Welcome

Descendants of Mandi

Last Update: 13 OCT 2007

This African American Genealogical Website traces the beginnings of the Williams-Rivers Family of Haywood County / Brownsville, Tennessee. The American chapter of our story began in 1821 with the abduction of a 16-year-old girl in West Africa. This girl, born free in 1805 was a member of the West African Mende tribe. As a girl in her teens, she had no doubt begun thinking of marriage and raising a family of her own. All of those dreams were altered as she found herself packed like an animal in a ship bound for a strange new land. The year of her abduction is significant, for 1821 was after the official end of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. She was aboard one of the many illegal slave ships which continued to bring free Africans to America well into the mid-1800s.

Dedication

This website is dedicated to all of our ancestors--those known and those yet to be known to us.
We pay special tribute to Mandi, the first African from our family to set foot on this strange land.

Mandi was placed into chains...	...and packed as cargo onto an illegal slave ship bound for Charleston, South Carolina.

A people without knowledge of its history is like a tree without roots. Both are doomed to die. --Unknown .

Are you a descendant of Mandi Williams? Maybe you can correct or update our tree.
E-mail Eric J. Williams and help us as we fill out the branches on our the family tree.