seeing these kinds of pictures. It makes me really see how trivial some of the things I worry about are. It makes my obsessing over <a href="">tax preparation albuquerque nm</a> seem pretty trivial and unnecessary.
This guy sounds like he has no idea what he's doing. There are so many historical and genetic holes in the story. The Oku came from Syria? Yeah, right. He needs to beef up on his scholarship in a number of different fields. This isn't a layman's game.
Please read with comprehension:
"One of the Oku elders, Sam "Pa" Wambeng, told Holland that the Oku and other groups trace their heritage back to 7th-century Syria. When Islam took hold in the region, those groups made their way through the Middle East and Africa, eventually settling in Cameroon. "
Yeah, I read this with comprehension. This didn't happen. Muslims in Africa, especially leaders, like to trace their ancestry back to the Middle East and Muhammad's entourage for reasons of status. In the same fashion, the Igbo of Nigeria like to believe they're one of the Lost Tribes of Israel. Doesn't mean it's true. PROTIP: griots don't always know what they're talking about.
asperhes - well I guess he is trying - got to give him credit on that
This guy sounds like he has no idea what he's doing. There are so many historical and genetic holes in his story. The Oku came from Syria? Yeah, right. He needs to beef up on his scholarship in a number of different fields. This is not a layman's game.
I wonder if he will invite his relatives whose ancestors kidnapped and sold his closer ancestors..
"Memorial Day is the time for remembering the loved ones you lost, right?" Holland said.
WRONG - It's much more than that, Mr. Holldand.... Much more.....
This is a wonderful story. So many do not have enough information about their ancestors. This gives many hope to learn more about their history.
Does anyone here remember the Americo-Liberians of Liberia whom the United States government abandoned to it's fate? The U.S. military should have been involved in Libera from it's start in 1822. Then again the British in neighbouring Sierra Leone were involved in the nation since 1807, yet it did no good for the Creoles of Freetown. The whole 1800's Back to Africa movement turned out to be a disaster in the long run.
From what little I remember it went pretty well. The freed slaves settled and developed the country along the lines they knew: plantations where they were in charge. The difficulty came from the way they treated the locals, for some reason they locals resented them.
I'm glad Mr. Holland was able to find more about his family tree and go to Africa. He's done a lot of work. I don't know if most people can appreciate how difficult it is for black families to find their roots in Africa. Sometimes there's no paperwork whatsoever. It looks like the genetic testing will help in a big way.
Thankfully, my father's side of the family was traced back to Ireland. It turns out that my great, great, great, great grandmother is buried only 20 min. from my house. It's very surreal to be able to visit her grave-site but it brings a lot of peace.
Ancestry. com is a good place for people who run into dead ends. Sometimes you can find information at your library.
Great article!
There was zero paperwork until the point where so many individuals from whichever tribe brought to trading post by such and such person for the whatever amount of trade goods. The only paper trial as such began after the sell on the american continent and names were given There were relatively few buyers so it should be possible to at least get that far. An excellent book by one of the descendent of his plantation family that kept meticulous records is "slaves in the family" by Edward Ball.
Why dont they use DNA rather than cast bones?
BTW, that old house "proves" that corrugated roofing WAS invented in Africa...possibly in the 1700s...
Now, will someone admit that most slave "providers" were the Africans, themselves....?
Alan,
I thought the article was very interesting and I applaud the Holland family for embracing their history and their ancestry.
What I do not understand is all the snarky comments. What's the problem with you people? Sheesh. It is what it is. Read and learn, or move on.
Curious Bob, you are, of course, correct. Classical tribal warfare in Africa resulted primarily in capturing people and selling them into slavery. Slavery still exists in Africa but in a much diminished state, which means NOW there is no reason to keep the rival tribal members alive and has lead to much slaughter and ethnic cleansing. No, I'm not suggesting slavery was somehow more humane, I'm merely saying that once slavery was largely eliminated it also eliminated the need to keep the enemy alive as property. A very cruel irony.
