They all Lied
In a recent exchange with Paul Heinegg, author of Free African-Americans of Virginia and North Carolina, I painstakingly revealed the documents which proved the section of his book about William Goings, Sr. of Moore County, North Carolina, born c.a. 1749, was incorrect. I pointed to documents in court records, community witnesses and testimonies which relate that William Goings, Sr. was the illegitimate son of Elizabeth Goings, a white woman and John Harmon, a native of Portugal. Heinegg refused to correct the information in his book, claiming all the witnesses in 1882 and 1884 in Randolph County court lied.
He dismissed all documents and testimonies because it fit his purpose to retain the Black and White image of Americans. To him, the Spanish, the Portuguese and the Native American peoples do not exist in our heritage. If they claim such heritages, they lied.
As a researcher, I join the authors in Carolina Genesis, in celebrating the fact that America is and always has been more than Black and White. The documents, published in their entirety in my essay and the meticulous research into the backgrounds of the witnesses prove without a shadow of doubt that everyone who went to court to attain a genealogy affidavit did not lie about their heritage.
The Spanish, Portuguese and Native American heritages, as well as the Mediterranean, the Arabians, the Turkish, the Greeks, the Asians were all here as well. To dismiss all these colonial and pre-colonial people is a travesty to history.
This entry was posted in Carolina Genesis and tagged American colonists, American pre-colonial, Arabians, Asian Americans, Croatan, Free African-Americans, Free Black, Free Persons of Color, Lumbee, Native Americans, Paul Heinegg, Portuguese, Portuguese American, Spanish, Texas, Turkish. Bookmark the permalink.
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