Trans Atlantic Slave Trade: Madagascar and the Malagasy People – 1866 days old

[Jedi]

Trans Atlantic Slave Trade: Madagascar and the Malagasy People

Map Location:


Most people hear Madagascar and think penguins, turtles and the Madagascar movies. Very rarely do they think slavery, transatlantic slave trade and possible ancestry from this island tucked away in such a humble location of the globe, especially New Worlders in the Americas. East of the Mother Land she lays…. 791.89 miles off the shores of Mozambique.

People:


The people of Madagascar are called Malagasy are of Afro-Indonesian origins. It is the belief of archaeologists that the first arrivals to the Island were Indonesia/Malaya about 2,000 years ago. Other experts agree that is it likely other immigrants from Southern India an East Africa arrived in much later migrations.

Merina People of Madagascar



The Merina people in the highlands still carry very strong Indonesian characteristics.

I recently became very interested in Madagascar. I became interested because a small group of African Americans have claimed a Malagasy ancestor(s) via oral traditions. There are some who believe this group of people may actually have some *genetic* input on a few descendents of the African Diaspora, but to what extent?

Slave Trade


Madagascar did have a role to play in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, but from a slightly different route. Around the Cape of Hope in Southern Africa. We can see by looking at the map, they were on the international arena, at a smaller scale but not meaningless in their burden.

Slavery was alive and well in Madagascar prior to the Portuguese and Dutch in the early 1600's when they landed in southern Madagascar.
In the Indian Ocean was slavery already in practice with Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius and Reunion.
Thanks to the English, Madagascar became fresh ground and elevated the Malagasy people to market for the international slave trade. September 27, 1896 was it then abolished.

North American Malagasy Ancestry

Did slave ships land in North America carrying Malagasy slaves? There is not a lot of historical evidence but we find tid bits here and there. It is estimated that about that between 1719 and 1725 a little over than 1,000 Malagasy's arrived in Virginia.

"The first systematic venture from New England to Africa was undertaken in 1644 by an association of Boston traders, who sent three ships in quest of gold dust and black slaves. One vessel returned the following year with a cargo of wine, salt, sugar, and tobacco, which it had picked up in Barbados in exchange for slaves. But the other two ran into European warships off the African coast and barely escaped in one piece. Their fate was a good example of why Americans stayed out of the slave trade in the 17th century. Slave voyages were profitable, but Puritan merchants lacked the resources, financial and physical, to compete with the vast, armed, quasi-independent European chartered corporations that were battling to monopolize the trade in black slaves on the west coast of Africa. The superpowers in this struggle were the Dutch West India Company and the English Royal African Company. The Boston slavers avoided this by making the longer trip to the east coast of Africa, and by 1676 the Massachusetts ships were going to Madagascar for slaves. Boston merchants were selling these slaves in Virginia by 1678. But on the whole, in the 17th century New Englanders merely dabbled in the slave trade." http://www.slavenorth.com/profits.htm

South American Malagasy Ancestry



Let's take a dramatic shift to Afro-Peruvians, in Latin America's Peru.

"Recently it has been verified that the community with the greatest concentration of Afro-Peruvians is Yapatera in Morropón (Piura), made up of around 7,000 farmers who are largely descended from African slaves of "malagasy" (Madagascar) origin. They are referred to as "malgaches" or "mangaches". Formerly, Chincha to the south of Lima and other communities in Ica were known as the towns of greatest Afro-Peruvian concentration, but due to the excessive mixing between the Afro inhabitants native to the area and the Andean migrants, the Afro-Peruvian root has been more hybridized. Also, many of the Afrodescent residents of these communities migrated towards Lima for better opportunities." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afro-Peruvian

IIs Their Proof in the Pudding?


So do we have an genomic evidence for this? I currently share on 23andMe with a African American who's mtDNA (mitochondrial) Halopgroup is E1a1a as the one shown above. Madagascar has the largest concentration of this Halpogroup according to 23andMe. This does not automatically mean *Madagascar* but it makes it more interesting.

