According to her father, US Vice President Kamala Harris is descended from Hamilton Brown – a prominent plantation owner and notorious slave owner in Jamaica, who was born in Co. Antrim in 1776.
As the world turns its attention to the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, there is renewed interest in the vice president’s family history. Kamala Harris has formerly celebrated America’s “enduring friendship” with Ireland but is unlikely to dwell upon her genealogical connections to the country.
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Kamala Harris was born in Oakland, California, in 1964 to immigrant parents, Donald J. Harris from Jamaica and Shyamala Gopalan from India. It is not uncommon for people of Caribbean heritage to be descended from slave owners, and a few years ago, Donald J. Harris acknowledged his family’s slave-owning past in an article in Jamaica Global.
He explained that slave-owner Hamilton Brown was an ancestor of his paternal grandmother, Miss Chrishy (Christiana Brown), but he did not specify the exact nature of this familial relationship. Some sources, including a recent Irish Times article, claim that Brown is possibly Kamala Harris’ paternal great-great-great-great-grandfather but this remains unsubstantiated.
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Research by Stephen McCracken, a historian from Limavady now living near Antrim town, indicates that Brown was born in the townland of “Bracough” (Breckagh), just north of Ballymoney, Co. Antrim, in 1776, seemingly to a Protestant family of Ulster-Scots heritage.
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On the other hand, Fiona Pegrum, a genealogist and chair of the Coleraine Historical Society, told the Ballymoney Chronicle that the alleged connection between Hamilton Brown and Kamala Harris is “utterly unproven”, citing a lack of records showing that Brown was ever married or had children. She dismisses the family lore and Donald J. Harris’ claim of descendancy.
The Irish formed a significant portion of the early white population in the British colony of Jamaica. Hamilton Brown emigrated to this Caribbean Island around 1795, initially working as an estate bookkeeper before amassing extensive land holdings. He became a wealthy cattle breeder and sugar plantation owner, at various times owning, managing or serving as executor for several dozen estates in Jamaica (mostly in St Ann’s Parish), including one he named “Antrim” after the county of his birth.
Brown was also a prolific slave owner. According to one record in the UK National Archives (Kew), Brown owned at least 121 slaves in 1826, comprising 74 females and 47 males.
In the Jamaican House of Assembly, Brown represented the (all-white) electorate of St Ann’s Parish for over two decades. He was a staunch opponent of the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 and once told a visiting Methodist minister, Henry Whitely, that his slaves, whom he claimed enjoyed “happiness and comfort”, had more advantages than the poor in England. Shortly thereafter, the same minister witnessed a man cracking a cart-whip to drive a group of slaves, including women, to ‘Work! work!’”, as well as other horrific scenes on the island’s estates.
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After the abolition of slavery, Brown received about £20,000 in compensation for the loss of several hundred slaves and sought additional compensation, amounting to several thousand pounds, which was ultimately unsuccessful. His numerous claims are documented by the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery.
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In the latter half of the 1830s, Brown sent his ship, the James Ray, to Antrim, to collect hundreds of Irish migrants and bring them to Jamaica. He employed some of them and planted others in St Ann’s, apparently in an attempt to prevent freed slaves from acquiring the land.
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Brown also founded Brown’s Town (originally named “Hamilton Town”) in St Ann’s Parish and commissioned the construction of St Mark’s Anglican Church there. Donald J. Harris (Kamala’s father) lived in the town founded by his alleged ancestor and was baptized and confirmed as a child in St Mark’s Church.
Hamilton Brown died in 1843 after being thrown from his gig and is buried in St Mark’s; his memorial reads:
“Sacred to the memory of HAMILTON BROWN Esq. Native of the County Antrim, Ireland, who departed this life on the 18th Sept 1843 in the 68th year of his age. He was the FOUNDER OF THIS TOWN. Was 22 years one of the Representatives for this parish in the Honble. House of Assembly. His name will long be cherished.”
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Interestingly, Kamala Harris’ paternal grandmother, Beryl Christie, bore the Irish surname Finegan, though it remains unclear if this signifies another possible genetic link to Ireland.
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