The island of St Helena played a crucial role in the suppression of the transatlantic slave trade. Strategically located in the middle of the South Atlantic, it served as a staging post for the Royal Navy and reception point for enslaved Africans who had been “liberated” from slave ships intercepted by the British. In total, St Helena received approximately 27,000 liberated Africans between 1840 and 1867. Written sources suggest that the majority of these individuals came from West Central Africa, but their precise origins are unknown. Here, we report the results of ancient DNA analyses that we conducted as part of a wider effort to commemorate St Helena’s liberated Africans and to restore knowledge of their lives and experiences. We generated partial genomes (0.1–0.5×) for 20 individuals whose remains had been recovered during archaeological excavations on the island. We compared their genomes with genotype data for over 3,000 present-day individuals from 90 populations across sub-Saharan Africa and conclude that the individuals most likely originated from different source populations within the general area between northern Angola and Gabon. We also find that the majority (17/20) of the individuals were male, supporting a well-documented sex bias in the latter phase of the transatlantic slave trade. The study expands our understanding of St Helena’s liberated African community and illustrates how ancient DNA analyses can be used to investigate the origins and identities of individuals whose lives were bound up in the story of slavery and its abolition.

圣赫勒拿岛在打击跨大西洋奴隶贸易方面发挥了至关重要的作用。它位于南大西洋中部，地理位置优越，是皇家海军的中转站，也是从英国拦截的奴隶船上“解放”的非洲奴隶的接待站。1840 年至 1867 年间，圣赫勒拿岛总共接收了大约 27,000 名获得解放的非洲人。书面资料显示，这些人中的大多数来自中非西部，但他们的确切来源尚不清楚。在此，我们报告了古代 DNA 分析的结果，这些分析是我们为纪念圣赫勒拿岛解放的非洲人并恢复有关他们的生活和经历的知识而进行的更广泛努力的一部分。我们为岛上考古发掘期间发现的 20 个人的遗骸生成了部分基因组 (0.1–0.5×)。我们将他们的基因组与来自撒哈拉以南非洲 90 个人群的 3,000 多个当今个体的基因型数据进行了比较，得出的结论是，这些个体很可能起源于安哥拉北部和加蓬之间的一般地区内的不同来源群体。我们还发现，大多数（17/20）人是男性，这支持了跨大西洋奴隶贸易后期有据可查的性别偏见。这项研究扩大了我们对圣赫勒拿岛解放后的非洲社区的了解，并说明了如何利用古代 DNA 分析来调查那些生活与奴隶制及其废除故事息息相关的个人的起源和身份。