ROOTS: DISCOVERING YOUR AFRICAN ORIGINS, PT. V

VIII. STATISTICALLY MOST LIKELY AFRICAN TRIBES OF ORIGIN OF MODERN-DAY BLACK AMERICANS

Tribe names are in bold face type.

1. Yoruba: (Benin, Nigeria)
2. Hausa: (Niger, Nigeria)
3. Ovimbundu: (Angola)
4. Malinke: (The Gambia, Guineau, Ivory Coast, Mali, Senegal, Sierra Leone)
5. Wolof: (The Gambia, Senegal)
6. Ashanti: (Ghana)
7. Ewe: (Ghana, Togo)
8. Fante: (Ghana)
9. Mende: (Sierra Leone)
10. Dyola: (The Gambia, Senegal)

Note: As stated previously, likelihood of a current-day black American being descended from a particular African tribe depends on several different factors, which include but are not limited to:

1) sheer numbers of that tribe in slave trading times;
2) the popularity of that tribe's home region with slave traders and American buyers;
3) the area in the United States/British North America to which the black American’s ancestors were originally transported.

IX. STATISTICALLY MOST LIKELY AFRICAN COUNTRIES OF ORIGIN OF MODERN-DAY BLACK AMERICANS

1. Nigeria
2. Angola
3. Ghana
4. The Gambia
5. Senegal
6. Sierra Leone

Note: These countries are, given a number of factors that include but are not limited to:

1) tribes indigenous to the area, numbers of those tribes in slave-trading days and in the present day;
2) the popularity of the slave-trading region in which that country is located with United States slave states and with British possessions in the Western Hemisphere;

the most likely present-day African countries of origin of present-day black Americans. No conclusions about a particular individual’s ancestry can validly be drawn from this list or the other lists in this report, however, by persons who have not yet done their personal genealogical homework (possibly including genetic testing).

Compiled by Thomas A. Pearson, Reference Librarian
Special Collections Department
St. Louis Public Library
http://www.slpl.org/

Copyright © 2004-2009 by St. Louis Public Library. All rights reserved.

ROOTS: DISCOVERING YOUR AFRICAN ORIGINS, PT. IV

VI. SOME U.S. SLAVE STATES AND THE MAJOR SLAVE-TRADING REGIONS OF AFRICA FAVORED BY THOSE STATES

State names are in bold face type.

1. Louisiana: Senegambia
2. Maryland: Bight of Biafra, Gold Coast, Windward Coast
3. South Carolina: Senegambia, Windward Coast, Angola (over 40% of U.S. slaves arrived at South Carolina ports: 80% of these were from Senegambia and the Windward Coast)
4. Virginia: Bight of Biafra, Gold Coast, Windward Coast
5. Missouri: see Louisiana & Virginia above (many Missouri slaves were either brought up the river from New Orleans or came here with their Virginia masters)

Note: Slaveholders in certain states were partial to certain slave-trading regions because the climate and topography of that region resembled to some extent that of the American state. Slaves from that region as a result were often familiar with the cultivation of certain crops such as rice and indigo, and resistant to many of the diseases prevalent in southern states such as malaria and yellow fever.

VII. MAJOR AFRICAN TRIBES INVOLVED IN THE BRITISH NORTH AMERICA / UNITED STATES SLAVE TRADE AND THE MODERN-DAY AFRICAN COUNTRIES THEY INHABIT

Tribe names are in bold face type.

1. Ashanti: 1.5 million (Ghana)
2. Bakongo: 400,000 (Republic of the Congo)
3. Dyola: 24,000 (The Gambia); 330,000 (Senegal)
4. Ewe: 1,058,000 (Ghana); 362,000 (Togo)
5. Fante: 400,000 (Ghana)
6. Ga: 285,000 (Ghana)
7. Gola: 88,000 (Liberia)
8. Hausa: 12 million (Nigeria)
9. Kru: 87,000 (Liberia)
10. Lobi: 291,000 (Burkina-Faso); 236,000 (Ivory Coast)
11. Luba: 1,960,00 (Zaire)
12. Lunda: 311,000 (Zambia)
13. Malinke: 1.5 million (The Gambia, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Mali, Senegal, Sierra Leone)
14. Mende: 1 million (Liberia)
15. Ovimbundu: 1.7 million (Angola) Note: this tribe is also known as the Mbundu.
16. Teke: 170,00 (Republic of the Congo)
17. Temne: 731,000 (Sierra Leone)
18. Wolof: 1.5 million (The Gambia, Senegal)
19. Yoruba: 12 million (Benin, Nigeria)

Compiled by Thomas A. Pearson, Reference Librarian
Special Collections Department
St. Louis Public Library
http://www.slpl.org/

Copyright © 2004-2009 by St. Louis Public Library. All rights reserved.