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For the record, Obama descended from white slave owners
Sydney Morning Herald ^ | March 3, 2007

Posted on 03/02/2007 7:49:02 AM PST by dead

WASHINGTON: Many people know that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's father was from Kenya and his mother from Kansas.

But an intriguing snippet of the Illinois senator's family history has received almost no attention until now: It appears that forebears of his white mother owned slaves, according to genealogical research and US census records.

The records - never addressed publicly by Senator Obama or his relatives - were noted in an ancestry report compiled by William Addams Reitwiesner, who works at the Library of Congress and researches genealogies in his spare time. The report, on Mr Reitwiesner's website, carries a disclaimer that it is a "first draft" - one likely to be examined more closely if the senator from Illinois is nominated.

According to the research, one of Senator Obama's great-great-great-great-grandfathers, George Washington Overall, owned two slaves who were recorded in the 1850 census in Nelson County, Kentucky. The same records show that one of Senator Obama's great-great-great-great-great-grandmothers, Mary Duvall, also owned two slaves.

The records show that Overall, then 30, owned a 15-year-old female and a 25-year-old male, while Mary Duvall, his mother-in-law, owned a 60-year-old man and a 58-year-old woman.

An Obama spokesman did not dispute the information and said that the senator's ancestors "are representative of America".

"While a relative owned slaves, another fought for the Union in the Civil War," campaign spokesman Bill Burton said on Thursday. "And it is a true measure of progress that the descendant of a slave owner would come to marry a student from Kenya and produce a son who would grow up to be a candidate for president."

It was unclear whether Senator Obama was aware of any slave-holding ancestors.

"You just can't casually throw some documents together and make a sophisticated analysis," said Tony Burroughs, author of Black Roots: A Beginners Guide to Tracing the African American Family Tree.

Senator Obama faces a showdown this weekend in Alabama with Hillary Clinton for black votes. The former president Bill Clinton will make his first campaign appearance with his wife. Senator Obama is keynoting tomorrow's civil rights commemoration in Selma while the Clintons will be at a nearby church. All three will join a march over the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where state troopers police beat civil rights activists in 1965.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: bfd; electionpresident; elections; obama
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1 posted on 03/02/2007 7:49:05 AM PST by dead
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To: dead

"And it is a true measure of progress that the descendant of a slave owner would come to marry a student from Kenya"

Slave guilt offset marriage?


2 posted on 03/02/2007 7:50:46 AM PST by Sax
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To: dead
Blacks in the USA did own slaves. "Blacks" (Zulu's) owned slaves in Africa and sold them to traders that brought them here.

While the black community tries to imply whites invented slavery at the forming of this nation, slavery dates back to the beginnings of man. Only USA and Britain (majority white) have actually owtlawed the practice hundreds of years ago. As a point slavery is done legally today in Africa as blacke own blacks.
3 posted on 03/02/2007 7:54:39 AM PST by edcoil (Reality doesn't say much - doesn't need too)
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To: dead

Hillary Clinton camp in full attack.


4 posted on 03/02/2007 7:56:58 AM PST by jveritas (Support The Commander in Chief in Times of War)
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To: Sax

Why, this makes him a "man of the people" and a "great uniter" then, doesn't it?


5 posted on 03/02/2007 7:57:20 AM PST by 50sDad (Cultural Diversity means never having to say "I don't fit in.")
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To: dead

So now let us see and hear Osama Obama stand up in front of the NAACP and crow about "victims of slavery"....hehehe.


6 posted on 03/02/2007 7:57:22 AM PST by EagleUSA
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To: dead

Should Obama apologize? Should he pay reparations to himself?


7 posted on 03/02/2007 7:57:25 AM PST by JoeGar
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To: dead

Did his mother's slave owning forebearers own his father's ancestors?

If so, he'd owe himself reparations!

Inquiring minds want to know.....


8 posted on 03/02/2007 7:57:45 AM PST by Uncle Miltie (McCain / Feingold - 2008 ... "Shut Up or Go To Prison")
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To: dead

For the record, I suspect lots of black people are.


9 posted on 03/02/2007 7:58:11 AM PST by L98Fiero (A fool who'll waste his life, God rest his guts.)
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To: dead
It's crap like this that keeps a lot of good people from entering politics! What on earth difference does it make what your ancestors did through the ages? Everyone has the odd character in their geneaology.

Obama Hussein is not responsible for what his ancestors did. He is responsible for what he says and does.

10 posted on 03/02/2007 7:59:29 AM PST by basil (Exercise your Second Amendment rights--buy another gun today.)
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To: JoeGar

"Should he pay reparations to himself?"

No way- Obama is purely a villain when it comes to slavery, not a victim. After all, he's the descendant of white slaveowners and black Africans who were never enslaved and most likely helped in the slave trade.

Obama might as well be living on a cotton plantation right now. :)


11 posted on 03/02/2007 8:00:11 AM PST by MittFan08 (Anybody but McCain)
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To: edcoil

Yes, blacks were enslaved and sold by blacks. And most of the slave traders within Africa itself were either blacks or Arabs.

What made black slavery different from slavery earlier, which as you say was universal, was the racial component. "Race" was pretty much a nineteenth century scientific invention.

Christianity gradually dispensed with slavery in Europe, although you still had serfs and peons and peasants and such. Although Christianity did not immediately outlaw slavery, it is fundamentally incompatible with it, since all souls are created by God. But slavery has been a part of Islam since the beginning, and is strongly supported by Mohammed himself.


12 posted on 03/02/2007 8:01:37 AM PST by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: jveritas

I would strongly suggest that Obama not go walking thru a park with Hil-o-ree.


13 posted on 03/02/2007 8:02:15 AM PST by gulfcoast6
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To: dead
"While a relative owned slaves, another fought for the Union in the Civil War,"

"And that is why I will only pay half of the reparations money you whiteys have to pay..."

14 posted on 03/02/2007 8:02:21 AM PST by AmericaUnited
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To: dead
Obama is all things to all people.


15 posted on 03/02/2007 8:03:05 AM PST by dead (I've got my eye out for Mullah Omar.)
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To: dead
Si he should look in the mirror and say:

Font Color="white">I'm sorry!"

16 posted on 03/02/2007 8:03:08 AM PST by Young Werther
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To: dead

As a genealogist myself, I did some tracking, and also looked at Mr. Reitweisner's work. The tree appears solid. The Mareen Duvall book is very well known in genealogical circles and if St Barack had Duvall ancestors, he has slaveowner ancestors.


17 posted on 03/02/2007 8:03:34 AM PST by CivilWarguy (CivilWarGuy)
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To: JoeGar
Should Obama apologize? Should he pay reparations to himself?

Absolutely, it'd be as genuine as Gore buying "carbon offsets" from his own company.

18 posted on 03/02/2007 8:05:20 AM PST by kevkrom (WARNING: The above post may contain sarcasm... if unsure, please remember to use all precautions)
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To: dead

Does this mean he has to pay reparations to himself or to Al Sharpton/Jesse Jackson?


19 posted on 03/02/2007 8:06:19 AM PST by xrp (Republicans Message: Vote for us, we suck less than Democrats.)
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To: dead

Slavery happened, the Crusades happened, the Inquisition happened. Time to stop whining and move on and cure the evil that Mohammad left.


20 posted on 03/02/2007 8:07:37 AM PST by FixitGuy (By their fruits shall ye know them!)
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