Such resistance signified continual deep-rooted discontent with the condition of bondage and, in some places, such as the United States, resulted in ever-more-stringent mechanisms for social control and repression in slaveholding areas. Each is present in your body. They called me "OCK". Brutus) and a private name (e.g. Thank you for posing your question. -George Burns, "Where does the family start? Gerald, however, is a Germanic name meaning ruler) 2. This was the case with several others from Wessyngton. As a result, many slaves used the surnames of their owners wifes family. Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. Please submit permission requests for other use directly to the publisher. LOTTIE had been the name of the nurse before me and so they just continued that same name. The new surnames, usually not taken from a former slave owner, included: Williams, Jones, Johnson, Smith, Jackson, Thomas, Brown, Walker, Davis, Green, Robinson, Scott, Harris, Turner, and Anderson. 7. Col. Joshua John Ward of Georgetown, South Carolina: 1,130 Known as "King of the Rice Planters," Ward had 1,130 enslaved Blacks on the Brookgreen plantation in South Carolina. Genealogy becomes so much more than just names and dates, it really feels like a true passion indeed. Ones occupation also set the naming method, such as Sheperd, Cooper, or Smith. My maternal grandmother was an Auber. Another slave named Bill who attended the sheep became Bill Shepherd. Benson 2006 is one of the few general discussions of slave names. College, Advanced AA Gen. Class, September 2009, Alice, Robyn and Lajoye, CM AAHGS, September 2017, Robyn and Andrea, NGS Conference, May 2014. Robyn, youve done it again! Through a video-based activity, students explore how Radical Reconstruction changed the nature of voting rights and democracy in the South. . The highest percentage of African names was found among male slaves in the eighteenth century, when . In 1800, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman were able to escape their terrible life of enslavement and were able to help other slaves trapped in a world of forced labour and grant them freedom once again due to the Underground Railroads that helped him, his partner Anna Murray Douglas and many other fugitives sneak away from the horrible And again, as a white Southerner whose ancesters were NOT slaveowners, your blog is helping me to understand the real and horrible legacy of the peculiar institution. If a surname was needed, the slave owners family name might be used. Seating is limited. Tags: African American Names, African American Surnames, African Names, Black Surnames, Last Slave Owner, Plantation Owners, plantation slavery, Slave Family, Slave Naming Patterns, slave trade. Place names that were disproportionately popular among Black Americans in history include Boston, Jamaica, York, and Africa. Karen Halttunen, Murder Most Foul, p. 175. See more details in the flier here and they are available for purchase for $10 . This phenomena makes research very complicated when you dont know the mothers surname. ", "No matter what you've done for yourself or for humanity, if you can't look back on having given love and attention to your own family, what have you really accomplished? 3. A krio from.Freetown Sierra Leone. Cook Cook has an Old English origin, and it means 'one who cooks' or 'one who sold cooked meat'. Well, Ive gone off on a tangent again;) But thank you again for writing and thank you for the cemetery work (especially trying to include African-Americans you are doing that will be of benefit to others. Hello One frequently occurring name is Rolle. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Dick Lewis Barnett and Phillip Fry were African American veterans of the Union Army during the Civil War. No, I don't know to whom she belonged before she was brought from Virginia to Kentucky. Garcia is the Spanish variation of the word Gerald that means a pointed weapon, like a spear. Kindest regards, James: (M) (Latin origin) means "heel" or "supplanter". My hat goes off to you and your passionate efforts. While Smith remains the most common U.S. surname, for the first time, two Hispanic namesGarcia and Rodriguezmade the top 10. I first wrote about this in this 2009 post: http://justthinking130.blogspot.com/2009/09/calvin-r-yarborough-where-it-all-began.html, And,then, more recently in 2013, here: http://justthinking130.blogspot.com/2013/11/many-rivers-to-cross-my-priscilla.html. . "Injurious Names: Naming, Disavowal, and Recuperation in Contexts of Slavery and Emancipation." In The Anthropology of Names and Naming. There was often a fluidity to the surnames that enslaved people had. Hi Jann, Samuel had only two slaves: the man that could be Wilson and a 42-year-old woman. Where did you get the maiden name of Smith from? They reflect an acculturation process by which generations of enslaved people, increasingly removed from the direct influence of their first enslaved African ancestors, adopted the conventions of their enslavers, eventually creating a culture and value system all their own. Questions about slave naming intersect with some of the major debates in slavery studies (especially regarding Creolization and the formation of Atlantic Creoles) and can illuminate issues about the ethnicity of African slaves, the personhood and agency of those enslaved, the nature of kinship structures among the enslaved, and the survival of African cultural practices in the diaspora. A. I was first called by that name in the family of Col. Morrow in whose service I was in Louisville, Ky., just after the war. In French-speaking Louisiana, Slave names reflected the dominant language and thus were generally different from those in the English colonies. Claudia Bautista,Santa Monica, Calif. You must have JavaScript enabled to use this form. Harriet Tubman and some of the slaves she helped free. When I was born my mother was known as Phillis Smith and I took the name of Smith too. 2. A small number of creoles in Louisiana also acquired surnames derived from ethnic identities in Senegal. Manifests - Alphabetical by Slave Names Return to Slave Manifests main page Click on each Slave name to view information on that voyage. 