Genetic Search for Roots Reveals the Historical Roots of American Oppression of Black Slaves | Culture | America
Washington, August 5th (Xinhua) - A series of names buried deep underground have formed the root system of a large tree, which is the cover image of the new issue of Science magazine in the United States. The new study recently published in this magazine uses genetic technology to help some African Americans find the roots of the era of slavery, and once again reveals that dark history.
On June 19, 2023, near the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., people played the role of soldiers during the Civil War to commemorate Black Slave Liberation Day. Shen Jizhong
Between 1774 and 1850, black slaves were used at the Cattocking Iron Works in Maryland, United States. A research team from institutions such as Harvard University in the United States extracted DNA from 27 remains of local black slave cemeteries and compared it with the genetic database of "Me and 23 Chromosomes" biotechnology company, confirming that over 40000 people have a genetic relationship with them.
One of the authors of the paper, African American scholar Henry Gates from Harvard University, said, "This is an example of using scientific tools to solve problems of long-term interest to African Americans."
The desire of African Americans to pursue their ancestors is vividly reflected in the American novel "Roots", but they often find it difficult to overcome the hurdle of 1870 because before the census of that year, records in the United States rarely used the full name of black slaves, which Gates referred to as a "brick wall" on the road to African American roots.
"We never knew we were connected by blood to the people here," African American Anise Jackson said after learning that her ancestors had worked at the Katoktin Iron Works. She is an active participant in genetic search, but the details of the relevant population have not been disclosed in this study due to privacy protection and other reasons.
In addition to the deep-rooted cultural oppression with no history, research has also shown that the living conditions of black slaves at the Katoktin Iron Works were poor. A boy who may have died at the age of twelve or thirteen had a shoulder dislocation, and another 15-year-old deceased had a herniated intervertebral disc. On the one hand, many remains contain high levels of lead and zinc, and on the other hand, the remains of children under 4 years old who suffer from rickets due to a lack of vitamin D appear in multiple graves.
Genetic research has repeatedly revealed the history of American black slaves in recent times. A study published earlier this year in the Journal of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States stated that the remains found in a cemetery in Charleston, South Carolina, originated from black slaves, and genetic comparisons showed associations with people in multiple parts of the West African coast.
Fatima Jackson, an African American genetics professor at Howard University in the United States, pointed out in an opinion article published in Science that the impact of American oppression of black slaves is much worse than previously believed, with "psychological and physiological damage still clearly present in the epigenome after several generations.".
