Distant Freedom: St. Helena and the Abolition of the Slave Trade, 1840–1872

The ancestry and geographical origins of St Helena’s liberated Africans

“…70 This male bias appears to have been particularly pronounced during the last phase of the transatlantic slave trade during the mid-19 th century and our results are consistent with these figures. 20,70 Our results are broadly consistent with expectations based on historical sources, but they also highlight some of the limitations of using a genetic approach. 24 The mtDNA and Y chromosome results are consistent with an origin in Central Africa, but they lack resolution.…”

“…These observations are consistent with historical accounts, which suggest that St Helena's liberated Africans were ethnically and linguistically diverse. 20 Thus, several accounts agree that St Helena's liberated Africans spoke numerous languages, although they disagree to what extent they were mutually intelligible. According to one observer, the ''Benguelan'' language was the most common, while different dialects or ''jargons'' of the Congo were also being spoken.…”

“…28 (B) Locations of slave ships captured by the Royal British Navy between 1840 and 1872 and brought to St Helena according to data from the vice-admiralty court at St Helena. 20 After purification, the libraries were quantified with an Agilent 4200 TapeStation and pooled in equimolar amounts. To assess the level of DNA preservation in the samples, we first screened all 63 libraries by using shallow shotgun sequencing across three lanes of an Illumina HiSeq 2500 flow cell run in 100 SR mode.…”

“…These numbers are consistent with data from the vice-admiralty courts, which reveal that the majority of slave-carrying prizes bound for St Helena had been captured off the coast of West Central Africa (Figure 1), as well as personal accounts of Royal Navy personnel stationed on the island, which suggest that the majority of Africans had come from the Congo, Angola, and Benguela regions and a small number came from 1 Globe Institute, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, 1353 Copenhagen, Denmark; 2 deCODE Genetics/Amgen, 101 Reykjavik, Iceland; 3 Mozambique. 20 However, where exactly they originated or from how far inland they had traveled before reaching one of the coastal shipping points remains unclear.…”

“…St Helena's liberated Africans (A) Number of liberated Africans disembarked on St Helena between 1840 and 1872. (B) Locations of slave ships captured by the Royal British Navy between 1840 and 1872 and brought to St Helena according to data from the vice-admiralty court at St Helena 20.…”