John Potter (1779) black ancestor

[History Lives]

Apologies if its bad etiquette to resurrect an old thread; I simply stumbled across this post as I'm also a descendant of John Potter.

I haven't been able to find the Chronicle article online anywhere to verify Terry Kavanagh's account, but to me, with all due respect, referring to John Potter as a "black ancestor" is inferring a conclusion from insufficient evidence.

He may have been foreign, though he may have just been a swarthy British person, as there are many John Potters born in Liverpool during this time.

Mrs Potter described her husband as a "coloured man". Although we associate the word coloured with Africans today, the most common terms for Africans during that time were "negars", "blackamoors" and "Negroes" (no offence intended).

My personal theory is it is most likely he was a dark British fellow, bit like this:

[History Lives]

BTW, Potter is also a Romany Gypsy occupation, as they travelled up and down the country selling earthenware pots. John Potter may have been a Romany gypsy. I've heard 'potter' is a bit like 'tinker' in being an old term for Travellers.

[History Lives]

To give a little update to my research, I have been looking through the British Colonial Slave registers but they are 1813-34 , which is too late for our John Potter. However, there were several slaves called John Potter in Jamaica during that time period.

I couldn't find any record of a John Potter in the records for Alien Arrivals to Liverpool between 1790 and 1807.

Also, someone has posted an image of Louisa Potter (daughter of John Potter) on Ancestry.com . Its hard to tell much from the picture as it is not in colour but Louisa was clearly not what we would call "half-caste", meaning John Potter was not a full-blooded Sub Saharan African.

A few months ago I was in contact with a female direct descendant of John Potter and she has said her brother is going to get a DNA test which will tell us what YDNA haplogroup John Potter belonged to, which will be very informative.

[History Lives]

This is Louisa Hughes nee Potter, daughter of John Potter, courtesy of an Ancestry user. Not seeing any evidence of John being coloured, let alone black here but I'm keeping an open mind and continuing to search.