TonySpike:

Yes, I believe that the ancient dwellers of Sahara were the long-lost ancestors of the Bantus and Nilotes. They very much existed before a differentiated migration occurred due to dried-up Sahara. As a confirmation, I understand some parts of Sudan are still marshy till date. Infact, Lake Chad was about 25 times its current size some 8,000 years ago. I think a major climatic change altered the migration patterns.

pkjag:

The teso are nilotes? I have a teso friend called Barasa/baraza, i thought it was a luhya name, what does it mean, cause its like everywhere in luhyaland. Is that Bungoma county?

Not mine, i think its for the tribes that had relatively long contact with the Nilotes or other groups, the central and coastal bantus do not have any word starting with O, not even the zulus, or any other tribe other than the Luhyas, kisiis and maybe the Baganda (correct me if i am wrong). If there are, they must be very very few, at least not that i know of.

pkjag:

Yes in south sudan there is the Sudd, i think after the Okavango it's the largest swamp in Africa, but none or few of the nilotes there farm cause they are river lake nilotes who depend on fishing. You mean the Chad was larger than lake Victoria, if so then it might have been where the Nilotes concentrated. Have they found farm tools, or any other trace of settlement in the heart of the Sahara?

VudulessAyisien:
This is very very very fascinating. I'm of Benin descent and Cameroon. My moms DNA test had a small percentage, very small of Bantu. But I wish it was more! Maybe after testing my dad I will find out. Bantu cultures are probably the most fascinating and defining in all of Africa. The West focuses too much on Egypt, which to me, becomes VERY boring after so many invasions by Greek then Roman the Arab conquest. Those cultures are watered down, non-mysterious and cold/rigid. The older the Egyptian stuff is more cool than the most recent. Today it's hardly interesting at all.
The life blood and soul of Africa is Bantu. The best music is Bantu. Zimbabwe has the best music. The shona have the best sculptures. The ndebele have the best dolls. Zulus have the best sounding language and beautiful traditional clothing. Kenya has by the far the most lovely cultures and people. Kongo has a rich history and strong people.

this is not to put down others because I uplift mostly West African cultures too. But the least boring are the Bantu groups. I'm "west African biased" haha. But at the end of the day, BANTU RULES FOREVER.
All Africans should unite, mingle, trade amongst each other, and eliminate the need for outside interference. It's very embarrassing to be the neediest continent and diaspora on earth (according to mainstream knowledge, anyway. In my opinion, Indigenous Australia is worse off. So is Oceana in general even India and parts of Asia)

Respect from a Haitian. Proudly African by DNA!

TonySpike:
Here is a model of how Lake Chad and Lake Congo must have looked back in those days.

VudulessAyisien:
This is very very very fascinating. I'm of Benin descent and Cameroon. My moms DNA test had a small percentage, very small of Bantu. But I wish it was more! Maybe after testing my dad I will find out. Bantu cultures are probably the most fascinating and defining in all of Africa. The West focuses too much on Egypt, which to me, becomes VERY boring after so many invasions by Greek then Roman the Arab conquest. Those cultures are watered down, non-mysterious and cold/rigid. The older the Egyptian stuff is more cool than the most recent. Today it's hardly interesting at all.
The life blood and soul of Africa is Bantu. The best music is Bantu. Zimbabwe has the best music. The shona have the best sculptures. The ndebele have the best dolls. Zulus have the best sounding language and beautiful traditional clothing. Kenya has by the far the most lovely cultures and people. Kongo has a rich history and strong people.
this is not to put down others because I uplift mostly West African cultures too. But the least boring are the Bantu groups. I'm "west African biased" haha. But at the end of the day, BANTU RULES FOREVER.
All Africans should unite, mingle, trade amongst each other, and eliminate the need for outside interference. It's very embarrassing to be the neediest continent and diaspora on earth (according to mainstream knowledge, anyway. In my opinion, Indigenous Australia is worse off. So is Oceana in general even India and parts of Asia)
Respect from a Haitian. Proudly African by DNA!

