My Cumbo ancestors migrated to Northampton County NC at the turn of the 19th century likely from Virginia. Census records tracked them starting in 1820, as free colored, which then morphed over the next 100 years to mulatto then black then Negro.
DNA testing has helped me to connect with more distant Cumbo relatives. My family and I have a handful of DNA matches who descend from a woman named Mary Polly Cumbo, born around 1800 of Robeson, North Carolina Cumbos. She married Allen Lowry and is the mother of Henry Berry Lowry, a historical American figure and leader of the Lowry War who is considered by many as a pioneer in the fight for Native American civil rights and tribal self-determination.
I had the pleasure of connecting with one Cumbo cousin DNA match who directly descends from Mary Polly Cumbo of Robeson NC. In our initial correspondence he wrote to me, “I’d always been told that the Cumbos were Portuguese.”
This got me wondering how the Cumbos came to be known as Portuguese. Here’s what I’ve uncovered so far:
1. The Cumbos were identified as tri racial. I’ve referended the mixed race origins of the Cumbos in a previous blog post. The article “Origins of the Lumbee” by S. Pony Hill says the following about Cumbo “Portuguese” origins:
Throughout the 1800’s, and across three states, this tri-racial identifier has been used by the mixed-blood families to explain physical features their white neighbors attempted to classify as resulting from Negro ancestry. For the most part the Lumbee and related families claimed to be solely of Indian-White mixture, but would occasionally claim Portuguese ancestry to justify non-Indian and non-White characteristics such as bushy hair, thick lips, etc. Polly Cumbaa was described as a “Portuguese woman” while married to Allen Lowry in Robeson.
2. Cumbos possibly descended from Portuguese slaves. Emanuell Cambow, a common ancestor for many Cumbos in America, according to Tim Hashaw’s book “The Birth of Black America”, was likely brought to the New World on a Portuguese slave ship sailing from Angola. Other Cumbos were believed to come the same way. According to “Origins of the Lumbee”:
The shorelines of the Chesapeake Bay area in Virginia appears to be area from which this Portuguese bloodline sprung, including Nothampton, York, and Surry Counties. Being identified as Portuguese during this era almost assuredly implies that these individuals were already mixed-blooded before settling foot on American soil. Portuguese slaves in the early 1600’s were most often a myriad of racial backgrounds, including Brazilian Natives, Canary Islanders, Mediterranean Arabs, East Indians, and of course West Coast Africans.
Perhaps over time being descended from Portuguese slaves morphed into family oral history that Cumbos descended from Portuguese.
3. Adopting a Portuguese identity offered the Cumbos a way to pass as white to avoid racial oppression in America. Racial passing occurs when a person classified as a member of one racial group is also accepted as a member of a different racial group. According to Tim Hashaw’s book “Children of Perdition” on Melungeons like the Cumbos he wrote:
So in the early 1840s, just before Melungeons became “Portuguese”, racism had begun feeding on a new fear: mixing, once a social disgrace, was suddenly also biological suicide. This new fear left Melungeons facing slow extinction. A small community needs outside marriage to avoid inbreeding, and illegal mixing had gone on for decades. Suddenly even sympathetic whites feared their own racial extinction.
Hashaw asserts that Melungeon families like the Cumbos across the American South adopted Portuguese identities as strategy to prove European ancestry and avoid oppressive jim crow and anti-miscegenation laws.
All of these factors have likely contributed to the claim of Cumbos as Portuguese. I’ve not uncovered any DNA studies that have validated a Cumbo genetic link to the Portuguese. A broader DNA study on Melungeons uncovered no genetic connection between Melungeons and the Portuguese and in fact seemed to draw similar conclusions to Hashaw. Claims of Portuguese ancestry likely were a strategy used to remain free and retain other privileges that came with being considered white.
Establishing a Cumbo connection to the Portuguese in my estimation will require more extensive DNA study of Cumbo descendants. This could be a very interesting and certainly challenging project for researchers.
I too heard the tale of the first Cumbo ancestor arriving on early America’s shores on a Portuguese vessel. Though the determined efforts and countless hours of geneological research and travel, family members like Corrine Chessimard, Andre Kearns, Charlotte Baskerville- Brown and others have taken us back hundreds of years to colonial Jamestown and Angola to meet and embrace our Cambow ancestor. As a result descendants are meeting for the first time and closing the information gaps while building new relathiionships. I expect that the 2016 Cumbo Reunion will bring together, under one roof, the multitude of roots that grew and continue to grow from our ancestor.
Come and be a part of this most beautiful occasion.
Well said. I feel so lucky for the opportunity to connect and collaborate with you, Corrine, Charlotte and other family members who have done such amazing work researching and documenting our amazing and quintessentially American family history. I am confident that our reunion will be an amazing event!
very nice post, i certainly love this website, keep on it
I am the Martha Reid Deloatch, daughter of Troy “Fat” Reid, son on Martha Cumbo Reid, daughter of William “Shine” Cumbo, son of Britton Cumbo. I have been doing research for on the Cumbo off and on for quite some time now but you have done a marvelous job. You are inspiring me to get back to it and organize and share the information I have. Thank you.
Martha, Thank you! I’ve heard much about your research through cousin Corrine and others. Please feel free to post your research and family photos on the family facebook page. I look forward to meeting you at the reunion. Best, Cousin Andre
I am fascinated with genealogy and history. I took the DNA test with Ancestry DNA and got matched with distant cousins with Lumbee surnames like Sampson and Goins. I have Matthews line from Amherst, VA and I believe it is from Virginia. and I remember reading the Saponi genealogy blog that the Matthews family intermarried with Cumbo family in Saponi community in the early 1700s in NC.
