Is john hanson the moor john hanson African American and john hanson president of the continental congress the same man?

Answer 1

No they are not. There seems to be a lot of confusion on this issue, and people on the internet make it worse by spreading misinformation.

The problem here is that there were two famous men named John Hanson.

The first is John Hanson, who is considered one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He was a white man, whose family was from England. He was from Maryland, and in 1780, he became a member of the Continental Congress. In 1781, he was elected the first "President of Congress" under rules set forth by the Articles of Confederation. President of Congress (sometimes also referred to as the "President of the United States in Congress Assembled") was a position in the Continental Congress that vaguely resembles the current Speaker of the House position, except it was considered apolitical and had virtually no power- his job was to make sure that delegates properly followed the rules of debate and such; it wasn't an important job, and Hanson even considered quitting because he was old and in poor health. This John Hanson died in late 1783, shortly after the Colonies finally won their independence.

After John Hanson's death, one of his relatives started trying to convince people that Hanson was the first "President of the United States"- ignoring that the President of Congress was completely unrelated to the office of President of the US, and also ignoring that Hanson was not the first President of Congress either- he wasn't even the first President of Congress after the Declaration of Independence or the ratification of the Articles of Confederation! In the era of the internet, this misinformation has really picked up speed, and many people incorrectly claim he was really the first POTUS.

The other John Hanson in this equation is a black man who was probably from the US originally, but became a member of the American Colonization Society in the early 1800s. The ACS wanted to take free black men from the United States and bring them back to Africa to start their own country. In 1822, they successfully created the country of Liberia, whose capital city is named Monrovia, after James Monroe (Monroe was a US President, and had supported the ACS's resettlement plan). This John Hanson eventually served as a Senator in the Liberian government and died around the time of the US Civil War. The country of Liberia still exists to this day.

Sometimes you will see a photograph of John Hanson as an older black man wearing glasses and sitting on a chair- this is a picture of the Liberian John Hanson. The picture is a daguerreotype, which was a kind of early photography that was invented almost 60 years after the Founding Father John Hanson died.

So the confusion is two-fold: people on the internet claim that John Hanson was really the first President of the United States, and that he was a black man. Neither of these assertions is even remotely true, as I've shown above.

Answer 2

No, they are not the same person. John Hanson, referred to as the "Black" or "Moorish" John Hanson, was a prominent African American leader in the 18th century. He was not the president of the Continental Congress. The John Hanson who served as president of the Continental Congress was a different individual and was of European descent.