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Firsthand History, New York, NY (2026)

04/24/2026

The Colonies and plantations had been for some time back the dumping ground for undesirables of all kinds—convicts, State criminals whether political or religious, rebels, suspects, malcontents, fanatics, and deserters…

“There was an Edinburgh writer, George Hume, age 30, marked as a ‘Black man’ whose colour would, no doubt, suit the West Indies”

SOURCE;

(J. Macbeth Forbes, “Jacobite Gleanings From State Manuscripts: Short Sketches of Jacobites; The Transportations in 1745; 1928)

Disorderly individuals and convicts were routinely deported to America as part of a broader system of penal transportation…

This practice involved relocating convicted criminals and other deemed “undesirable” persons—often to distant colonies—for a specified term…

Over time, dedicated penal colonies became the primary destinations for such exiles…

The “Black Irish” was not a metaphor for dark hair…

The historical record—from penal transportation lists to ethnological writings—shows that “black” meant complexion, swarthiness, and ancestry, marking a people who were once recognized as physically distinct within the Isles…

The later reinterpretation into “dark hair” is a modern sanitization, imposed to erase the uncomfortable reality that Ireland, Scotland, and Britain retained traces of an older, darker population long remembered in both folklore and official documents…

“And although the “black heathen” were expelled from these islands many centuries ago, and although, as a distinct race, they have almost vanished from Europe”

SOURCE;

(David MacRitchie, "Ancient & Modern Britons Vol. 1"; 1884)

04/17/2026

In Shakespeare’s time, audiences at the Globe understood the word ‘Moor’ to mean ‘a black man,’ and either then or later, it was tautologically extended to ‘blackamoor’

The presence of Moors in heraldry cannot be fully explained by the theory that families bearing Moors’ heads as crests earned their status by aiding the Spaniards in expelling the Moors…

This symbolism is far too widespread in ancient coats of arms to be solely attributed to such an explanation…

Moors’ heads appear in the heraldry of families in places that had no connection to the Reconquista (like Scotland, Germany, Switzerland, etc.)

Now, there was probably some difference between a "Moor" and a "Saracen," although in heraldry there does not seem to be much distinction…

The opinion which has been most generally supported, and prevails at the present time, is that the word was originally Sharkeyn, an Arabian word signifying "eastern people," and used in contradistinction to Maghribé, or "western people," the Moors of Morocco…

While, therefore, all Saracens were Moors, all Moors were not necessarily Saracens…

But, at any rate, the term "Saracen" has been applied to the piratical invaders of the British Isles from a very early period…

These invaders may not have been actual Arabs — but were stereotyped as “Saracens” because they were foreign and Muslim…

So when the Scots, or Gypsies, of the Borders were distinguished by the Saracenic symbols of crescents and stars, such symbols were quite in accordance with their supposed descent from such Saracens and Moors as the Scots and Picts of Galloway…

In the matter of dress, Mr. Crofton infers that "Gipsies formerly had a distinctive costume, consisting of a turban-like headdress of many colours, together with a large cloak, worn after the fashion of a toga, over a long loose under-skirt…

It’s been said that those black pagans “[were] armed with scimetars, and dressed in caftans”

A scimitar is a type of curved, single-edged sword historically associated with the Middle East and Africa…

A caftan is a long, flowing garment with wide sleeves, traditionally worn in the Middle East, North and West Africa…

It is often made from luxurious fabrics like silk and is sometimes ornately decorated…

The Gipsies, then, whom we have already seen described as "Moors," were also known as "Saracens," the terms being indifferently used in heraldry and in the old romances…

Nothing is known of the date of their landing" in England, while "a tradition represents them as making depredations in Scotland prior to 1460”

The piratical races who are known to history under various names, and who "made depredations" throughout the British Islands at various dates "prior to 1460," were also, as Scott remarks, styled “Saracens," and it has been noticed that a "Hungarian" and a "Danish" invasion of Scotland took place, according to tradition, at the same time…

