All rights reserved. 1  Huguenots: Wars of Religion and the Edict of Nantes-Wars of Religion and the Edict of Nantes The conspiracy of Amboise (1560; see Amboise, conspiracy ...
Wentworth Cheswell is said to be the first African-American to be elected to office in America. He was one quarter Black and three quarters White. He was elected as town constable of Newmarket, New Hampshire, in 1768 and served in some government position thereafter until his death â well, to be precise, every year but one.
Hiram Rhoades Revels was the first African American United States Senator, filling the seat left vacant by Jefferson Davis in 1861 when Mississippi seceded from the Union. Born in the 1820s in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Hiram Revels was the son of free parents of mixed African American and Native American ancestry. Revels moved with his family to Lincolnton, North Carolina in 1842, where he became a barber.