John Punch – A Strange Relationship Reveled
By
John C Abercrombie
John Punch is an unfamiliar name although he played a significant role in establishing what we know as slavery in America. There is also an unexpected link between John Punch and Barack Obama the 44th president of the United States.
Let us look at the institution of slavery. In America, the history of slavery and indentured servitude is somewhat murky since there were many people of all races involved as indentured servants and of slaves. The indentured people were under contract to work between 4 and 7 years. At this time, when they had completed their contract, they were released from the contract and given 50 acres of land. This was an interesting offering as the land that the original contractors had and were offering to the released indentured servants was land owned by someone else. That was land owned by the indigenous people who were “discovered” by Columbus. Keep in mind that Columbus never set foot in North America yet is revered for discovering America. The reason we call the people “Indians” is because saw myelinated people and assumed he was in the country of India. For this reason, the term is actually derogatory.
History tells us that Anthony Johnson was the first person to “own” a slave when he went to court to claim John Casor. Although Johnson was of African descent, the indenture was not based on race. Johnson had served his indenture and had been given land as per the contract. He then held the contract to Casor, and indentured person and sold the contract, then went to court to get the rights back. Casor was determined to be under contract to Johnson.
This brings us to the case of John Punch who was an indentured servant. He and two European indentured servants escaped and made it to Maryland where they were captured and returned to Virginia. They appeared in court and were sentenced to 30 lashes each, however this is where the sentences differed. The White indentured servants were sentenced to an additional year of indenture while Punch, the only Black, was sentenced to life as a slave, thus making him the “official” first slave in America. This also marked the first differentiation of people by race for the same crime. And it has downhill from there.
In early days records were kept and often the names were misspelled depending on the way it was pronounced, thus in this case, Punch became Bunch and includes Ralph Bunch, the first Black American to receive the Nobel Prize. To learn more about Dr Bunch, click here.
We are told that Barack Obama’s father was born in Kenya, a country on the continent of Africa. How then is Barack Obama related to John Punch? It is based on our faulty concept of race. We define White as the absence of any non-White characteristics, thereby including many people as White who actually have Black heritage. In days of old a person was defined not by race, but place of origin. A person from England was English, a person from Canada was Canadian, and it made no difference the race of the individual.
There are many cases of misidentification as in the case of Homer Plessy who was taken for White and had to be asked if he was Black in order to be arrested in the case of Plessy v Ferguson. For the record, of Plessy’s 8 great grandparents 7 were White and one Black. To learn about this important and impactful decision, click here.
Incidentally, Plessy has been recommended to receive a posthumous pardon. As of this post, the decision is awaiting the signature of Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards. In actuality he should be given a Free Pardon such as the one given to Viola Desmond in which the Canadian government acknowledged that she should never have been arrested in the first place. Viola Desmond is the Black woman who adorns the Canadian $10.00 bill. To learn more about Viola Desmond, click here.
There is the case of Walter White, a man of extremely fair complexion, blue eyes and blond hair. He was of mixed ancestry on both sides of his family. In his autobiography he states “I am a Negro. My skin is white, my eyes are blue, and my hair is blond. The traits of my race are nowhere visible upon me.” Of his 32 great-great-great grandparents, only 5 were Black and the other 27 were white. All members of his immediate family had fair skin. His Mother, Madeline had blue-eyes and blonde hair. His maternal grandparents were Dilsia and enslaved woman and her owner William Henry Harrison, later the 9th president of the United States. To learn more about Walter F White, click here.
White and his family identified as Negro and lived among Atlanta’s Negro community.
We see this in the post on Malaga Island in Maine, where Blacks married into the White community and only recently did some of these White people learn of their Black heritage. To learn more about this Maine Island and Benjamin Darling, click here.
Meanwhile, John Punch was married to a White woman who gave up her freedom to marry him. There were many marriages between other Whites and thus we come to Stanley Ann Dunham, Barack Obama’s mother who we know as Ann Dunham. This White woman is related to John Punch, showing the fallacy of our racial classifications. John Punch is Barack Obama’s 11th Great Grand Father. An interesting play on the facts in such a race conscious country.
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Startling new insight into President Obama’s ancestry
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Who is John Punch?
Ancestry.com announces that President Obama’s mother is related to John Punch. Now, Madison High School’s Ms. Rush was a very good history teacher, because I know the significance of John Punch. I’ll let Morgan Freeman take it from here….thanks Ms. Rush and thank you PBS.
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“first official slave”
John Punch “first official slave” John Punch 1630s, 1640) Historians consider Punch to be the first legal distinctions between Europeans and Africans made in the colonies. In July 2012, Ancestry.com published a paper suggesting that John Punch was a twelfth-generation grandfather of President Barack Obama on his mother’s side, on the basis of historic and genealogical research and Y-DNA analysis. Punch is also believed to be one of the paternal ancestors of the 20th-century American diplomat Ralph Bunche, the first African American to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
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