The gipsies, then—not to go further into details—when accepted as numerous, warlike, and distinctly black people, living an individual existence in various districts of the British Islands during the past few centuries, but gradually becoming mingled with the white races, announce themselves very clearly as the progenitors, on one side, of all the melanochroi of Britain…

It is true that, in the thirteenth century, we see them regarded as intruders by the Christian chivalry of the West, to whom they were "Saracens," "Moors," “devils," "heathen" and "pagans;" and, as such, warred against with unceasing vigour until, in Prussia, they were almost totally exterminated…

And again, the Moors of heraldry, with their black skins, thick lips, and "pearls pendant," are virtually the same as the ear-ringed black and hideous “Egyptians” who trooped into Bologna about five centuries ago…

Those "Egyptians" were in all probability a branch of "the pagans of Prussia" who are said to have besieged Dantzic, under Udislaus Ingello, in the year 1389…

In Highland tradition, there are many "sea-tinkers"—such as “the black smith of Drontheim" and in this Galloway district, specially, the legendary Blackamoor, Black Murray, or Black Douglas, is remembered in one account as a sea-rover, and in another as one of a company of sea-faring “Moors or Saracens."

When in short, they were savage, sea faring, “black heathen” known under various historical names; sacking churches and monasteries, killing and ravishing; and, at one time, actually conquering the greater portion of the British Islands…

01/01/2026

The Great Sphinx of Giza is generally dated to around c. 2500 BCE…

Most Egyptologists place its construction during the reign of Khafre (Dynasty 4), meaning the Sphinx is approximately 4,500 years old…

This FamilyTreeDNA Globetrekker map dated to c. 2500 BCE places haplogroup E1b1a firmly within Egypt and the Nile–Sudan corridor at precisely the same historical moment the Great Sphinx of Giza is generally accepted to have been constructed, during Dynasty 4…

The map does not depict a new migration into Egypt at this time; rather, it shows haplogroup E1b1a as part of the existing demographic framework of Northeast Africa, already established in Egypt by the mid-third millennium BCE…

In other words, haplogroup E1b1a represents part of the indigenous population substrate present when the Sphinx and the pyramids were built…

The presence of haplogroup E1b1a in Egypt at 2500 BCE indicates that the communities supplying labor, expertise, and continuity during the Old Kingdom were drawn from a long-standing African population network extending from the Upper Nile into North and West Africa…

While genetics does not identify individual builders or architects, it does establish the biological continuity of the population responsible for Old Kingdom Egypt’s achievements…

Seen this way, the alignment is chronological and contextual rather than speculative:—the Sphinx was carved within a society whose paternal lineages included haplogroup E1b1a, already rooted in Egypt and Northeast Africa for millennia…

01/01/2026

According to FamilyTreeDNA Globetrekker, Y-DNA haplogroup E-M4732 and its descendant lineages (E-L485 and E-U175) formed approximately 10,000–8,000 years ago in the Green Sahara, centered in the Tadrart Acacus (southwestern Libya) and Tassili n’Ajjer (southeastern Algeria) regions…

Following the desertification of the Central Sahara, these E1b1a lineages began dispersing outward…

By 4000 BCE, the Sahara was rapidly desertifying, forcing these E1b1a populations out of the Central Green Sahara…

According to the FamilyTreeDNA Globetrekker maps, E1b1a lineages—including E-M4732 and its descendants—are already present in Egypt and the Levant by around 4000 BCE, suggesting an early northward and northeastward movement along Saharan and Nile-adjacent corridors…

This places these lineages firmly in Predynastic Egypt, centuries before dynastic unification and long before pharaonic Egypt took shape…

These E1b1a lineages were present during the very formation of dynastic Egypt…

That means they could have been part of Late Predynastic Upper Egyptian communities, Early royal-era populations and Nile-based agropastoral and administrative groups…

Notably, the same maps show limited or no presence in Sudan until later, with clear expansion into Nubia and Sudan appearing closer to 2000 BCE…

