Does new DNA prove that African Americans are indigenous aborigines of America? No, that's not true: The claim that 98 percent of Black Americans are actually "Native Indians" is made in a series of articles and videos that lack documentation and misrepresent scholarly research to rewrite history. The self-described historian making the claim also purports that American slaves were not imported from Africa, but were taken from America to Spain by the earliest Europeans arriving in North America, starting with Columbus, and then exported again from Spain to Africa in a trade for African products. These slaves were then purportedly loaded on ships again to be returned to North American, where they were relabeled as African Americans.
The several stories making the claim include an article (archived here) published by ImJustHereToMakeYouThink.com on December 23, 2016 under the title "NEW DNA PROVES AFRICAN AMERICANS ARE IN FACT INDIGENOUS ABORIGINES OF AMERICA." It opened:
Malcolm X once stated "Aborigine. Which means what? Black Folks." Then he later went on to say "You and I are Aborigine."
Malcolm X stated that the rock landed on us after he returned across the waters because he learned new things. He learned that the rock had truly landed on us, and that we were from these lands.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. also stated, in his I Have A Dream speech that we are held in exile in our own homeland. Now we have a lot of scholars out there, and individuals are missing the point. How can you be held in exile in your own homeland, without it being your own homeland?The tens of millions of Black Americans, or rather Indians, who 'disappeared' after 1492 did not all die in the 'holocaust' inflicted within America. Hundreds of thousands were shipped to Europe and Africa as Indian slaves.
The whole slave trade story was given to all of us in reverse. A mass colony of Africans were not shipped from Africa to America. The truth is that Black Indians were shipped from America to Europe!
They were then shipped from Spain to Africa as commodity for African resources. These Black Indians, now mistaken as African Americans, were shipped back to America and classified as "African Slaves." This part of our history is what the school systems fail to mention in history programs.
This is what social media users saw:
The claims are the work of Dane Calloway, who described himself on his public Facebook page:
Impeccable unorthodox researcher and historian. My knowledge of surreptitious information provides unembellished truth that is generally not mentioned
He did not immediately respond to Lead Stories' inquiry about his educational and professional credentials as a "researcher and historian." We've been unable to find any CV or resume' that lists the schools attended or degrees acquired. We will update this article when Calloway responds.
The bulk of this article is a cut-and-paste of 17 paragraphs from a summary of research by a real researcher at the University of California, Davis, published in 2009 titled "Native Americans Descended From a Single Ancestral Group, DNA Study Confirms."
Now, after painstakingly comparing DNA samples from people in dozens of modern-day Native American, or Native Indigenous Aborigines, and Eurasian groups, an international team of scientists thinks it can put the matter to rest: virtually without exception, the new evidence supports the single ancestral population theory.
"Our work provides strong evidence that, in general, Native Americans are more closely related to each other than to any other existing Asian populations, except those that live at the very edge of the Bering Strait," said Kari Britt Schroeder, a lecturer at the University of California, Davis, and the first author on the paper describing the study.
"While earlier studies have already supported this conclusion, what's different about our work is that it provides the first solid data that simply cannot be reconciled with multiple ancestral populations," said Schroeder, who was a Ph.D. student in anthropology at the university when she did the research.
While this study is by all indications credible, it does not include African DNA. It has no relevance to the path of African American ancestors. It studied the migration of ancient Asians to the Western Hemisphere. Also, it was not "new" in 2016 since it was published in 2009.
There is actual DNA research into the ancestry of African Americans. Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., famous for this "Finding Your Roots" TV series, shared it in a 2013 article titled "Exactly How 'Black' Is Black America?"
* According to Ancestry.com, the average African American is 65 percent sub-Saharan African, 29 percent European and 2 percent Native American.
* According to 23andme.com, the average African American is 75 percent sub-Saharan African, 22 percent European and only 0.6 percent Native American.
* According to Family Tree DNA.com, the average African American is 72.95 percent sub-Saharan African, 22.83 percent European and 1.7 percent Native American.
* According to National Geographic's Genographic Project, the average African American is 80 percent sub-Saharan African, 19 percent European and 1 percent Native American.
* According to AfricanDNA, in which I am a partner with Family Tree DNA, the average African American is 79 percent sub-Saharan African, 19 percent European and 2 percent Native American.
The real data shows the average African American is 2 percent Native American, not 98 percent as claimed.
We also found no historical documentation to support Calloway's claims in his stories, which mostly just shared hyperlinks leading to deleted pages. He does link to another article he published on August 28, 2016 titled "98% OF AFRICAN AMERICANS ARE IN FACT NATIVE INDIANS AND ARE OWED MILLIONS." It opened:
The tens of millions of Black Americans, or rather Indians, who 'disappeared' after 1492 did not all die in the 'holocaust' inflicted within America. Hundreds of thousands were shipped to Europe and Africa as Indian slaves. The whole slave trade story was given to all of us in reverse. A mass colony of Africans were not shipped from Africa to America. The truth is that Black Indians were shipped from America to Europe! They were then shipped from Spain to Africa as commodity for African resources. These Black Indians, now mistaken as African Americans, were shipped back to America and classified as "African Slaves." This part of our history is what the school systems fail to mention in history programs.
Again, no documentation or independent sources are included. Maybe that is why "school systems fail to mention" it.
Lead Stories has spent a lot of time debunking myths about the history of slavery in America, including this debunk article:
