Hans Jonatan

His paternity is uncertain, but Pálsson argues in his biography that his father was a white Dane, Hans Gram, who was the secretary of his owners for three years;[4] his mother was Emilia Regina, a black 'house slave' who is first recorded in 1773 at the St Croix plantation of La Reine, where she was presumably born.

[6] Hans Jonatan was enslaved by Heinrich Ludvig Ernst von Schimmelmann and his wife Henriette Catharina.

In 1789 the Schimmelmann family moved to Copenhagen as the plantation business took a downturn, bringing Emilia Regina and, later, Hans Jonatan with them.

However, in the case Generalmajorinde Henriette de Schimmelmann contra mulatten Hans Jonatan 1802, Ørsted sentenced him on March 31, 1802, to be returned to the West Indies.

The study was aided by the extreme rarity of African heritage in Iceland, the homogeneity of the country's population, and its comprehensive genealogical database.

[9] Despite the popular tale of former prime minister Davíð Oddsson being Jonatan's descendant, no sources back up that claim.

[14] In 2023, Danish community theatre company Hammermøllens Teatergruppe performed the musical En fri mand (English: A Free Man) about the life of Hans Jonatan.

The musical was written by Rasmus Mark Pedersen and Ulrik Trolle Schwartz,[15] and Hans Jonatan was portrayed by Haile Grangaard Bach.