When E1b1a lineages reached Nubia and Sudan around 2500–2000 BCE, the dominant cultural horizon was the early Kerma culture, following the decline of the A-Group…

By the dynastic period of Egypt (3100 BCE onward), populations carrying these E1b1a lineages had already been moving across North Africa for millennia and were likely incorporated into hunter-gatherer, pastoralist, and early farming communities in both Upper and Lower Egypt, gradually integrating into dynastic populations through admixture with local groups…

12/30/2025

Many core terms in the Asante and Fante dialects of the Akan language appear to retain clear semantic parallels with words in the Mdw Netjer suggesting a linguistic heritage shaped by long migration and cultural continuity…

aba (Akan) — stick for beating, rod, wand
aba (Mdw Nṯr) — scepter, staff, stick

aboa (Akan) — animal, beast, creature
abau (Mdw Nṯr) — small animals

ani (Akan) — eyes, look, gaze
an (Mdw Nṯr) — to look towards something, glance

san (Akan) — to return, turn back
san (Mdw Nṯr) — to turn back

man (Akan) — to turn
mann (Mdw Nṯr) — to turn, twist, wind around, entwine

kasakasa (Akan) — to speak much and noisily, to chatter
keskes (Mdw Nṯr) — to chatter foolishly

merew (Akan) — weak; weakness
merua (Mdw Nṯr) — weak

ma (Akan) — to give, grant
ma (Mdw Nṯr) — give, grant, permit

Accordingly, the survival of shared semantic structures between Akan and Mdw Nṯr aligns with the migration models traced in FamilyTreeDNA’s phylogenetic trees, where haplogroup E marks long-term population continuity from the Nile–Levant corridor into West Africa…

In the Bible, the name ‘Akan’ is associated with the tribe of Judah…

Akan / Achan is tied to Judah because the Bible explicitly identifies him as a Judahite…

“But the children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing: for Achan, [Akan] the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed thing: and the anger of the LORD was kindled against the children of Israel” — Joshua 7:1

“Did not Achan [Akan] the son of Zerah commit a trespass in the accursed thing, and wrath fell on all the congregation of Israel? and that man perished not alone in his iniquity” — Joshua 22:20

Akan / Achan (אָכָן)
• Pronunciation: aw-kawn
• Language: Biblical Hebrew
• Etymology: Derived from a root meaning to trouble or troublesome

Khen (Ḫn / Khn)
• Language: Mḏw Nṯr
• Semantic range: Conveys the idea of stirring up trouble

12/28/2025

Benjamin of Tudela was a 12th-century Jewish traveler and chronicler from Spain who journeyed across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East….

He is best known for The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, a travel account that documents Jewish communities, trade routes, and political conditions of the medieval world…

During the lifetime of Benjamin of Tudela (c. 1130–1173 CE), the term “Ghana” referred to the medieval Ghana Empire, not the present-day country of Ghana…

“It is twelve days from Aswan to Haluan, where there are some 300 Jews. From there they go in caravans fifty days' journey through the great desert which is called Sahārā, to the town of Zavila, known as Havilah in the Scriptures, in the land of Ghana.”

SOURCE;

(The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela)

“Ancient Ghana was created by Jewish settlers about 300 A.D. in the area west of Timbuktu in modern Mali…”

SOURCE;

(The New Encyclopædia Britannica: Micropædia; 1993)

The initial empire of Ghana was founded by Judean refugees or migrants from Cyrene (Libya) circa 200 CE….

