Right-wing opposition of Kamala Harris has gone on an all-out attack using an article written by the 2020 Democratic primary candidate's father. The basis of the ill-judged attacks stems from a claim that Senator Harris' is a descendent of Hamilton Brown, a 19th-century slave owner.
Descendent of a slave owner
According to Snopes, social media users began circulating posts in June and July 2019. The posts claimed that one of Harris' ancestors was Hamilton Brown, a slave owner on the Caribbean Island of Jamaica in the 19th-century.
The posts were generally spread after the first round of the Democratic primary debates. During the discussions, Harris talked about racial issues where criticized her primary opposition, former Vice President Joe Biden, and his legislative record on busing, stating it was painful for her as a black woman.
The issues about the senator's racial identities escalated after United States President Donald Trump shared a tweet that stated that Harris was not Black American; rather, she was half Indian and half Jamaican. The original poster of the tweet also continued to spread the claim that the senator had an ancestor who owned slaves in Jamaica.
Recently, however, a right-leaning website, Big League Politics, posted names of what it claimed to be individuals who were kept as slaves by Harris' ancestor.
The post added that the senator was a descendant of Hamilton Brown, an Irish slave owner, who was the namesake of Brown's Town in Jamaica. Brown brought a massive number of Irish migrants to Jamaica and made them serve on his sugar plantations following the British empire's abolishment of slavery.
Another website, Red State, posted a similar claim that had a headline that read, "When Will Race-Baiting Kamala Harris Acknowledge She is a Descendant of a Slave Owner?"
Similar posts were seen across various right-leaning websites and blogs in January and February of last year. All of the posts based their claims on an account that Donald Harris, Kamala Harris' father, who was also a former economics professor at Stanford University, wrote.
Revealing history
The Jamaica Global Online published a book titled "Reflections of a Jamaican Father," written by Donald and writes his reflections about their history, as reported by Great Game India. The piece wrote about their family's roots in Jamaica. In the book, the former professor stated he was born on the island before traveling to the United States in the 1960s to pursue his career in economics.
During his stay at the University of California studying for his Ph.D., he met Indian cancer researcher Shyamala Gopalan. The two later got married and had their daughter Kamala in 1964.
In his published book, Donald reveals he descended from Hamilton Brown, a 19th-century planet who owned slaves during his time.
Despite the revelation that Harris descended from Brown, who was one of the major plantation owners in Jamaica in the early parts of the 19th century, owned several Irish slaves and argued against the abolition of slavery, a clear line of descent could not be seen between the two.
The lack of supportive evidence as of the moment makes it unclear whether or not Brown really is Harris' ancestor even as her father claims that it was the case.
