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!