After suffering defeat in the Kitos War 117 CE and the Bar Kokhba Revolt 135 CE, large groups of Judeans began leaving Mediterranean North Africa and settled around the Niger River area…

12/27/2025

Phylogeography refers to the study of how genetic lineages are distributed across geographic space and time, and what that distribution reveals about ancient population history…

Phylogeny = genetic family trees (lineage relationships)

Geography = where those lineages are found (past & present)

So Phylogeography means using genetic lineages to reconstruct where populations came from, where they moved, and when they diverged…

Phylogeographic patterns in FamilyTreeDNA’s datasets suggest that by the mid-to-late Holocene, populations carrying ancestral E-M2 lineages had expanded eastward into the Nile Valley and Israel and while later demographic expansions led to their widespread dominance in West Africa—eventually settling in the regions of Guinea, Mali and Nigeria…

12/27/2025

“King John II in 1492, expelled all the Jews to the island of St. Thomas, and to other Portuguese settlements on the continent of Africa; and from these banished Jews, the black Portuguese, as they are called, and the Jews in Loango, who are despised even by the very Negroes, are descended.”

SOURCE;

(The Critical Review, Or, Annals of Literature; Volumes 57-58; 1783)

“A remarkable fact in the history of Loango is that the country contains—according to a statement which was fully credited by Oldendorp, himself a writer of most correct judgment and of unimpeachable veracity, many Jews settled in the country, who retain their religious rites, and the distinct habits which keep them isolated from other nations”

“Though thus separate from the African population, they are black, and resemble the other Negroes in every respect as to physical characters”

SOURCE;

(James Cowles Prichard, Researches Into the Physical History of Mankind: Ethnography of the African races; 1837)

To put it another way, the black Portuguese Jews who settled in Loango appeared physically identical to the indigenous black Africans…

10/19/2025

“The Elamites of Mesopotamia appear to have been a negroid people with kinky hair, and to have transmitted this racial type to the Jews and Syrians. There is a curliness of the hair, together with a negro eye and full lips, in the portraiture of Assyria which conveys the idea of an evident negro element in Babylonia”

SOURCE;

(Harry Johnston, The Negro In The New World; 1910)

The Natufians (c. 12,000–9,500 BCE), who inhabited the Levant just before Jericho’s founding, carried Y-DNA haplogroup E1b1b…

Jericho is the oldest known city in the world in terms of archaeological evidence of early urban life and permanent human settlement…

UNESCO World Heritage Centre recognizes Jericho (Tell es-Sultan) as “the oldest town in the world” due to early evidence of urban planning and permanent structures…

Archaeological Institute of America notes the site contains remains “from the earliest stages of human settlement”

Jericho is archaeologically the oldest known city based on settlement age (~9600 BCE)

“The dwellers in Ribha (the Jericho of old) are of the negro type; they have black woolly hair”

SOURCE;

(The Scattered Nation and Jewish Christian Magazine; 1867)

This 19th century observation reflects what a Western observer at the time saw among the local population of Jericho…

If Jericho’s population in the 19th century was “of the negro type”…

…then it is even more likely that the same or similar population lived there 12,000–9,500 BCE, when the city first emerged…

Natufians, the people who occupied the Levant just before and during Jericho’s earliest phases, carried Y-DNA haplogroup E1b1b which is of African origin and still dominant in many Nilotic and West African groups today…

Studies of their skull morphology (Craniofacial traits) show affinities with tropical African populations — broad noses, prognathism, and wide faces — traits that align with this 19th-century observation…

Jericho is less than 200 miles from the Sinai, directly linking it to North and East Africa…

During the Green Sahara periods, migration between the Nile Valley and the Levant was fluid…

In early prehistory, “Middle Eastern” and “African” populations were not sharply divided — they were interconnected…

If 19th century observers found people in Jericho with “black skin and woolly hair,”
then the probability is significantly higher that 12,000 years ago, when the city was first founded by Natufian descended peoples with African Y-DNA E1b1b and skull traits, the population was even more distinctly of African origin — not less…

The Tuareg have a high prevalence (50-80%) of the paternal haplogroup E1b1b1b-M81, which is commonly found among Berber speaking populations…

“A large portion of the brown and black tribes of Northern Africa, as has been shown, belong to the same family as that which first originated commerce, which invented the alphabet, produced the sublime Hebrew poetry and Arabian science…

