I'm seeing some serious misrepresentations in my feed, so let's clear things up. Jamaica, under England rule after 1655, engaged in chattel slavery, first w/ indigenous Taino, and then captured Africans. In 1834, when slavery was abolished, there were 358K slaves in the colony...

In comparison, in 1830, there were 315K slaves in South Carolina. Jamaica is smaller than Connecticut. There were also fewer than 16K white inhabitants. In 1940, the population was 90% black, with most citizens descended from the earlier slave populations.

Charles II attempted to lure Puritans in Massachusetts Bay Colony to his newest Cromwellian "acquisition" in 1665. Some moved to Port Royal—and quickly moved back after a year or two of Caribbean heat and tropical diseases. But it started up the rum, and slave, trade btw the two.

Senator Harris and I are the same age. From what I've gleaned from quick research, Senator Harris is descended from a white British planter born in 1776. I have a white gr-gr-gr-gr-grandfather who was also born in 1776. My father was also white. Yet I identify as Abenaki.

We NDNs are well versed in "blood quantum"—non-NDN folks (and even NDN ones) use it to attempt to define—and exterminate—us. But if we use that metric with Senator Harris, she has 1/128th the genetic material of that white planter.

To put it in some context, Senator Harris shares as much genetic material with Hamilton Brown as Sally Heming's present-day descendants do with Thomas Jefferson.

As an addendum, I saw this powerful graphic in the SCMP ( https://multimedia.scmp.com/infographics/news/world/article/3093101/african-slave-trade-history/index.html) a few months back. America's slave history, while brutal and lasting, is just a page in a horrible volume—one which includes many Caribbean countries, including Jamaica.