17. E. Togo Salmon Conference, E. Togo Salmon Conference 1993 Mcmaster University: Goodyear III, Frank H. "Photography changes the way we record and respond to social issues". I love to hear from my readers. The existence of those surnames in the area would help to verify, but also, you are fortunate to have the important oral history of that name change in the first place, since so many of us dont. Special slave censuses were kept in the early 1800s. Many of the graves are unmarked or the markers have been damaged, but many descendents still live around here, so we hope to identify as many of the possible graves as we can. Where did you get the maiden name of Smith from? Turner was deeply religious,. College Advanced AA Gen. Class, November 2012, Robyn, Aaron, Karen, Katherine and Michael, October 2014, African-American Family History Conference, February 2015, African-American Genealogy Group Conference, October 2016, Central Maryland AAHGS, with Alice Harris, September 2015, Howard Comm. -Winston Churchill, "The great gift of family life is to be intimately acquainted with people you might never ever introduce yourself to had life not done it for you." Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. A. Mr. Thomas Jefferson of Louisville, bought me when I was three years of age from Mr. Dearing. Osprey Publishing 2008. Q. Names from the Bible were another common practice, for given and surnames. The fifty most common Victorian surnames in England and Wales for 1853 are listed in alphabetical order below. Baby Name Generator. Analyzing Creole names, especially those of African origin, demands a combination of historical and linguistic expertise that has not yet been systematically applied to slave names. Dear Robyn, I love that your example shows two brothers, who came to different conclusions about their surnames. Have you visited the Whitney Plantation yet? Both comments and pings are currently closed. But if Romeo and Venus are now deemed baby-appropriate, why not Apollo? . She was the great patroness-goddess of the city of Athens. 3. One thing for sure, historians are always expanding our knowledge on this topic.BTW, I am a big fan of your website and your work in the field! Gradually, to show contempt for Slaves, the captors used Buck and Wench for naming the genders till they became trade terms, like Filly and Shoat.Contempt for the male was removing his honorific attachment to fatherhood and manhood by being addressed as Boy. Once the vigorous years of his prime were passed, he was allowed to assume the title of Uncle. Females were called Gal, girl, or the name of some animal. I am a farmer. Q. The three databases below provide details of 36,000 trans-Atlantic slave voyages, 10,000 intra-American ventures, names and personal information. African Americans were known by these surnames in the slave community and often recorded by slave owners on plantation documents. Wide-ranging survey of naming practices in the (mainly Anglophone) Atlantic world both during and after slavery. The first published African-American poet & author Phillis Wheatley was born in West Africa. My Vimeo ON Demand video page lists six videos you can choose from to watch for 3 months ($15 each): -Finding the Last Slaveowner: Guidance and Case Studies, -Cluster Research: Using Groups of People to Find Your People, -Using Deed Records to Uncover Your Family, -Putting it All Together: Making Sense of All the Research You've Done and, -More Than Just a Name: Incorporating Social and Community History Into Your Research. The naming of slaves has not been treated in dedicated monographs, but it often figures in general accounts of plantation culture and the practices of enslavement. Our headquarters are located at: 89 South Street, Suite 401, Boston, MA 02111. But the meanings of names certainly evolved over time, and some have argued that the principles according to which an individual name was given (e.g., after a relative or ancestor) are at least as important as its apparent meaning and type. A. Mr. Thomas Jefferson of Louisville, bought me when I was three years of age from Mr. Dearing. With mythological names rising, the handsome son of Zeus and god of medicine, music, and poetry among many other things might offer an interesting, if high-pressure, option. I was born in Montgomery County, Ala. the child of Phillis Houston, slave of Sol Smith. Robyn. Augustin Meaning: a descendant of Augustine Origin: English 2. They established and held on to their own cultural traditions in the small spaces that slavery afforded them. Enslaved people remained legally nameless from the time of their capture until their purchase by American enslavers. The most common origin for surnames is that enslaved people initially used the surname of either their mother or their father, if they knew what those names were. Copeland This last name comes from Old Norse origin. that lists the slaves along with their surnames. The same family may appear with different surnames in the 1870 and 1880 federal census records, and may appear in other records with either, both, or a third surname altogether. The difficulties include using records that provide no surnames, the constant sale and breakup of families, and the lack of identification of fathers. Names and Naming, African Africans arriving in the American colonies and later the United States continued to give their children African names well into the nineteenth century. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. Thanks for all you to do keeps us all so enlightened! It is these single names that have been most often studied. Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on Im very familiar with the work of Gwendolyn Hall and Elizabeth Shown Mills. The campaign in Britain to abolish slavery began in the 1760s, supported by both black and white abolitionists. Flora, the name of the Roman goddess of flowers and spring, who enjoyed eternal youth, is one of the gently old-fashioned girls' flower names we think is due for a comebackalongside cousins Cora and Dora. Delva I mean, really retro. On all subsequent census records, he is listed as John Lewis. The most common of 603 names of female Slaves were Bet, Mary, Jane, Hanna, Betty, Sarah, Phillis, Nan, Peg, and Sary. Some of these examples come from the wonderful book, Voices of Emancipation: I served [in the War] as Henry Lock, the Lock being my old Massas name but since the War I have taken name of Rollie., [Edward] was owned by Drury Stovall and went by the name of Edward Stovall. 782 Lists of Slave owners with names of slaves Tamme, 766 Tom, 766 West, 766 Will, 766 Barker, Nathaniel Harry, 591, 700, 746, 767 Barkley, Barbary Grace, 651 Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one", "Friends are God's apologies for relations. After emancipation, he became William Smith. LOTTIE had been the name of the nurse before me and so they just continued that same name. Minerva is the long-neglected name of the Roman goddess of wisdom and invention, the arts and martial strength, one of the. Allard. Maria Aparecida Schumaher, Erico teixeira Vital Brazil. A. Lottie Smith was my name and what they called me before I met Phillip and was married to him. Miracle, (Old English and Latin Origin) Derived from the first name Mauritius meaning "dark". According to the latest search data available, Italian last names and their meanings are searched for nearly, 40,500 times per month. In freedom, Jean-Louis was known as Louis SEM or Louis FUSELIER until finally using SAM. This happened mostly on large plantations where several individuals had the same first names and a surname was used to distinguish them from one another. My mother's name was Octavia Smith and it was from her that I got it but where the name came from to her I never knew. He identified father, mother and siblings in a Freedmans bank deposit in 1873, when he was already in New York City. By the late 19th century, England was home to about 300 surnames with traceable genealogy. 1. slave rebellions, in the history of the Americas, periodic acts of violent resistance by Black slaves during nearly three centuries of chattel slavery. The name James has been a popular Victorian male names in the 1800s. John Lewis was born in 1831; in 1844 he and several family members were given to George A. Washington of Wessyngton. In my research so far, I have found very little evidence of white Culbert slaveholders only three cases so far. Encyclopedia of North Carolina, University of North Carolina Press. In fact, it's not even past. Famous name bearers: many King Louis of France, Sandra Bullock's son and actor Louis Partridge. . ", "The great gift of family life is to be intimately acquainted with people you might never ever introduce yourself to had life not done it for you. Here are an even dozen, pretty much forgotten slanglike words or sayings from the 19th century, rediscovered while delving in the archives and with added guidance from James Maitman's 1891 . Emphasizes the giving and repeated use of names as a performative act of domination. 5. -Kendall Hailey, "If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all the generations of your ancestors. The origins of this last name date back to the pre-medieval period. Even tiny steps are huge in someones life. A Wessyngton slave named Bill who was the plantations blacksmith was known as Billy the Smith during slavery. 6. Thank you as always, your posts are so helpful. ", "If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all the generations of your ancestors. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. FamilySearch Centers. Instead a wide variety of surnames came about that would be the family name for future generations. I find it interesting that they often used the strange phrase he calls himself in the ads, as if having a given name and a surname was silly: Ran away from the subscriber on the 25th of October, a well set dark mulattoe man named Jem, but calls himself James Ferguson.. Robyn. This is due in part to officials imposing surnames on them based on their last owners. So I asked my mother and she told me my father John Barnett, a white man, and I took up the name of Barnett . The following documents are excerpts from government records in which Dick Barnett and Mollie (Smith) Russell explain when and why they changed their names. Three formerly enslaved people discuss their names and the changes they underwent after Emancipation.