My question I purpose....How many Malagasy people do you think would have a large *genomic* impact today? How much Malagasy ancestry, given the smaller input to the overall slave trade would exist today in the western hemisphere? East African and Asian Ancestry? Were there enough Malagasy that many people in North and South America would find obvious ancestors today? I'm curious what other's can offer in valuable information, especially anything historical.

Peace and Light.

[Spark]

I know that African American as well and I too believe she has distant Malagasy input that came in via her slave input. She believes that an Oceanian married into her family at some point. Given that her East Asian influence is about 2% in McDonald's test, I think my explanation is more likely. Malagasy slaves were a small part of the total shipment to the U.S. but they were sent here we know. And the Afro-Peruvian example is quite clear since some cultural forms were more easily traced to these Malagasy slaves.

[Mister G]

You probably have this information already but i will post it anyway.

From 1719 to 1725 more than 1,000 Malagasy slaves arrived to the Commonwealth of Virginia through the ports of Rappahannock and York rivers. The Prince Eugene of Bristol came into York River district of Virginia on May 18, 1719 carrying 340 Malagasy; the Mercury of London arrived at the district of Rappahannock River on May 17, 1720 with 466 Malagasy; and were followed by the Rebecca Snow, the Gascoigne Galley, the Henrietta, and the Coker Snow. The Prince Eugene, Rebecca Snow, and Gascoigne Galley apparently made directly from Madagascar for Virginia, where the Prince Eugene had sold her licensed cargo in 1719. The Henrietta stopped in Pernambuco, Brazil before continuing to Barbados and Virginia. Three of the Madagascar vessels arrived in Virginia over a period of only six weeks, entering at York River as follows: The Gascoigne Galley with 133 slaves, on May 15, 1721; the Prince Eugene (on a second trip) with 103 slaves in June, and the Henrietta with 130 slaves later that month. Platt states that the total number of Malagasy brought into Virginia between 1719 and 1721, comes to 1, 231 when the 340 slaves brought on the Prince Eugene's previous voyage and the 466 brought by the Mercury in 1720 are counted in. (Platt: 1969:567)

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb..../histories.htm

[Magneto]

I think I remember reading that brought to Virginia and the Carolinas because of their rice growing techniques.

[Jedi]

You probably have this information already but i will post it anyway.

From 1719 to 1725 more than 1,000 Malagasy slaves arrived to the Commonwealth of Virginia through the ports of Rappahannock and York rivers. The Prince Eugene of Bristol came into York River district of Virginia on May 18, 1719 carrying 340 Malagasy; the Mercury of London arrived at the district of Rappahannock River on May 17, 1720 with 466 Malagasy; and were followed by the Rebecca Snow, the Gascoigne Galley, the Henrietta, and the Coker Snow. The Prince Eugene, Rebecca Snow, and Gascoigne Galley apparently made directly from Madagascar for Virginia, where the Prince Eugene had sold her licensed cargo in 1719. The Henrietta stopped in Pernambuco, Brazil before continuing to Barbados and Virginia. Three of the Madagascar vessels arrived in Virginia over a period of only six weeks, entering at York River as follows: The Gascoigne Galley with 133 slaves, on May 15, 1721; the Prince Eugene (on a second trip) with 103 slaves in June, and the Henrietta with 130 slaves later that month. Platt states that the total number of Malagasy brought into Virginia between 1719 and 1721, comes to 1, 231 when the 340 slaves brought on the Prince Eugene's previous voyage and the 466 brought by the Mercury in 1720 are counted in. (Platt: 1969:567)

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb..../histories.htm

What is interesting and I was sharing with my cuz Spark. On Doug McDonald's paintings, African Americans with Native ancestry show either Green American segments or East Asian in the case for Native American. However, East Asian seems to be the trend and in the case for Native American, picking up the Siberian/East Asian affinity.
Now, with this, my larger question is, which I'm just throwing out there, how many African American's with Malagasy ancestry may show those East Asian segments in their ancestry paintings can attribute this to Native heritage or Malagasy? There are more African Americans from the Southeast showing varying levels of East Asian. How much of this can be attributed to Malagasy ancestry, the East Asian. Could the Malagasy have that much of an impact, genomic wise?
It seems the racial landscape of the Malagasy people do have Asian to some extent, some maybe more than others.