pkjag:

Waaaah, that is huge, definitely larger than my country, i really wonder why it dried up, it would have cleared so much confusion about where we came from, i just don't understand how somewhere so fertile could turn into a desert in a few thousand years I never knkew there was a lake Congo, but where were these gigantic lakes getting their water, i understand they must have been depression lakes, but to accumulate that much amount of water

TonySpike:

I want to believe that they were depression lakes, a natural containment for runoff water, as a result of a long period of deluge. The right question could be, how long did this deluge last for? Certainly, it must have been for years. From my findings, it appears it was a global flood as signs of megalakes have been found elsewhere. When I think about this, I indeed believe that part of Africa was once a paradise with exotic animals everywhere.

pkjag:

What about the bantus in cameroon and south eastern nigeria if there are any, has there been any study comparing them to the others? Also what happened to the Nok culture in central Nigeria, what have the white men found? I really wish more Africans would be interested in this stuff, we would make more headway if we carried out our own archaeological projects, these white people come and take away our relics then display them in their museums.

VudulessAyisien:

this is so true!!! With all the resources in America, afro-Americans should be DYING to study African archeology alongside brothers and sisters on the continent. It would stop foreigners from tying to claim our achievements and hide them from us. Have you heard what silly people are speculating about the Nok? I even heard one claim "but they had admixture". Admixture?? What?.....
the Nok and Igbo-Ukwu are MYSTERIOUS and obviously very African! It's very obvious. The crazy trolls blog I scathingly nickname "Madildo's Anthropology Blog" claims west African phenotype didn't exist beyond 10,000 years. Is this true? And who is to say this is solid fact? We share common origins, this is for sure. And why do the people of Andaman islands and Melanesia resemble us? Dark skin with beautiful kinky hair and strong features must be very ancient indeed.
We have a common origin. All of us. But changed and warped with time and location.

TonySpike:

pkjag:

Sadly i don't think many african americans want to be indentified with africa, or are interested in the place, it is ironic that white people are more interested than them, you can also see this in the tourists we receive each year. I mean what's wrong, they'd rather go to paris or rome for holiday because they do not want to be identified with black people, it's really sad .

But what i've seen is increasingly many carribean people who do identify with africa, there are more reggae artists that make multiple visits to africa and not just developed parts like in South africa where most hiphop artists frequent but really poor countries, like Konshens has been to Kenya twice in a span of less than 5 years, alaine has been here about thrice in the same amount of time, same with cecille, I can not recall the last time a hiphop artist came to Kenya and probably none has ever visited twice, could you shed some light on this?

VudulessAyisien:


afro-Americans are much less connected to African culture as a whole because America is a racially biased European country. Jamaica, Haiti, Trinidad etc are African-based countries. We Caribbeans know who we are, we even speak with African words and know what tribes were from (those of us who actually care unlike the Americanized ones). You'll find more afro-conscious Americans in the south like Louisiana. Or places like Nea York where groups of the diaspora mingle (and where culture revivals have happened like in Harlem and Brooklyn).

in America, Africa is seen as devil-land. Whereas in Jamaica, Africa is seen as home. In Haiti, Africa is Ginen (Guinea) land of the Ancestors. We have love for the motherland. But don't worry, more Aframs are waking up and reconnecting with their culture. They are more diverse than Caribbeans (they mixed with too many diff tribes to name) but I have questions....

In Jamaica we call okra "okra", an Akan word. But the Americans call it Gumbo which I hear is Congo (Bantu). Is this true? Both words are used in Haiti (Haiti has a significant Congo influence besides Fon and Wolof).

Anyone here recognize deity names Simbi, Ganga? The Congo ancestors were included into the Haitian variant of Vodou, alongside the Fon deities

AkanIgbo:
And it wasn't just the people of Dahomey or the Bini people; it was the also the Aro-Confederacy, an Igbo people that sold out of Calabar and the Bights of Benin and Biafra.

