By Joe Mozingo
Joe Mozingo knew himself as a white man with blue eyes. The family lore was that the Mozingo surname
was Italian, Spanish or Basque in its origins.
He had no reason to question it.
In his travels as a reporter for the Los Angeles Times he had a handful of chance encounters with people with the
same name, some were black, and said their name was from Africa. He also met with people from the African
continent who told him his name was African.
Joe, a reporter with an eye for a good story, set about on a quest to
discover the origins of his name that would take him on a personal journey crisscrossing
the United States, and would spawn two trips to Africa.
What started out as a handful of newspaper stories grew into
a book, “The Fiddler on Pantico Run: An African Warrior, His White Descendants,
a Search for Family.” His genealogical
search led him to Edward Mozingo, the progenitor of the Mozingo name in the
United States. Edward, as it turns out,
was black man, a slave brought from Africa to the Jamestown colony in Virginia
in 1644, a man whom after serving as a slave for 28 years sued for his freedom
and won. Edward Mozingo married a white
woman who was the mother of his children
Through DNA testing, Joe learned that he was not a directly
descended in an unbroken line of male Mozingos but was likely the a descendant
of one of Edward Mozingo’s granddaughters.
Seeking out Edward Mozingo’s American descendants Joe travels across the
United States and interviews a number of people who share his last name. White and black, some know the secrets of the
family’s past while others, notably the family’s white descendants, are either wholly
ignorant of the family’s origins, or also share the family tradition that the
name was Italian, Other white family
members were blatantly racist and could not come to terms that their ancestor
was a black man.
Searching for Edward Mozingo’s African origins lead Joe to
research the history and intricacies of the Atlantic Slave Trade. Two trips to Africa did little to fill in any
facts that are actually known about Edward Mozingo himself, but did help Joe
place Edward within the context of the time and place from which he likely
came.
“The Fiddler on Pantico Run” is an absorbing look not only
at Joe Mozingo’s paternal genealogy, but also the evolving definitions of race
and racism in the United States. Mr.
Mozingo deftly demonstrates the color of one’s skin, even within the same
family, can influence the destinies of people for generations.
ISBN 978-1451627480, Free Press, © 2012, Hardcover, 320
pages & Index. $32.00. To purchase
this book click HERE.
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