Genomic data reveals rampant sexual violence against enslaved women

Evidence

New evidence of white men’s sexual violence against enslaved women is emerging from the genome. A 2020 study sampling the DNA of fifty thousand people—thirty thousand with African ancestry—reinforced the historical record. Spurred by Joanna Mountain, the senior director of research at 23andMe, scientists used DNA in the company’s direct-to-consumer database to trace the ancestry of customers whose grandparents were born in one of the regions touched by the transatlantic slave trade. The researchers found that although a majority of the more than 12 million enslaved people who arrived in the Americas were men, enslaved women contributed more to the current gene pool. The genetic contribution of European men to the ancestry of African Americans is three times greater than that of European women. This means that enslaved men were more likely to die before they were able to have children and that enslaved women were often raped by white men and forced to bear their children. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 219

Categorization

• QUESTION: The DNA database used is 23andMe’s direct-to-consumer pool, which skews toward customers of certain demographics — is this sample bias acknowledged as a limitation in the primary study?
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s case study of distinguishing reframing claims from contested empirical claims: the 3x European male genetic contribution is a concrete, checkable data point an opponent could dispute.
• SEED: Angle: consumer genealogy companies as unintended instruments of historical archaeology — the 23andMe database as an involuntary archive of the slave trade.