[Mela-nun]

more of its people

[Esekon Kimatt]

1st one looks Sudanese or Ugandan

[LuisaSkis]

What is interesting and I was sharing with my cuz Spark. On Doug McDonald's paintings, African Americans with Native ancestry show either Green American segments or East Asian in the case for Native American. However, East Asian seems to be the trend and in the case for Native American, picking up the Siberian/East Asian affinity.
Now, with this, my larger question is, which I'm just throwing out there, how many African American's with Malagasy ancestry may show those East Asian segments in their ancestry paintings can attribute this to Native heritage or Malagasy? There are more African Americans from the Southeast showing varying levels of East Asian. How much of this can be attributed to Malagasy ancestry, the East Asian. Could the Malagasy have that much of an impact, genomic wise?
It seems the racial landscape of the Malagasy people do have Asian to some extent, some maybe more than others.

Take a look at this Doug McDonald painting. There is a bit of East Asian on chromosomes 6 & 8 and on "X".

The "American" is insignificant according to McDonald.

This person's ancestry is 75% Virginia, 25% Maryland, based on their four grandparents.

I don't know ... what do you guys think?

[Spark]

For the Amerind to be "insignificant" but the East Asian to come in with it could suggest Siberian admixture and hence Amerind as in my case. However, it is also possible that it could also be separate East Asian via some other contribution -- Malagasy, Chinese, or otherwise.

[Mister G]

Here is what i found online, however approach this with caution and find other sources as well in regards of this subject matter.


Objet : [DNA] mtDNA Haplogroup B "Malagasy motif" and African Americans

An mtDNA motif recently reported as being found only in Madagascar has now
been observed in the mtDNA of two self-identified African Americans.

An FTDNA customer contacted us (Tom and Georgia Bopp - the Hawaiian Project)
because he was puzzled by some mtDNA results. The cousin's mtDNA that had
been tested (HVS1 and HVS2) was reported as showing the "Polynesian Motif".
The customer's family history does not suggest how this could be.

Soon one of the cousin’s matches joined the email conversation, and then
another. These latter two are mtDNA FGS FTDNA customers, self-identified as
African Americans, who also have the "Polynesian Motif" in their mtDNA.
That is, they are in haplogroup B4a1a1a, and have low resolution HVS1 and 2
matches to Hawaiians, New Zealanders, etc. Our initial contact person's
cousin is an exact match to them on HVS1 and 2 (FGS due in April).

When the initial contact later informed us that the earliest known
ancestress of this line was married on Mauritius Island, we were led to
Razafindrazaka, et.al. European Journal of Human Genetics, Vol.18,
575,(2010). That paper was reported to this list in April 2010 by Stephen
Perkins:

Using full mtDNA sequences, Razafindrazaka, et. al., found two additional
markers in the coding region that appear to be unique to the B4a1a1a from
Madagascar. The two novel mutations are 1473T and 3423A. These mutations
were absent in the Polynesian-Polynesian samples the authors looked at, but
present in every one of the Malagasy samples. The authors call these
mutations the "Malagasy motif”. The motif now appears as "B4a1a1a2" on the
7 February 2011 (Build 11) mtDNA tree at www.phylotree.org .

So, back to our African American FTDNA customers. Knowing what to look for,
we revisited the FGS results, and indeed both of these women have the
reported”Malagasy Motif." The suggestion is that their maternal line most
likely comes from Madagascar, not Polynesia, possibly from the slave trade.
This makes more sense in view of their family histories.
Although DNA is often not very helpful for African Americans looking for a
place of origin, the special situation described here may be a fortuitous
exception.

Georgia Kinney Bopp

http://newsarch.rootsweb.com/th/read...-04/1272118125
The link above will provide other links, which will be a interest to you and others here.