The Semitic negro can certainly never be considered by the worshippers under a Semitic religion as inferior in blood to themselves…

Still another group of peoples, both brown and black—many fully black—are descendants of that family which erected the ancient empires on the Euphrates, and which, unknown centuries ago, built the pyramid-tombs on the Nile, and founded the gloomy art, the artificial civilization, and the science of Egypt…”

SOURCE;

(Charles Loring Brace, ‘The Races of the old world’; 1863)

The passage states that “a large portion of the brown and black tribes of Northern Africa… belong to the same family” as those who created early commerce, writing, and science…

The Tuareg are a Berber-speaking people historically found in the Sahara and Sahel, particularly in Algeria, Mali, Niger, and Libya—all part of North Africa…

They are often described as having dark or brown complexions…

It also states that “another group of peoples, both brown and black—many fully black—are descendants of that family which erected the ancient empires on the Euphrates… and built the pyramid-tombs on the Nile.”

This implies that some of these groups, possibly including the Tuareg and Hausa (who are linked to Afroasiatic languages), descend from the same lineage that built civilizations in Mesopotamia and Egypt…

Black African peoples are commonly categorized into three major ethnolinguistic groups:—Bantu, Nilotic, and Cush*tic…

However, a fourth distinct group — the Chadic peoples (Hausa) — should also be recognized, as they do not fall under any of these three classifications…

Additionally, the Fulani represent a unique West African Atlantic group within the Niger-Congo family, distinct from Bantu, Nilotic, Cush*tic, and Chadic populations, and merit recognition as a separate category…

Among the many ways in which so called blacks have been the great pioneers and originators of mankind are the following:—

(1) We were the original explorers and settlers of practically all parts of the world, following the dispersion at Babel

(2) We were the first cultivators of most of the basic food staples of the world, such as potatoes, corn, beans, cereals, and others, as well as the first ones to domesticate most animals

(3) We developed most of the basic types of structural forms and building tools and materials

(4) We were the first to develop most of the usual fabrics for clothing and the various sewing and weaving devices

(5) We discovered and invented a wide variety of medicines and surgical practices and instruments.

(6) We invented most of the concepts of basic practical mathematics, as well as surveying and navigation

(7) The machinery of commerce and trade-money, banks, postal systems, and so forth—was developed by us

(8) We developed paper, ink, block printing, movable type, and other accouterments of writing and communication

If one traces back far enough, he will find that practically every other basic device or system needed for man's physical sustenance or convenience originated with us…

Truly, so called blacks have been the pioneers of mankind in a most amazing way…

10/12/2025

Proto-Afroasiatic originated in a region near the Nile Valley and the Red Sea and later diversified into branches including Berber, Egyptian, Semitic, Chadic, Cush*tic, and Omotic…

Based on the map, the Chadic (which includes Hausa) and Berber (which includes Tuareg) language groups trace their origins back to the Proto-Afroasiatic homeland near the Nile Valley…

This implies that the early ancestors of the Hausa and Tuareg peoples may have originally lived near the Nile Valley before moving into West Africa and the Sahara, respectively…

The Tuareg have a high prevalence (50-80%) of the paternal haplogroup E1b1b1b-M81, which is commonly found among Berber speaking populations…

This suggests a strong genetic continuity with other Berber groups, indicating a shared ancestry…

“A large portion of the brown and black tribes of Northern Africa, as has been shown, belong to the same family as that which first originated commerce, which invented the alphabet, produced the sublime Hebrew poetry and Arabian science…

The Semitic negro can certainly never be considered by the worshippers under a Semitic religion as inferior in blood to themselves…

Still another group of peoples, both brown and black—many fully black—are descendants of that family which erected the ancient empires on the Euphrates, and which, unknown centuries ago, built the pyramid-tombs on the Nile, and founded the gloomy art, the artificial civilization, and the science of Egypt…”

SOURCE;

(Charles Loring Brace, ‘The Races of the old world’; 1863)

The passage states that “a large portion of the brown and black tribes of Northern Africa… belong to the same family” as those who created early commerce, writing, and science…

The Tuareg are a Berber-speaking people historically found in the Sahara and Sahel, particularly in Algeria, Mali, Niger, and Libya—all part of North Africa…

They are often described as having dark or brown complexions…

It also states that “another group of peoples, both brown and black—many fully black—are descendants of that family which erected the ancient empires on the Euphrates… and built the pyramid-tombs on the Nile.”

