Somewhere I read that a census in Jamestown prior to the famous Dutch ship of 1619 showed that there were already blacks in Jamestown before 1619. I can't find that reference but in searching, I found some interesting sites that might be of interest. http://www.eclectica.org/v5n3/hashaw.html This article is titled V\MALUNGU: The African Origin of the American Melungeons It alleges and gives evidence that the Melungeon name originated from Portuguese Angola, which by Portuguese law was part of Portugal at that time. This could explain the Melungeon claim that their ancestry was Portuguese. This is of interest to me because my mother told me we had Portuguese ancestry, and she would say "or maybe it was Portuguese Indian. You know, there was a tribe called the Portuguese Indians." My great grandmother from East Tennessee was a small dark complected woman. Also there is supposedly a "Meluingeon lump" at the base of the skull of some Melungeon descendents. I have that lump. So maybe I have African ancestry on both sides of the house, since my Johnson DNA hints at African origins. Then there is a fascinating article about the first blacks at this URL: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/070121/29african.htm It shows that there was considerably more racial intermarriage at that time than we realize, and that the strictures against it emerged gradually. The article says that only a small percentage of the "free people of color" came from master-slave sexual unions; most come from the free Africans of early colonial times. We don't get into politics on this site, and this is not intended as such, but maybe the election of a mixed race person with an African name as President indicates that to some extent we are returning to the standards of early colonial times. Roy Johnson