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The U.S. Mozingo family descends from Edward Mozingo (maybe Edward Mozingo, Sr.), a Bantu man from the Kingdom of Kongo who was kidnapped and forced into slavery in Colonial Virginia in 1644, and who became a free person in 1672 after suing for his freedom. Edward then "became a tenant tobacco farmer, married a white woman, and fathered one of the country’s earliest mixed-race family lineages," per Simon & Schuster.
Edward's descendants intermarried with poor white families in the U.S. South, and now most Mozingos are white, with some believing their surname comes from Italy, France, or the Basque Country. Genealogists, journalists, and academics focusing on the family have found that 90% of all U.S. Mozingos definitively trace back to Edward, and the remaining 10% are nearly certain to have descended from him -- especially since their furthest-back ancestors settled in the same small towns as his known descendants -- but have less paper trail available.
The name is not related to a French-Swiss name "Montsingaux" or its variants. A false etymology holds that the U.S. Monzingos are named after a mountain in France or Switzerland, often called "Mont Zingeau" by Americans, but this mountain does not exist and the legend has been debunked, per the Los Angeles Times. The use of "Montsingaux" is likely an attempt by some white descendants of Edward to hide their African roots by passing the name off as French. Additionally, per the Times, no researchers have been able to find any Mozingos other than Edward arriving in the U.S. in the 1600s-1800s.
Per NPR, the name as used today in Bantu-speaking areas is usually Musinga. Another variant used in the U.S. is Mazingo.
sources
- "A White Face With A Forgotten African Family." WBUR, published 24 November 2012. < https://www.wbur.org/npr/165512010/a-white-face-with-a-forgotten-af... > Accessed 11 April 2021.
- Mozingo, Joe. "In search of the meaning of 'Mozingo'." The Los Angeles Times via Newspapers.com, published 16 May 2010. < https://www.newspapers.com/image/193611157/ > Accessed 11 April 2021.
- Mozingo, Joe. The Fiddler on Pantico Run: An African Warrior, His White Descendants, A Search for Family. New York: Free Press, 2012.
- Simon & Schuster. "The Fiddler on Pantico Run." < https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Fiddler-on-Pantico-Run/J... > Accessed 11 April 2021.