Hanson was not President of the United Staes, he was the president of Congress, I believe.
John Hanson was a SWEDE! He was descended from those who settled the New Sweden colony in the the Philadephia area--as am I! We Swedish-Americans are proud of John Hanson.
ping
Does not support the "First President" position...and provides some explanation as to where the story may have come from.
John Hancock was also an early President. An indication of how minor the position was, is this: Hancock was too ill to go from Boston to the Capitol, then in New York, for the entire year of his term. So, he didn't go, and the government functioned just fine in his absence.
Congressman Billybob
This is trash--do some research. From wiki:
MYTH-- Hanson was black
Dick Gregory, comedian and black activist publishes an on-line column called Global Watch. In one of his columns he repeated most of the myths and added a new one, that John Hanson was the descendent of a slave. (The column can be seen at [2].)
There are two possible origins for this belief. The first is that Hanson's grandfather, another John Hanson, was an early immigrant to Maryland; as was common at the time, he worked as an indentured servant on his arrival in the New World. In 1661, his first master, William Plumley, sold his contract to Edward Keene and recorded the contract with the court of Calvert County, Maryland; similar court records were also used to transfer title to land and slaves. But, in six years, the immigrant John had worked his way out of debt, and a few years afterwards had purchased his own small farm. There is no record that the grandfather was black, but if indentured servitude was confused with chattel slavery, it is easy to see where this belief would have appeared.
Another may be a simple case of confusion with Senator John Hanson, a politician from Liberia, who was involved with the resettlement of freed slaves in that country. Whilst this Hanson was indeed black, he also lived a hundred years too late.
Note: During the 1600s, blacks were in the USA as indentured servants. The law for chattel slavery didn't come completely into effect until around 1705. Looking at Hanson's picture, he has the appearance of the triads (Wesorts and others) that inhabited Southern Maryland. The black men that were initially there under indentured servitude inter-married with white women and bore children, until a law was passed making their union illegal.
OK, for the sake of argument, I'll concede that Hanson was the "first black president." Who are the other six?
What is really scary are some of the comments at that blog.
yet another myth based on nothing...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hanson_%28myths%29#Hanson_was_black
bump
If an entire "history" can be manufactured for Africa, why not a fictitious one for the U.S.?
Not that it means anything, and if it keeps the ignorant happy (and out of a life of crime) why not?
wait...
Your wrong. George Washington was the president of the United States. The other 7 people in front of him were presidents true, but they were presidents of The Confederate States of America.
OMG!! LMAO!! I can’t believe anyone would buy into this.. Anyone that knows anything about history knows that John Hanson the first President is WHITE!!! Helloooo!! He was a Sweedish-American... Have you ever in your life seen a black Sweedish-American????
Plus theirs tons of portraits in the White House of John Hanson and he is WHITE!!
If you all remember that the blacks were slaved until after Washington become President...
Plus all this is only to take swager away from Obama... Obama is the FIRST AND ONLY U.S. BLACK PRESIDENT..
Go to the White house and even look it up online and even read your history books right. The black man didnt even have voting rights until the mid 1900’s so how in the hell is a black man going to be President when they were slaves back then and most of the English were all racist bastards.. LOL
Who ever came up with this rediculous lie is full of crap.. Its just an atempt to take away from Obama. Plus all you need is common sense and again anyone that knows anything about History knows that he was a WHITE SWEEDISH-AMERICAN.. HELL LOOK AT THE STATUE ON THIS POST... DOES HE LOOK BLACK TO YOU???
Go back to school and study history before making up some dumb as assumption..
Dan Bidondi
The “John Hanson” to whom you refer was one of several presidents (14, 2-of whom served two terms) of the Continental Congress. He was, however, president when the ‘Articles of Confederation’ were ratified. While the Articles of Confederation did ‘create’ the United States, it served as a work-in-progress to the U.S. Constitution, which specified how the Country was to work/function.
Before it became fully functional, the Bill-of-Right were added, as well as, the establishment of a U.S.President, Congress, Judiciary and duties.
Hence, the estabilshment of the 1st President of the United States.
Got a link?
Presidents of the United States
In Congress Assembled
Samuel Huntington
1st President of the United States
in Congress Assembled
March 1, 1781 to July 6, 1781
By May of 1781, President Huntington’s health began to fail. Huntington, despite the pleadings of the delegates tendered his resignation as President on July 6, 1781. The United States in Congress Assembled Journals reported:
“The President having informed the United States in Congress assembled, that his ill state of health” ... not permit him to continue longer in the exercise of the duties of that office”.
Thomas McKean
2nd President of the United States
in Congress Assembled
July 10, 1781 to November 5, 1781
Congress held off electing a new President until July 10th in the hope that Huntington would recover and reconsider. On July 10th Delegate Thomas McKean was elected as the second President of the United States in Congress Assembled and was first to be elected under the Articles of Confederation as President Huntington assumed the position as the former President of the Continental Congress.
McKean was president of congress in 1781, and in that capacity received Washington’s dispatches announcing the surrender of Cornwallis.
So revered was this office by Thomas McKean (Signer of the Declaration of Independence) that the Presidency was used to turn down his party’s 1804 nomination for Vice President under Thomas Jefferson saying:
“... President of the United States in Congress Assembled in the year of 1781 (a proud year for Americans) equaled any merit or pretensions of mine and cannot now be increased by the office of Vice President.”
John Hanson (1st. President to serve a full one year term)
3rd President of the United States
in Congress Assembled
November 5, 1781 to November 4, 1782