Absolutely brilliant post.
Want to register for family reunion. Tell me how to go about it .
Martha,
Wonderful! You can register at this link: https://cumbofamily.com/?page_id=25
I look forward to receiving your registration and payment and meeting you at the reunion!
Best, Cousin Andre
My four times great grandmother is Mary Polly Cumbo Lowery. I took the ancestary DNA and your comments on west African seem correct also there was a little DNA from the Portugal/Spain area also.
Bobbie, Good to meet you. I’m excited to hear that you DNA tested. Thanks for sharing your observations. My family has a number of matches to Mary Polly Cumbo and Allen Lowry descendants. I’ve connected with DNA matches who descend from Henry Berry Lowry and Rev Calvin Lowry, James Lowry and Mary Polly Cumbo’s sister Christian Cumbo.
I am a professional genealogist and I have a client from Northampton Co., NC whose mother’s last name was Newsome. He and his mother have always identified as white, but in looking at the records of his grandparents, great-grandparents and beyond, they seem to be identified as either black or mulato throughout most of history, then “Portuguese” beginning around 1920 – 1930, and ultimately as white by 1940 and beyond. I have to say, in all the photos I have seen, all the family members appear to be white. Am I missing something? I know racial identity is complicated, but I’m wondering if there was something specific culturally about this group of people??? My client would like to take a DNA test to try to begin to sort this all out. I assume he should take an autosomal test. Should he take the test with Ancestry, or would other companies be better?
Hi, the patriarch of the free colored Newsoms of Northampton County NC was a man named Moses Newsom Jr. born around 1735. According to Paul Heinegg’s site http://www.FreeAfricanAmericans.com he was born the son of (white) Moses Newsom Sr. of Isle of Wight County VA and a woman of color named Judah. With respect to how people “look” you can’t go by this as a determination of ancestry. I do suggest you encourage your client to DNA test. If they descend from the free colored Northampton Newsoms, of the 1700s and 1800s it’s recent enough for African admixture to show up in their results. I would encourage your client to test. Any of the top three services – AncestryDNA, 23andMe and Family Tree DNA should do the trick. Please keep me posted! The Newsoms and Cumbos of Northampton County are connected in many ways. Who knows, I may be related to your clients! Best, Andre
Hello!
I’m exploring a theory that at least some of the Portuguese ancestors cited by many Melungeon and other triracial communities may have been freeborn Luso-Africans (also called mestizos) who traveled to North America during the era of early Contact (1500s) and again in a surge around the fall of the Kingdom of Kongo in the early 1700s (in the Kingdom, there are good records of a significant Portuguese-Kongolese [Luso-African] mestizo population). As these mestizos were known to self-describe as “Portuguese,” but would have genetically been varying mixtures of Mediterranean and Southern African, I’m wondering whether they may have played a significant genetic role in the triracial populations claiming a Portuguese heritage — who I’ve heard, anecdotally, have more Southern African than West African in their percentages.
I note that you suggest here that most of the African forebears were enslaved — is there some reason why you believe so? I’ve begun to wonder if a mixed-race identity for those forebears (and the pride in being ‘Portuguese,’ rather than indigenously African afforded in the racialized caste systems of the Continent they were used to) incentivized them to pass down the Portuguese identity to their children.
Does that mesh with anything you’ve read? Could you point me toward some resources — most especially, could you point me toward any ‘Portuguese’ descendants who have taken DNA tests and might be willing to participate in a larger study?
As a side note, I’m a descendant of the Scotts of Northampton County, and a graduate student in Folklore at UNC Chapel Hill.
Hi, pleasure to meet you. You are on to something with your theory. Emanuel Cumbo was captured and kidnapped from Ndongo in modern day Angola and transported aboard a Portuguese slave ship before being commandeered at sea by an English pirate ship. At that time the Portuguese controlled the Atlantic slave trade. That’s the basis for the use of the term. Emanuell’s arrival pre-dates the formation of slavery as we now know it in America. So to your point, it’s probably more fair to characterize his status in Virginia as bonded servant. He’s able to negotiate his freedom by 1665. In the Virginia House of Burgess record that sets him free, he’s referenced as “Manuel the Mulata” which indicates he might have been mixed race. The Cumbo family lives as free from this point on. I hope this answers your question.
Hello! I just stumbled upon this site looking for genealogy information on my own family and I see that I am related to some of the people in the comment section. I am also a Scott from Northampton County and my grandparents both identified as “Indian.” On paper, we are identified as being from the Saponi, Cheraw and Catawba tribes (different Scott family members are in different tribes) however, the area that we come from is called the “Portuguese Community” and all of my Scott ancestors were Free People of Color who lived in the Indian territories. I was also wondering if we could be descended from these Luso Africans/Portuguese-Africans of the 1500s and 1600s that settled in these regions as well? It would be greatly appreciated if I could speak with some of you who are from the same background.
Thanks for posting this. I have been doing some research on Henry Berry Lowry (or Lowrie depending on who’s writing) for a short grad school paper- and decided to redirect my focus to either his mother, Mary Cumbo or his wife Rhoda. But I have been trying to make heads or tails of how to report ethnicity having seen Henry’s reported at Lumbee, mixed, and white, or strategically omitted. Having southern Louisiana roots myself, I find this “Portuguese” to be most interesting in light of some things I have heard about my own family background.
Thanks for the follow up and good luck with your paper. Would love to read it once submitted. Best, Andre