Hans Jonatan

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Hans Jonatan (* 1784 in Saint Croix , † 1827 in Djúpivogur , Iceland ) was a refugee slave who made it to a respected citizen in Iceland. His case made legal history of Danish colonial policy and he became the subject of a groundbreaking genetic research project .

First years

Ruins of an old sugar mill on St. Croix

As the son of a so-called house slave, the black Emilia Regina, Hans Jonatan was born a slave in St. Croix in 1784 according to the Danish colonial laws . Heinrich Ludwig von Schimmelmann was registered as the owner in the birth certificate, administrator of sugar cane and cotton plantations, and temporary governor general of the Danish West Indies . Historians assume that Hans Jonatan's father was the Dane Heinrich Grams, who was Schimmelmann's secretary for three years. Hans Jonatan had a half-sister Anna Maria (* 1788), whose father was also a house slave named Andreas.

Copenhagen

After the yields of the plantations shrank, the Schimmelmanns returned to Denmark in 1799 and took Emilia Regina and later Hans Jonatan with them to Copenhagen. Shortly afterwards Schimmelmann died and his widow Henriette inherited the boy. At the age of seventeen, Hans Jonatan fled, reported to the Danish Navy and took part in the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801 . In recognition of this, Crown Prince Friedrich VI. his freedom. Henriette von Schimmelmann reacted promptly, describing the escape as theft. Jonathan was arrested. Under the title Major General Henriette de Schimmelmann contra mulatten Hans Jonathan , the case went to court in 1802. In contrast to the Danish colonies, slavery was illegal in motherland Denmark. Schimmelmann argued that Jonathan was her property and that she wanted to sell him in the Danish colony of the West Indies. Judge Anders Sandøe Ørsted (who later became Prime Minister) agreed with a landmark judgment of March 1802 and ordered his return to the Danish colony. Hans Jonatan managed a second escape. Henriette von Schimmelmann and the Danish authorities lost sight of him.

Iceland

The trading post in Djupivogur, now a museum
In his signature, Jonathan added an "h" to his maiden name.

The first reference to his life in Iceland, which then belonged to Denmark-Norway , can be found in the notes of cartographer Hans Frick in 1812:

The agent at the trading post here is from the West Indies, and has no surname ... but calls himself Hans Jonatan. He is very dark-skinned and has coal-black, curly hair. His father is European but his mother a negro. ( The agent of the local trading post comes from West India and has no surname ... but calls himself Hans Jonatan. He has very dark skin and coal-black, curly hair. His father is a European, but his mother a negress. )

Jonathan was one of the first colored people on the remote island. In the 1990s, scientists began to recreate the puzzle of his life and his story became widely known. Then he arrived in Iceland in 1802, found work at the Danish trading post in Djúpivogur and lived as a smallholder in Borgargarður. In 1819 he took over the management of the trading post. In 1820 he married the Icelandic farmer's daughter Katrín Antoníusdóttir from Háls. They had three children, two of whom survived. Hans Jonatan died in 1827 at the age of 47.

The gene project

The fact that Hans Jonatan - depending on the sources - was the first or one of the first blacks to come to isolated Iceland made a groundbreaking DNA study possible in 2018 . For the first time, scientists have succeeded in determining the genetic structure of a person without having any genetic material from them. The study was supported by the extreme rarity of the African heritage in Iceland, the homogeneity of the country's population, and its extensive genealogical database. The researchers identified 788 offspring of Jonathan and took 182 gene samples from them. This genetic material was analyzed against known samples of African DNA, whereby about 38% of the DNA profile of his mother and thus 19% of his own profile could be restored. From this it was concluded that the ancestors of Jonathan's mother came from a region that today includes Nigeria , Benin and Cameroon .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Anuradha Jagadeesan et al: Reconstructing an African Haploid Genome from the 18th Century. In: Nature Genetics. 50 (2) 2018, pp. 199-205. doi: 10.1038 / s41588-017-0031-6 .
  2. ^ Genetics - The adventures of Hans J. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. January 28, 2018.
  3. ↑ Christoph Seidler: The miraculous story of Hans Jonathan. In: Der Spiegel. April 8, 2018.
personal data
SURNAME Jonathan, Hans
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Jonathan, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION crucian slave and icelandic citizen
DATE OF BIRTH 1784
PLACE OF BIRTH Saint Croix , West Indies Antilles
DATE OF DEATH 1827
Place of death Djupivogur , Iceland