The Fiddler On Pantico Run By Joe Mozingo

Review
"Vividly fascinating... [Mozingo] unpacks our mixed-race colonial history and its heartbreaking consequences... Mozingo's most revelatory finding—the fundamental arbitrariness of racial designations—implicitly raises another question: What, if anything, does our genealogy really say about us?" (Elle )

"The Fiddler on Pantico Run is brilliantly researched, eloquently written, and a deeply thoughtful examination of race, identity and ancestry." (Minneapolis Star Tribune )

"Wide-ranging... [Mozingo] makes his personal history come alive. He successfully places his family's tale in the larger context of the tortuous history of race in America, connecting his personal genealogy to the tides of American history during the era of slavery." (Kirkus )

"Mozingo's thorough scouring of his genealogy from Africa to Jamestown, VA, is a quirky... and finally satisfying account... With irony and wit displayed in encounters with unprepossessing relatives, the author challenges received notions of race and class." (Publishers Weekly )

"Joe Mozingo has unearthed an extraordinary story and tells it powerfully. Beautifully composed, his narrative weaves together the past and present as he plunges deeply into his family's history. It is a brave journey, yielding one illumination after another." (Henry Wiencek, author of Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves )

"Unfolds like an adventure novel... captivating debut... carves out gems of wisdom in narrating his discoveries." (J. C. Gabel Los Angeles Times )
About the Author
Joe Mozingo is a projects reporter for the Los Angeles Times. He won a Robert F. Kennedy Award for his coverage of the earthquake in Haiti and helped lead a Miami Herald reporting team whose investigation into the crash of the space shuttle Columbia was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. The Fiddler on Pantico Run was named a finalist for the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award, administered by Columbia University and Harvard's Nieman Foundation. He lives in Southern California with his wife and two children.

[evsam]

I just discovered that, my great great (great?) grandmother was a Monzinga by birth. Truth is stranger than fiction. I’ll be buying the book to hear about the whole story! 👍🏻🙏🏻

[JediMasterMason]

I have been doing Genealogy research on my Lloyd's since 2005, in recent years I learned of a mulatto servant named Ann Redman, a servant in the Lloyd household. It's my theory that Thomas Lloyd fathered a child with Ann. Ann was a daughter of an english woman named Jane Redman, servant to the Lloyd's. I believe once Edward Mozingo became free in 1672 he went on the Lloyd plantation and met Jane, this resulted in the birth of Ann Redman. I believe the child of Ann and Thomas Lloyd is my 7th great grandfather, also named Thomas, died in 1740 in Isle of Wight County Virginia. When I kept looking at other records and info regarding this, I found that my Lloyd's had a plantation called Pantico in Westmoreland County and this is connected directly to the creek Pantico Run, where Edward Mozingo lived. I found another deed from 1698 that mentioned Thomas Lloyd living near Pantico Run. So, this is telling me that I likely come from Thomas and Ann, and that Ann is a daughter of Edward Mozingo 1644-1712. -Shawn Lloyd

[garymozingo]

Found this book an interesting read, likewise my descendants migrated down from Dinwiddie Cty, Va. Around the early 1900's

[bjmarianna]

Mozingo...C'est typiquement un nom africain originaire du Congo.