Talk:Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz

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Charlotte, North Carolina

Was Charlotte, North Carolina also named after her? Michael Hardy 00:02, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Yes. It's even the county seat of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. RickK 00:06, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Propose changing African ancestry "myth" to "claim"

I'd like to change the term "myth" to "claim" in this entry. Myth implies a long-standing and popularly held belief that has no grounding or has even been disproven or countered with historical research. By contrast, in this case, recent (20th c.) scholars are building a claim from historical evidence and reasonable historical conjecture. The claim is highly contentious but seems to be made in good faith and remains open to scholarly critique. Some of the evidence is indeed comprised of rumors or comments from the past, but not ones that ever rose to the status of popular myth, more like quiet whispers, so "myth" seems inaccurate to describe them. All this also assumes that the term is being used neutrally here. In this case, though, the use of "myth" seems to be working to discredit the claims before they can be considered, so it may represent a bias in the entry. "Claim" is a neutral term implying some have made the claim with some evidence, but that it remains contested on legitimate grounds, where as "myth" asserts already that it is factually untrue. Any opposition to replacing the term "myth" with "claim"? Troutfang (talk) 14:16, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

There is no need to change it. It is not a widely held scholarly position — Preceding unsigned comment added by 153.9.254.195 (talk) 13:34, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. I was unable to find a single peer reviewed article in Historical Abstracts to support this myth, and the entry on Princess Charlotte in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Online (revised 21 May 2009) by Clarissa Campbell Orr makes no mention of it either. The "evidence" for this ancestor myth is the argument that Princess Charlotte had "African features." This is especially flimsy because there were numerous fraudulent portraits of the princess in circulation. See Timothy Clayton's "A Spurious Charlotte Exposed" in Print Quarterly. Sep2008, Vol. 25 Issue 3, p254-267. Abstract: "Investigates the scandal in which prominent London print sellers John Bowles and Robert Sayer advertised fake portraits of German princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz following her betrothal to British king George III. The fraudulent print, which depicts Mrs. Geo Pitt, appeared in newspapers and caused a stir in the art community in the early 1760's. Newspaper articles chronicle the publishing history of the false print, tracing it to artist Richard Houston, who went on weeks later to produce a real portrait of Queen Charlotte. The scandal reflected the ruthlessness of the business at a time when the print selling trade soared in London." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.164.222.70 (talk) 19:24, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

"Margarita de Castro e Souza, a 15th-century Portuguese noblewoman who traced her ancestry to King Afonso III of Portugal (1210–1279) and one of his mistresses, Madragana (c. 1230–?), was from a "black branch of the Portuguese Royal House"" this appears to be the only real evidence, even if Madragana was black African, possible but statistically unlikely, after 5 centuries she would be one among something in the order of up to a million potential ancestors of Charlotte (assuming a generation is 25 years). We enter "no true scotsman" territory, if due to severe inbreeding and other sources of admixture (all speculative) she was by a miracle 0.1% black rather than 0.0001%, would she be black? It would not be in good faith to treat it like a legitimate claim, whether in light of the recent TV show or diversity or any other reason. If you want to attack someone, why attack people who hold to academic standards? Why pit diversity against it when there are real life equivalents like Alexander Pushkin and Alexandre Dumas fully supported by people who value facts and the truth and will never yield? 2A00:23C7:69A6:D01:7CBD:767D:2745:83D9 (talk) 12:40, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Agreed! Abedidos (talk) 04:38, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

It's a ridiculous myth and shouldn't be given the time of day on Misplaced Pages as the "claim" is pseudohistory. I propose it remains as is or be deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2a00:23c4:1e95:2201:4895:8967:4ba4:1a71 (talk • contribs) 00:13, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

African ancestry myth

It could be pointed out that an ancestor 15 generations before would be expected to contribute on the order of 2^-15 or 0.003% to an individuals DNA. If related to that ancestor by three lines, still only about 0.01%. It is unlikely that Charlotte could have inherited enough genetic information from Madragana to make her reckognizably "Negroid", even if Madragana was full-blooded subsaharn African. I believe DNA tests on people of supposedly "pure" European descent ususally show significantly more than 0.01% African. Compunded by the subsequent generations, it is highly unlikely that a DNA test on a modern descendant of Queen Charlotte could resolve this controversy. Eaberry (talk) 15:59, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Propose deletion of the "ancestry" section

So far as I an see the extended discussion of the African ancestry myth (to the exclusion of any information on her actual ancestry) serves no purpose other than to propogate an legitimise a fringe black supremacist theory that has no scholarly support or factual grounding and is far, far too long in relation to the rest of the article. See WP:BALASPS, WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE. Hence, it should be either removed altogether, or condensed to a couple of sentences simply stating the claims, and that they are unfounded and are uniformly rejected by historians. Ya hemos pasao (talk) 10:15, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Either delete it entirely or leave it as is, correctly labeled a myth. Now we have an IP coming in to edit war to pretend it's not a myth. Enigma 03:33, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

And now the edit-warring IP has registered an SPA... Enigma 16:27, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

”Bridgerton” is driving a lot of traffic to this page, though, so removing any discussion of the “myth” seems like a bad idea. 100.40.76.131 (talk) 03:04, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Honestly, sounds like a racist position to me. I knew about it before Bridgerton. Discounting black scholars are "fringe supremacist" is super telling of your character. BTW, people loved Valdes on this page when they thought they said Charlotte was 100% white. I changed it to what Valdes really said and then people brought out their pitchforks. Valdes must not be legit because OMG, uses 2 names. Valdes is a terrible person. Look at this source 100 years later after the contemporary sources. Then wanted to blame Bridgerton. That's some heavy bias there. Misplaced Pages is supposed to be NPOV. Not a website to support white supremacy.--KimYunmi (talk) 00:44, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

DNA evidence?

Would it not be possible to determine using DNA testing? I don't know if they could test her remains or her descendants. As far as her painting of Charlotte go they look very white, but that could have been the way she wished to be seen rather than her actual appearance. I feel this is worth pursuing if possible, not just to answer a question but to prove a point about racial equality. Ty78ejui (talk) 02:13, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute

The whole section on Charlotte's ancestry sounds like someone arguing she must be white because I say so. It's not NPOV. It was, until I changed the source to say what it actually said then a bunch of racists came in and tried to argue her to be white and then discount the source, when they left it alone when they thought it argued she was white. But that's not the point of wikipedia. It's too hardline on the fact she was white, skipping over the fact that her doctor and her actual official painter, she PREFERRED thought she was part black. That's quite a miss there. Most of the citations pondering her race, also are quite after the fact after she died, not contemporary to her or had a personal relationship with her. This is worth fixing and mentioning. I would do it, but every time I fix this page and try to make it more NPOV, some racist comes along and tries to argue she's white and delete the NPOV-ness. Please reconsider. Also, I think it's worth changing her portrait to her preferred painter, not trying to make further arguments about how she was really white and all the sources about her thinking she was black MUST be wrong. The mentioned portrait as the reference point, I noticed was removed. The scrubbing on this page is coming off really racist, honestly. Putting more weight on non--contemporary scholars and putting down PoC scholars, really doesn't look good for wikipedia. Looks kinda like white supremacy. Keep it NPOV, not racist. If people of her time period and her since she kept that company caring for her were of the opinion she was black, then maybe, just maybe she thought she was? Is that such a terrible thing? Let people ponder and draw their own conclusions, not cram down an opinion.

Historians are split on this, BTW. It's not hardlined one way or the other. But people are using selective bias because they hate the idea.

--KimYunmi (talk) 00:35, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

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