PhysicsQED:


Your post was interesting and you made some good points, but just one correction: the Bini were not huge players in the transatlantic slave trade and the transatlantic slave trade was of limited importance to the precolonial economy of the Bini. In fact in precolonial times, the Bini were not even engaged in the transatlantic slave trade for most of their history. I have seen people just assume that the Bini had some sort of major slave trading state without checking if this is true or not on multiple occasions, and unfortunately, the reason for the assumption (without doing research) pretty much every time is because of preexisting stereotypes about precolonial African history.

AkanIgbo:


If they played a role at all then they played a big role in the destruction of the motherland. There is no minimizing of roles.

VudulessAyisien:


afro-Americans are much less connected to African culture as a whole because America is a racially biased European country. Jamaica, Haiti, Trinidad etc are African-based countries. We Caribbeans know who we are, we even speak with African words and know what tribes were from (those of us who actually care unlike the Americanized ones). You'll find more afro-conscious Americans in the south like Louisiana. Or places like Nea York where groups of the diaspora mingle (and where culture revivals have happened like in Harlem and Brooklyn).

in America, Africa is seen as devil-land. Whereas in Jamaica, Africa is seen as home. In Haiti, Africa is Ginen (Guinea) land of the Ancestors. We have love for the motherland. But don't worry, more Aframs are waking up and reconnecting with their culture. They are more diverse than Caribbeans (they mixed with too many diff tribes to name) but I have questions....

In Jamaica we call okra "okra", an Akan word. But the Americans call it Gumbo which I hear is Congo (Bantu). Is this true? Both words are used in Haiti (Haiti has a significant Congo influence besides Fon and Wolof).

Anyone here recognize deity names Simbi, Ganga? The Congo ancestors were included into the Haitian variant of Vodou, alongside the Fon deities

AkanIgbo:


What you wrote is completely untrue. African Americans are deeply interested in their culture and they have been amongst the most active group of Africans anywhere in leading Africans everywhere out of this mess that we have found ourselves in. To begin with most African Americans trace their ancestry to Igbo, Akan, Mande and Yoruban people; but particularly to Igbo and Akan.

What a lot of Africans from the Continent don't know and seem happy to not know is that it was against the law for African Americans to speak any of their ethnic languages or to pass down anything about your culture. Against the law as in "being tortured and killed." So most African Americans never knew anything about Africa, because there was never anybody to teach them and the White man convinced African Americans that Africa was a jungle; the people where cannibals and they didn't have any history. Who was there to teach African Americans any different?

The good thing is that a lot of African Americans have roots in the Southern part of the United States and we learned a lot from our old relatives about family, customs and culture. We didn't realize that they were actually passing on African lineage to us. They may not have even been aware of it, but used words, phrases and music clearly connects African Americans back to the continent of Africa. However, we had no way of connecting to any particular group because that was not something within our ancestors knowledge.

Now if you want to discuss how the Cuban-Africans; Bahamian-Africans; Brazilian-Africans; Cuban-Africans; Jamaican-Africans, etc.; knew more about Africa than African-Americans, then here is your answer: those groups were kept on large plantations and they could keep speaking their languages and practicing their African religions like Santeria. The vast majority of African-Americans were not kept on large plantations; they were by and large kept on small farms and they lost all contact with their heritage. The few groups of African-Americans that were kept on large plantations in States like Virginia, South Carolina, Louisiana and Georgia ended up keeping a lot of their African customs and culture and you will see many Igbo, Yoruba and Gullah settlement in all of those places. But by and large African Americans were kept on smaller farms and it was common to have their mothers, fathers, grandparents and siblings sold off to other farms in other States. So how was a little baby supposed to know anything about Africa or Africans if the people to teach them were gone?