Slavery in Africa continued long after the American Civil war ended the practice in the American South. A Muslim/African known as "Tippu Tib" was a great friend of the African explorer Stanley and built a huge slave empire in central Africa. His small army of Afro-Arabs would scour the continent kidnapping individuals to be sold in the slave markets. Not all of these victims were black. Another great African Explorer named Baker (an Englishman) "bought" his wife off the slave dock in Eastern Europe (controlled by the Turks). She was white. King Leopold II of Belgium enslaved an entire state, the so-called "Congo Free State" later to be known as the Belgian Congo. When Goodyear invented the pneumatic tire in the 1880's and bicycles became a world-wide sensation, Leopold found himself sitting on the largest supply of raw rubber on the planet. He built a private army and forced the Congolese natives to go into the forest and harvest the rubber. It was very dangerous work and those who refused were horribly mutilated, losing hands, feet and their lives. As news of the atrocities in the Congo began to leak out around 1900, Leopold hired a black American lawyer to "white-wash" the situation. He was so horrified by what he found in the Congo that he exposed Leopold and coined the phrase "crimes against humanity" to define what he saw in the Belgian Congo.
PC Wren would use the memory of the Belgian Congo in his 1925 Foreign Legion novel "Beau Geste". The brutal Legion Sergeant who terrorizes the Geste brothers was said to have been driven out of the Belgian Congo for excessive cruelty. Now that is one bad dude if he's too cruel for the Belgian Congo. But I digress...
For more information read the book, SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICA and KING LEOPOLD'S GHOST. Both books are fascinating and very informative.
Thanks for sharing.
Great information, skip!
I don't know where all the snarky comments come from either. Every article has quite a few and I'm learning what NOT to do.
People could be more respectful on a topic like this. I'm really embarrassed because of these dumb comments and I hope Mr. Holland doesn't read them. We could really learn a lot from him. He's a genealogist so I think he knows what he's talking about. Besides that, he knows more about his immediate and distant family than anyone on this article. So try to learn a little, people.
Amen Darrah, I agree with you 100%.
Here are some questions I wish Mr. Holland WOULD read:
--Since he's "no geneticist," as he admits, does he feel he knows enough about "mutations" to make the genealogical claims he makes?
--Is he finding anything in Cameroon besides oral accounts? He's going to need them, if he's actually interested in historical truth. It's no surprise that different peoples might have bad blood and conflicting stories about participation in the 18th century slave trade.
--Has he considered using genetics to trace the Oku back to Syria, to back up this specious story? Any cultural or linguistic evidence of this link?
--Does he have any background in the history of West African vernacular architecture, or does he believe this photographed hut dates from the 18th century only because someone told him? In a previous article, he mentions "crying" over huts that were supposedly used to hold captured slaves. It is highly unlikely that these houses are over 200 years old.
--In a previous article, he claims that the slave ship which he suspects held his ancestors made a direct route from modern-day Cameroon to Virginia. How does he know this? Couldn't the captives have been marched overland to a more probable port like Calabar? Furthermore, half the slave ships which arrived in Virginia came from the Caribbean, selling enslaved men and women who had already been living in America.
--Europeans "made people fight" in West Africa with guns and liquor? This just isn't how it went down, unless he has actual evidence of specific, unusual cases. The West African slave trade existed long before guns or Europeans arrived. Pre-existing market, pre-existing warfare. (In an earlier article he also drags up another out-of-date theory that slavers mixed up ethnic groups in the ships to prevent mutiny).
It's great that Mr. Holland is trying this, but if he wants this to be more than an expensive set of vacations, he needs to better grip on what constitutes sound evidence. He just seems out of his depth. Eventually, I hope he can share his complete findings with the public so that professionals can pick them apart.
"Furthermore, half the slave ships which arrived in Virginia came from the Caribbean, selling enslaved men and women who had already been living in America." `Asperhes
B.I.N.G.O! Biggest misconception in American history, the notion that "black skin" people in America are "African".
