Posted on July 1, 2019

Slave Registers from London Name the Slaves Kamala Harris’ Ancestor Owned

Patrick Howley, Big League Politics, July 1, 2019

Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris is descended from Irish slave owner Hamilton Brown, the namesake of Brown’s Town in Jamaica, who recruited massive numbers of Irish migrants to Jamaica to work on his sugar plantations after the British empire abolished slavery.

Kamala Harris’ father Donald Harris wrote an essay entitled “Reflections of a Jamaican Father” for Jamaica Global Online, in which he made a startling admission (emphasis added):

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Hamilton Brown was not only a slave owner, but also an engineer of mass Irish migration to Jamaica after the British empire abolished slavery in 1834.

Jamaican Family Search recorded: “Hamilton Brown owned several plantations over the years 1817 to about 1845. According to the 1818 Almanac which can be found on this site, (Jamaican Family Search) , he was the owner of Minard (128 slaves) which he must have acquired from its previous owner (John Bailie) in 1815 or later. The number of slaves on this estate approximates the number of slaves in one of the registers attributed to his ownership (124 slaves). The other register (86 slaves) cannot be assigned to any estate, although he is listed in Almanacs for subsequent years as owning several, (Antrim, Grier Park, Colliston, Little River, Retirement and Unity Valley).”

Here is a full accounting of the slaves owned by Hamilton Brown, according to the National Archives in London, as of June 28, 1817 in the parish of St. Ann in Jamaica:

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Hamilton Brown officially swore to the authenticity of this record, stating:

“I Hamilton Brown do swear that the above list and return consisting of two sheets is a true perfect and complete list and return, to the best of my knowledge and belief in every particular therein mentioned of all and every slaves possessed by me as owner, considered as most permanently settled, worked and employed in the Parish of Saint Ann on the twenty Eight day of June One thousand Eight Hundred and Seventeen without fraud, deceit or evasion So help me God.

Sworn before me this twenty fourth day of September 1817”

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“Hamilton Brown was instrumental in the importing of several hundred labourers and their families from Ireland to Jamaica between 1835 and 1840,” according to University College London’s project “Legacies of British Slave-ownership.” The project describes Hamilton Brown as a “Major attorney and resident slave-owner in Jamaica.”

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Black activist Tariq Nasheed has publicly cast doubt on Kamala Harris’ claim to being “Black.”