As for your initial post, it is fully of conjecture that you know is not true if you know the history of African Americans. One most watched programs in US History was "Roots." Which was a program about a Mandika taken from Gambia to Virginia. The show follows his descendants as they take their American journey from Virginia to North Carolina and eventually into Tennessee. That is show is what typically happened to Africans taken in the slave trade. How was Kunta Kinte's relatives supposed to keep up with African culture once Kunta Kinte died? As it was they kept up with words and phrases, but as the television show showed; without other African people there how were the descendants of Kunta Kinte supposed to know much about Africa when all that that they had around them were Europeans?

Here is the thing; African Americans set up their own universities even when they were not allowed to attend White universities. Scholars like WEB DuBuois, Malcolm X and numerous other Americans knew the history of Africa and African Americans; so in later times we became knowledgeable about Egypt, Ghana, Mali, Songhan, Oyo, Nri and Akan people . So African Americans have always studied African history, but without anyway to connect it to your experiences then it is hard to understand the people and languages. And it didn't and still doesn't help when Africans come to school in America and act all arrogant as Hell and act as if African Americans are beneath them because we don't understand the history, language and people of Africa. Here is a newsflash; African Americans don't understand the history of Africa, because the ancestors of the Africans that come to America for school sold the ancestors of African Americans into slavery. So if someone is going to look down on something or someone; then African students should be looking down on their own ancestors because they were the heartless ones that caused all of us to be lost and the ancestors actions eventually allowed the Europeans to colonize Africa, because the Ancestors virtually depopulated Africa by selling slaves. That is the reason that all Africans are in the position that they are in right now. And it wasn't just the people of Dahomey or the Bini people; it was the also the Aro-Confederacy, an Igbo people that sold out of Calabar and the Bights of Benin and Biafra.

That is a long rambling answer, but African Americans are taking DNA test at all time, to locate where their ancestors are from. African Americans also visit Africa a lot, especially Ghana, because the Ghanain government has apologized for there role in the slave trade and Ghana's first president and all the rest of the that Country's President has come to America and made appeal after appeal to African Americans to come as tourist to visit the slave forts and castles and to invest in the Country. Is there any mystery as to why so many African Americans know so much about Ghana and why people from Ghana know so much about African Americans or why Ghana is doing so well economically? There are African Americans that live in and retire to Ghana and now they are looking to do the same thing in the Ivory Coast, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Cameroon is another place that African Americans are visiting more. Look for more investments to go there.

The question I have is why hasn't Nigeria made a plea to African Americans to come as tourists? Why hasn't Nigerian cultural officials come to American Historically Black Universities, grammar and high schools to talk to kids about the slave trade and explain how most African Americans ancestors originated in Igboland, Yorubaland or in what is now Cameroon. Why aren't the slave ports in Calabar, Biafra become a tourist attraction; because African Americans want to know? What haven't Nigeria's government over the years made it a point not to align with African Americans the way the Ghana has? Long rambling answer but there is a lot of crap floating around about African Americans that is not true and a country like Nigeria is not doing all it can to repair relations with African Americans. Fwiw, my DNA test results are 48% Igbo and 36% Akan.

PhysicsQED:


There is no "minimizing" of roles intended here. The only thing intended is to have at least some historical accuracy and to apportion the appropriate roles to the appropriate states. You grouped the Bini with Dahomey and the Aro Confederacy with regard to the slave trade, which is ridiculous (and I mean no disrespect to the Fon or the Aro by that statement, but the reality is that the slave trade was never as big a factor in Benin's economy as it was in those states). What's ironic is that many of the slaves the Benin kingdom traded during the brief periods it traded slaves wound up in southern Ghana and Sao Tome rather than outside of Africa (though the Bini did not know where the traded slaves would ultimately end up, of course). I agree with you that the transatlantic slave trade had a hugely negative effect on Africa's development and on the lives of black people worldwide, but what I don't get or agree with is why you think Benin played some "big role" in the destruction of Africa. I think this issue is an instance where the details actually matter.

