I am extremely proud to share that I published my first article in NBC Latino, "Latinos are questioning family racial narratives as they uncover their ancestry"! It's clearly on a subject I love — Latino genealogy! — and specifically Afro-Latino genealogy, which remains underrecognized and underappreciated.
There's a lot of denial and mistruths when it comes to acknowledging Latinos' Black ancestry and their ancestors' involvement in slavery. Both my grandparents' families said they were "pure Spanish," which is pure B.S. Some have the audacity (caucasity?) to pretend Latin American slavery didn't exist, when over three times as many enslaved Africans came to Spanish Latin America than the Mainland United States.
Latin American slavery was gentler? Incorrect, that ignores the many, many Black people who died in mineshafts or sugar plantations. Only certain areas of one's country were "Black"? Wrong, a 2023 genetic study of over 6,000 Mexicans found "ancestries from West Africa are observed in every [Mexican] state." Latin Americans live in racial harmony? No way, Latin Americans have a long history of anti-Black racism and colorism which has spread and thrived in the United States.
But I wanted my article to also cover the joys of research and self-discovery with DNA tests. I wanted to hear about the joy genealogist Ellen Fernandez-Sacco felt when she found a document saying her Puerto Rican 6th-great-grandfather was "free Black" and "natural de Guinea!" I wanted to learn why comedian Gadiel del Orbe broke down learning his mitochondrial DNA is related to the Tikar people of Cameroon.
And I was astounded hearing from Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., THE host of the PBS series "Finding Your Roots," that eight of his Latino guests had to process that they descend from slave owners: Jim Acosta, Carmelo Anthony, Sunny Hostin, Mario Lopez, Natalie Morales, Narciso Rodriguez, Marco Rubio, and Melissa Villaseñor.
Several thoughts coalesced into my NBC Latino pitch. I wondered if there had ever been a "Latino Alex Haley," who found a paper trail back to Africa. I also was amazed by SlaveSocieties.org, a free website run by Vanderbilt University researchers who digitized church records and notarized business records from many places in Latin America, including Cartagena, Colombia. I appreciated hearing from Dr. Jane Landers about her twenty-plus years' work on the archive.
Searching for my ancestors on SlaveSocieties.org, it's clear that Cartagena's legacy as South America's largest (and only legal) slave port impacted local business well into the 1840s. In between the land sales and house sales and powers of attorney and ship sales and other business items were numerous records of people selling Black people for profit, and treating them as property to mortgage, bequeath to children, and inherit from relatives.
I was searching for more clues about my infamous Jewish privateer ancestor, Juan Cohen, and while I did not learn much about his personal life, I did find a disturbing item. In 1832, Juan Cohen sold an enslaved man named Lundy, claiming to act on behalf of his son, my 3rd-great-grandfather Juan Agustín Cohen, who at the time was only 5 or 6 years old. The record also says that Juan Cohen bought Lundy in 1830, when Juan Agustín was only 3 or 4 years old, had inherited some money from his mother, who died months after his birth. Was Juan Cohen trying to invest money in "lucrative" human investments?
Then... I learned about my Vásquez ancestors' involvement with slavery. I already knew my 3rd-great-grandfather, Manuel de la O. Vásquez, had owned people, but when I came across his signature in the Slave Societies website, I was astounded to realize that I had found the 1831 will of his mother, Josefa Bravo de Vásquez, written (as described in an aside cut from my draft) "on brittle pages riddled with tiny holes left by munching pests and larger holes caused by acidic, oxidized ink." She listed her late husband and parents, all previously unknown names!
But Josefa's will is a terrible artifact, making it clear that Manuel was born into a slave-owning family. Josefa left to her daughter three young enslaved people (criados) — María Valentina Amador and the siblings Vicenta Cabarcas and Nicolás Cabarcas — as well as 100 pesos to purchase yet another slave. The irony is that by charting the DNA segments I share with Vásquez cousins on DNA Painter and seeing how Ancestry and 23andMe assigns them geographically, I know I have DNA segments inherited from my Vásquez ancestors that are of West African origin. What did the Vásquez slave owners think of their own Black ancestors?
To further complicate this story, in post-abolition Colombia the Vásquez family developed a multi-generational legacy in medicine. At least seven grandchildren of Manuel de la O. Vásquez became medical professionals in the late 1800s and early 1900s, including one female pharmacist. Among Manuel's great-grandchildren are at least seven more medical professionals, and descendants of Manuel, including my father, practice medicine in Colombia and the United States to this very day. A family that made profit from slavery went on to save innumerable lives.
I grew up knowing about the Vásquez family's medical legacy, but just as my ancestors' slave-holding does not negate the medical work, the medical healing does not heal the damage of slavery. For too long, the legacy of Latin American slavery has been ignored. The time has come to fully reckon with our past.
It took a lot of interviews to make this piece! I am deeply grateful to all the generous people I spoke with:
- Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.!!! Mr. "Finding Your Roots" HIMSELF responded to my unsolicited email with warm appreciation for my article's angle — that really encouraged me! Watch Season 11 of "Finding Your Roots" in early 2025!
- Gadiel del Orbe, Dominican-American actor, stand-up comedian, and former Buzzfeed / Pero Like contributor.
- Ellen Fernandez-Sacco, Boricua genealogist and historian, and author of the blog "Latino Genealogy and Beyond."
- Alexis Garcia, filmmaker, co-founder of Botánica Pictures
- Moises Garza, Mexican-American genealogist, author of the blog "Mexican Genealogy," and keeper of the million-plus names in the Las Villas del Norte database.
- Dr. Jane Landers, historian and co-founder of the Slave Societies Digital Archives at Vanderbilt University.
- Giselle Rivera-Flores, Boricua communications director and author of "Hispanic-ish" on Substack.
- Teresa Vega, Afro-Indigenous Nuyorican genealogist and author of the blog "Radiant Roots, Boricua Branches."
- Also huge thanks to the ones who didn't make the final edit: Dr. María Esther Hammack, who researched Texas abolitionist Silvia Webber, and Webber's Mexican-American descendants Sofia Bravo, Leslie Dutcher-Treviño, and OJ Treviño, who started the Webber Family Preservation Project.
- It was also an honor to get background information from FamilySearch's Debbie Gurtler and Paul Nauta.
Questions? Comments? Please email me at ruedafingerhut (at) gmail.com.
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