Scipio Vaughan

Early life and career Scipio was born as an Omoba in 1784 in the Owu kingdom of Abeokuta in Yorubaland. He was captured by European trans-Atlantic slave traders in 1805 and taken together with other captured slaves to the Velekete Slave Market in Badagry, one of Nigeria's slave portal, from where he was shipped in a slave ship to America and taken upcountry to Camden, about 30 miles northeast of Columbia, South Carolina to Charleston, South Carolina, United States. There he was sold as a slave to a white master, Wiley Vaughan and brought to live in Camden. As per the prevailing tradition, he took the surname of his master in addition to his given name; Scipio, as Scipio Vaughan. Scipio was so skilled as an ironmonger that he established a reputation in the area as a talented artisan for his work in fashioning iron gates and fences. and married a British architect, Alan Richards, with whom she had four children including the filmmaker Remi Vaughan-Richards.

American lineage James Churchill Vaughan's sister, Mary Elizabeth Vaughan Mac Laughlin (1838-1863) who remained in the United States, married a Scot named Mac Laughlin. They had one child, Harriet Josephine Mac Laughlin Carter (1856-1917). Harriet Josephine Mac Laughlin had 12 children. Aida Arabella Stradford was Harriet's third child. Arabella Stradford who married Cornelius Francis Stradford, a renowned Chicago attorney and historic activist, was the driving force behind the survival of the family tradition in the United States. Aida Arabella Stradford had three children, Jewel Lafontant-Mankarious, Burrell Carter and Cornelius Francis Jr. Jewel Lafontant-Mankarious (1922-1997) was the first woman to earn a J.D. degree from the University of Chicago Law School. In 1973, U.S. President Nixon also appointed her to be the first woman to hold the post of Deputy Solicitor General in the Justice Department. Jewel's son is the American businessman John W. Rogers Jr., and her cousin was the civic activist Muriel Snowden.

Cousin reunions The American Vaughans started the incentive to trace their African heritage and re-unite with the African group of the Vaughan family. The Vaughans first attempt to convene a reunion started in August 1970, when several family members convened a meeting in Pittsburgh and decided to arrange an annual reunion of all their known relatives. They read the research of a deceased family member, Aida Arabella Stradford, a South Carolina school teacher, and studied census figures, family Bible records and other documents. The Nigerian Vaughans and their American relatives stayed in touch through the years after Churchill's death with periodic "Cousin" reunions. Today, the American Vaughans are now a network of more than 3,000 cousins from over 22 states – along with their Nigerian cousins. From the daughters, who remained in the United States, the cousins have traced the eight main family lines - Barnes, Brevard, Bufford, Cauthen, McGriff, Peay, Truesdale and Vaughan.

Prominent lines amongst the Nigerian Vaughans include Vaughan, Coker, Moore and Vaughan-Richards. The Nigerian Vaughans and their American relatives have stayed in touch through the years after James Churchill Vaughan Sr.'s death, and today the Nigerians take part in the periodic "Cousin" reunions in America.