This implies that some of these groups, possibly including the Tuareg and Hausa (who are linked to Afroasiatic languages), descend from the same lineage that built civilizations in Mesopotamia and Egypt…

“The earliest Middle Palaeolithic assemblages of the Egyptian Nile Valley are similar to those that were made in Middle Stone Age industries of sub-Saharan Africa (Van Peer et al. 2003)”

SOURCE;

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/291894413_Did_middle_stone_age_moderns_of_sub-Saharan_African_Descent_Trigger_an_upper_palaeolithic_revolution_in_the_lower_Nile_Valley

10/04/2025

THE FANG

The groups encountered by 19th century explorers all had a past, often turbulent, which had brought them to the place where they were found…

Apart from the indigenous people of the equatorial forest, the Babongo, Bakola and Baka Pygmies, most of the Gabonese groups come from the regions some distance to the north-east…

Over a period stretching from the 13th-14th centuries to the 18th-19th centuries, there were sporadic migrations, retreats and separations, long intervals of peace interrupted by times of crisis (local wars, epidemics, slave trader raids, etc.)

Only the Punu come from the south…

The Fang people came from Egypt…

Before they settled in Egypt, they came
from Mesopotamia…

“This is why the Fang man is a black Jew; he possessed the same habits as the Jews. In Mesopotamia, the Fang were very imposing—All the Fang, from the Bulu, the Yewondo, and the Ntumu fought wars until they arrived in Egypt, where they remained for a long time—From Egypt, they passed through the savanna, where they encountered another people, the Hausa. They fought wars against each other. The Fang had to continue onward until they arrived at Adzombogha [a mythical tree that blocked the migration path]. After that they left the savanna and entered into the forest.”

SOURCES;

(Cinnamon, J. M. (1998). The long march of the fang: Anthropology and history in equatorial africa A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Yale University in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy)

(Interview with Nang-Nkweign Marcel, Agnang, 29-30 November 1988)

(Louis Perrois, ‘Fang Visions of Africa Series’; 2006)

(https://www.jstor.org/stable/24393407?typeAccessWorkflow=login)

The Beti-Pahuin or Fang people of Middle Africa or specifically West-Central Africa descend from the Ancient Israelites of the Bible…

They’re patriarch specifically coming from the tribe of Manasseh…

They were founded by descendants of Epher (Afri) ben Manasseh part of the warrior/pastoral class of the tribe Manasseh…

They were taken into Mesopotamia by the Assyrian's after the Fall of the Northern Kingdom (Israel/Samaria) c. 722 BCE (1 Chronicles 5:23-26)

During the time of Persian rule, they were taken from Mesopotamia and placed in Egypt at the Jewish garrisons of Elephantine and Taphanhes…

After the Hamitic Egyptians destroyed their temple at Elephantine they fled into the neighboring desert between Kemet and Kush (Meroe) and towns of Nubia (Southern Egypt / Northern Sudan)

They remained there for roughly 1,600 years (Through the collapse of Kush/Meroe and the establishing of Makuria)

Around the 13th century CE Bedouin Arabs began raiding Makuria…

A man named Afri-Kara or Epher of Makuria/Epher al-Muqurra led the Beti-Pahuin to West Africa first settling in Sahelian Nigeria…

Around the 17th century pressure from slave raiding by the Hausa-Fulani forced them to migrate into their current locations of Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon…

Thousands upon thousands were taken captive to the Americas…

Firsthand History

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