The story lightly touches on that very issue. What I had a hard time with was placing sub-sahara black africans in Syria? The arab/muslim/whatever were major slave traders, heck they founded their entire culture/civilization on slaves from both sub-sahara natives and europeans. By the time european slave trade started the european just built a trading post on the coast and waited for the arab/muslim and local tribal leaders to bring the captured locals to them. There was a prohabition against trading the locals firearms though, most of the trade was in cloth and iron products.
Hmmm I mean no disrespect to Mr. Holland but Memorial day is a day to remember our fallen military brothers and sisters who have laid down there lives for our freedom. I think he may want to correct his statement.
That patriarch's house (hut) has been standing since the 1700's. Really? I don't buy that. Isn't Cameroon tropical with alot of rain. That mud-brick and bamboo would have been gone along time ago. Like about 300 years ago.
The writer kind of forgot to mention that the Arabs that were in Africa at the time were mainly there to make money in the slave trade passing along Islam was a by-product. Sorry if that's politically in-correct but if you explore the history of Africa you'll find that it's true regardless of correctness. This is not a slight against Islam. It's just the way it was. Just like "good" Christians were buying what they were selling. Mainly people.
Really great story.
The more people pursue their geneology, especially along with the new genetic testing, the more we'll have a real sense of history for our origins, as individuals and as people.
Like all history, there's an element of mystery to these searches. Not all the information is perfect, but it's a great start and leads to better and better understanding the longer you stick to it.
Now here's a serious question, if this tribe traces its roots to Syria, for reasons of status or not, can they be considered African because you know that if a white person, who is from South Africa, can trace their roots back to the beginning of the Dutch colonies, in the 1600s to 1700s, in South Africa and then move to the US and becomes a citizen, they aren't considered African-American, they are considered just white.
What always angers me about the demand for reparations or the talk about slavery in the US is that they consistently and I believe intentionally overlook the FACT that it was Africans who took other Africans as slaves and then sold them to the white slave traders. They love to act like it was all the white man's fault when in reality it was blacks abducting blacks to make a profit for themselves that was the first link in the chain and one that had been going on long before white men ever showed up off the coast with whiskey and guns "to make them fight".
Ha! They were fighting long before there WERE guns, they didn't need the white man's encouragement. So the next time someone mentions reparations to you, tell them that we'll consider them just as soon as the tribes in Africa responsible for capturing their ancestors in the first place pay up.
Sorry. We are all out of Africa. Nothing outside Africa has been found. One site in Asia and everyone jumps on the bandwagon until the data is in and has been confirmed. This has not happened yet. As far as known now, the only people, other than the Neanderthals, who survived the Mt. Toba eruption were the 10,000 or so people in Africa. A little work in India may find a small group that survived but their numbers would be so small they could not reproduce. Even the group in Africa came close to extinction. I think this fellow had better be satisfied that he knows now that his family probably was from a certain geographic location in the Cameroons and let it go.
If he believes that hut was built in the 1700's. Tell him that i got this really nice bridge that i could sell him. Also pretty lame story all around.
Please by all means,go back to your roots,invite many many to stay.My people decided Africa sucked,screwed some neanderthals and made the world.You're welcome
It sounds to me like Obamas ancestors can all be traced back to slavery before the hated white man came around.
wow! This is amazing, I believe we African/Americans are the only race of people in America who can not fully
account for the true locale of their ancestrial descendants. White slave-owners stole our culture and our history, not allowing us to maintain a connection to the homeland. How sad and how cruel. Yet, you have many white racists always shouting for blacks to "go back to Africa". Guess they never give it a thought that we did not ask to come here in the first place... like so many of their white ancestors. I'm glad for this brother that he was successful.
Fabulous reporting Alan. Great to see that you are still reporting on this and other scientific, cultural and historical subjects. There have been such exciting developments since you did my article, I'm still writing the book.
msnbc.msn.com/id/3077146/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/she-traces-genetic-roots-africa
I have been working with geneticists to fdo the timeline of my various genetic matches. Fabulous having a genetic profile that matches my cultural, genealogical and linguistic profile. I commend Mr. Holland for doing the same. Everyone should do his ro her complete genome map and compare the matches to what's known about our ancestors' history and cultures.
The other article:
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3077146/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/she-traces-genetic-roots-africa
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