Between 1840 and 1867, thousands of enslaved Africans who had been "liberated" from slave ships intercepted by the British Royal Navy were taken to the South Atlantic island of St Helena. But little is written in history books or otherwise known about the lives of these individuals. Now, ancient DNA analyses reported in The American Journal of Human Genetics on September 7 offer the first direct evidence for the origins of St Helena's liberated Africans. "It was known that they most likely originated from areas south of the equator, but where exactly they came from was unclear," says lead author Marcela Sandoval-Velasco ( @marce_save ) at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

https://www.miragenews.com/st-helenas-liberated-africans-originated-from-1079939/

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