AkanIgbo:


The slave trade wasn't a significant portion of the Akan people kingdoms either, but they were involved in it. The Akan people made their money from the gold trade and they (particularly the Ashanti) typically only captured slaves as a result of war to expand their kingdom. They weren't particularly interested in slaving, but they sold the slaves that they took in warfare to the Europeans. However minimal the Akan people role was; the impact was huge and their actions did the Continent no favors.

bigfrancis21:


Welcome home, my brother. From your DNA result, you are 84% black. How about the remaining 16%?

An african american, Polite, confirming his Igbo origins (75%):


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j09jj9mX54

And he looks very much Igbo.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxfTnZ7v_oo

As for establishing of return programs, Nigeria has so many issues it is dealing with right now that it isn't focusing on establishing connections with diasporan communities at the moment. However, individuals are growing who feel the same way as you do, me too. I do believe that the people most likely to reach out to diasporan communities would be concerned Igbo citizens in Igbo land who feel for the diasporan cause.

Right now, the lower niger of Nigeria (Igbo, Ibibio and Ijaw) is agitating for self-independence from Nigeria due to mismanagement of natural resources coming from this region which accounts for over 70% of Nigeria's economy. We enjoin diasporan Igbo and Ibibion citizens to join in the cause with lower niger citizens to create an independent country of ours. That is the right step in the right direction.

bigfrancis21:


Welcome home, my brother. From your DNA result, you are 84% black. How about the remaining 16%?

An african american, Polite, confirming his Igbo origins (75%):


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j09jj9mX54

And he looks very much Igbo.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxfTnZ7v_oo

As for establishing of return programs, Nigeria has so many issues it is dealing with right now that it isn't focusing on establishing connections with diasporan communities at the moment. However, individuals are growing who feel the same way as you do, me too. I do believe that the people most likely to reach out to diasporan communities would be concerned Igbo citizens in Igbo land who feel for the diasporan cause.

Right now, the lower niger of Nigeria (Igbo, Ibibio and Ijaw) is agitating for self-independence from Nigeria due to mismanagement of natural resources coming from this region which accounts for over 70% of Nigeria's economy. We enjoin diasporan Igbo and Ibibion citizens to join in the cause with lower niger citizens to create an independent country of ours. That is the right step in the right direction.

AkanIgbo:


The slave trade wasn't a significant portion of the Akan people kingdoms either, but they were involved in it. The Akan people made their money from the gold trade and they (particularly the Ashanti) typically only captured slaves as a result of war to expand their kingdom. They weren't particularly interested in slaving, but they sold the slaves that they took in warfare to the Europeans. However minimal the Akan people role was; the impact was huge and their actions did the Continent no favors.

Btw, I am not even criticizing the Bini people, but the fact of the business is that they were involved in the trade as well as numerous other people including Igbos, Kru people, Akans, etc. It is what it is. There were no winners except White people. The African people that weren't taken in the slave trade probably thought that they were the winners, but come to find out the White man just turned around and colonized them and made them slaves in their own homeland.

AkanIgbo:


What you wrote is completely untrue. African Americans are deeply interested in their culture and they have been amongst the most active group of Africans anywhere in leading Africans everywhere out of this mess that we have found ourselves in. To begin with most African Americans trace their ancestry to Igbo, Akan, Mande and Yoruban people; but particularly to Igbo and Akan.

What a lot of Africans from the Continent don't know and seem happy to not know is that it was against the law for African Americans to speak any of their ethnic languages or to pass down anything about your culture. Against the law as in "being tortured and killed." So most African Americans never knew anything about Africa, because there was never anybody to teach them and the White man convinced African Americans that Africa was a jungle; the people where cannibals and they didn't have any history. Who was there to teach African Americans any different?

The good thing is that a lot of African Americans have roots in the Southern part of the United States and we learned a lot from our old relatives about family, customs and culture. We didn't realize that they were actually passing on African lineage to us. They may not have even been aware of it, but used words, phrases and music clearly connects African Americans back to the continent of Africa. However, we had no way of connecting to any particular group because that was not something within our ancestors knowledge.

