On
May 19, 2018, African-American actress Rachel Meghan Markle, born
August 4, 1981 in Los Angeles, California, entered the British Royal
Family by marrying Prince Harry, the grandson of Queen Elizabeth II, and
receiving the title of Duchess of Sussex.
Of Irish and Dutch origin by his father, a Hollywood director of
photography, the Duchess of Sussex, by her mother, Dona Loyce Ragland,
is of African descent and a descendant of slaves.
Meghan and hes mother
While some have wagged against the Duchess of Sussex’s origins, and
were upset about seeing her mother prominently at the ceremony of 19
May, other observers, better informed, have not failed to recall Prince
Harry himself has African origins which, though far away, are none the
less true.
Indeed, her ancestor Queen Charlotte Charlotte Mecklenburg-Strelitz,
wife of King George III, was also of African descent, as did not fail
to say the commentators of the time and as the portraits show enough .
Sophie Charlotte
According to Brazilian historian Mario de Valdes and Cocom, Sophie
Charlotte was the descendant of King Alfonso III of Portugal and of an
African woman, Ouruana, who was his favorite. Martin Alfonso, their son,
had married an Afro-descendant. Sophie Charlotte had at least a double
African origin in her genealogy, which could explain her phenotype.
Nothing prevents us from thinking that she had other African ancestors,
closer still, in her family tree.
It is interesting to remember that Sophie-Charlotte’s son, the
future George IV, was one of the best friends of the Chevalier de St.
George.
Meghan Markle is not the first Afro-descendant in the British royal
family, since her husband, too, is in the same case, like all his
paternal family since 1762!