Now if you want to discuss how the Cuban-Africans; Bahamian-Africans; Brazilian-Africans; Cuban-Africans; Jamaican-Africans, etc.; knew more about Africa than African-Americans, then here is your answer: those groups were kept on large plantations and they could keep speaking their languages and practicing their African religions like Santeria. The vast majority of African-Americans were not kept on large plantations; they were by and large kept on small farms and they lost all contact with their heritage. The few groups of African-Americans that were kept on large plantations in States like Virginia, South Carolina, Louisiana and Georgia ended up keeping a lot of their African customs and culture and you will see many Igbo, Yoruba and Gullah settlement in all of those places. But by and large African Americans were kept on smaller farms and it was common to have their mothers, fathers, grandparents and siblings sold off to other farms in other States. So how was a little baby supposed to know anything about Africa or Africans if the people to teach them were gone?

As for your initial post, it is fully of conjecture that you know is not true if you know the history of African Americans. One most watched programs in US History was "Roots." Which was a program about a Mandika taken from Gambia to Virginia. The show follows his descendants as they take their American journey from Virginia to North Carolina and eventually into Tennessee. That is show is what typically happened to Africans taken in the slave trade. How was Kunta Kinte's relatives supposed to keep up with African culture once Kunta Kinte died? As it was they kept up with words and phrases, but as the television show showed; without other African people there how were the descendants of Kunta Kinte supposed to know much about Africa when all that that they had around them were Europeans?

Here is the thing; African Americans set up their own universities even when they were not allowed to attend White universities. Scholars like WEB DuBuois, Malcolm X and numerous other Americans knew the history of Africa and African Americans; so in later times we became knowledgeable about Egypt, Ghana, Mali, Songhan, Oyo, Nri and Akan people . So African Americans have always studied African history, but without anyway to connect it to your experiences then it is hard to understand the people and languages. And it didn't and still doesn't help when Africans come to school in America and act all arrogant as Hell and act as if African Americans are beneath them because we don't understand the history, language and people of Africa. Here is a newsflash; African Americans don't understand the history of Africa, because the ancestors of the Africans that come to America for school sold the ancestors of African Americans into slavery. So if someone is going to look down on something or someone; then African students should be looking down on their own ancestors because they were the heartless ones that caused all of us to be lost and the ancestors actions eventually allowed the Europeans to colonize Africa, because the Ancestors virtually depopulated Africa by selling slaves. That is the reason that all Africans are in the position that they are in right now. And it wasn't just the people of Dahomey or the Bini people; it was the also the Aro-Confederacy, an Igbo people that sold out of Calabar and the Bights of Benin and Biafra.

That is a long rambling answer, but African Americans are taking DNA test at all time, to locate where their ancestors are from. African Americans also visit Africa a lot, especially Ghana, because the Ghanain government has apologized for there role in the slave trade and Ghana's first president and all the rest of the that Country's President has come to America and made appeal after appeal to African Americans to come as tourist to visit the slave forts and castles and to invest in the Country. Is there any mystery as to why so many African Americans know so much about Ghana and why people from Ghana know so much about African Americans or why Ghana is doing so well economically? There are African Americans that live in and retire to Ghana and now they are looking to do the same thing in the Ivory Coast, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Cameroon is another place that African Americans are visiting more. Look for more investments to go there.

The question I have is why hasn't Nigeria made a plea to African Americans to come as tourists? Why hasn't Nigerian cultural officials come to American Historically Black Universities, grammar and high schools to talk to kids about the slave trade and explain how most African Americans ancestors originated in Igboland, Yorubaland or in what is now Cameroon. Why aren't the slave ports in Calabar, Biafra become a tourist attraction; because African Americans want to know? What haven't Nigeria's government over the years made it a point not to align with African Americans the way the Ghana has? Long rambling answer but there is a lot of crap floating around about African Americans that is not true and a country like Nigeria is not doing all it can to repair relations with African Americans. Fwiw, my DNA test results are 48% Igbo and 36% Akan.

AAinEqGuinea:


Polight is ok, he has his immature moments in my opinion in how he handles his disagreements, although I ultimately respect him.



Two thing factors to point out my Africaness; firstly I'm kinda frugal and so was my DNA test, it was only $30 via groupon but I needed to buy server hardware instead to call myself buying a $300 ancestry test... Secondly, with the little info I got I'm trying to fill in the gaps with as much African specificity.

This test is more like a DNA comparison of modern populations outside the U.S, than a ancestry one.

My results:

Strongest match: Africa
closest countries

Eq Guinea
Guinea-Bissau
Namibia
Mozambique
South Africa
Tanzania
Sudan
Somalia
Uganda
Gabon
Kenya
Angola
Ethiopia
Rwanda
Nigeria

2nd closest match: South and Central America (my mom was part Native American)
Bahamas (slave route?)
Peru
Guyana
Nicaragua
Brazil
Mexico
Chile
Guatemala
Venezuela
Honduras
Argentina
Colombia
Costa Rica
Puerto Rico
El Salvador
Ecuador

Asia:

Indonesia
New Zealand
Malaysia
Bangladesh
Thailand
Pakistan
China
Taiwan
India
Japan
Vietnam
Australia
Bhutan
Nepal
Mongolia
South Korea
Singapore
East Timor
Philippines

Last were, Middle East and European respectively (so sorry, no whitey in me despite slavery)

There are too many gaps in their African comparison, but I'm guessing my roots likely connect to the Bantu region.... but I could live with being wrong about my extrapolation from this $30 test but I've tried.

muafrika:
We're you given any specific haplogroups or mtdna?

The Brown area is mostly Bantu and the left out areas especially in the Bantu ateas are more about those tribes in the areas being untested. Mixing while already in the diaspora would explain the connection to purely nilotic areas like the Sudan who have related groups in West Africa.

Studies have shown presence of ancient Eurasian DNA in Bantu as far South as South Africa so that would explain the yellow. The red reflects the point of contact between your early American Ancestors with the natives. It's interesting because that red area was serviced by Portugal in terms of slave trade. The Portuguese sourced their slaves from East and Central Africa, mostly through Arabic traders along the East Coast. I would think that would be the most probable area.

AkanIgbo:


If they played a role at all then they played a big role in the destruction of the motherland. There is no minimizing of roles. There were real lives that all of the slave traders ruined, no matter how big or small that role may have been. The impact has been horrible and the horror just keep getting worse 200 years after the trade ended. Look at all of us sons and daughters of Africa. We are hated and despised all over the World, because of the actions of those ancestors that did those abominable acts.

Now the White man is walking around telling everybody everywhere how horrible black people everywhere are. They tell the Nigerians that African Americans are terrible people with no class. They tell African Americans that Nigerians are terrible crooked people with no class. The truth be told it is White people that terrible and crooked and have no class. But instead of African Americans and Nigerians getting together and seeing the real problem; we are only interested in showing compliance to the White man. We all are one big lost tribe and our women and men are despised and they hate themselves for being what God made them, which is brown and black; and for that we have the ancestors to thank.

PhysicsQED:


Your post was interesting and you made some good points, but just one correction: the Bini were not huge players in the transatlantic slave trade and the transatlantic slave trade was of limited importance to the precolonial economy of the Bini. In fact in precolonial times, the Bini were not even engaged in the transatlantic slave trade for most of their history. I have seen people just assume that the Bini had some sort of major slave trading state without checking if this is true or not on multiple occasions, and unfortunately, the reason for the assumption (without doing research) pretty much every time is because of preexisting stereotypes about precolonial African history.

kingston277:

A good question would be why the Bini had little need for participation in the slave trade. And why other states didn't follow suit.
I've heard that agriculture in peppers/spices is what turned them away from the slave trade but I can't verify if that is the definitive reason.