The, For descendants, I would add the substantial emotional impact of seeing an ancestor's name attached to a dollar value, or being valued in a list with silverware and cattle. ", "Call it a clan, call it a network, all it a tribe, call it a family. This blog is where I share family history methods, resources, tips and advice, with an emphasis on slave research, slavery and its aftermath. Newly emancipated slaves also frequently chose new first names, discarding those associated with slavery. Societies. The practice was common until its abolition in 1865 with the end of the Civil War and the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution.. For the time being, we are using this as the Slavery Plantation umbrella or portal. I liked the name better than Octavia, and so I took it with me to Danville, and was never called anything else there than that name. 6. Once the slaves were freed they found they did need another name besides a given name. In Greek mythology, Athena is the name of the daughter of Zeus who was the goddess of wisdom, warfare, handicrafts, mathematics, and courage, among others. My maternal grandmother was an Auber. As a newspaper that publishes in the spirit of the Black Press, the Black Voice News has given voice to the voiceless and shined a light on systemic inequities and disparities since 1972. Q. The surname issue really presents huge challenges for those of us doign this research, but you soulnd as though you are making headway. In the. (Media Note: If you quote a post, please credit me by name, Robyn N. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries African-American slaves retained Africanisms in their naming practices. There are so many examples of every kind of scenario, and I think it just speaks to the variety of experiences our ancestors had. Brown: A common last name derived from an ancestor's complexion or the color of their hair. Here, our list of notable early African American names. Slavery. Also largely unrecorded are the alternative names the enslaved used among themselves, sometimes called country names or basket names; they may also, according to African practice, have had multiple names over a lifetime. Choose the best name for your child. Special slave censuses were kept in the early 1800s. They called me OCK. And this example from another pension file shows how even the given name of this enslaved woman was held under little regard: Testimony of Mollie Russell (widow of Phillip Fry), September 19, 1911: Q. Robyn. Robyn. ", "Families are like fudge; mostly sweet with a few nuts. -Unknown, "Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city;)" Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one", "Friends are God's apologies for relations. If a surname was needed, the slave owners family name might be used. Students learn about the violent responses to the transformation of US democracy that occurred as a result of Radical Reconstruction. It means 'raven'. The slave schedules of 1860 Arkansas do not give the names of the slaves. This is another instance of oral history being a key component in tracing African American ancestry. Several of the other slaves were sold to various slave owners. As a result, many slaves used the surnames of their owners wifes family. Anthropologist Meyer Fortes's observation that the naming practices of any society "epitomize personal experiences, historical happenings, attitudes to life, and cultural ideas and values" holds particularly true for African American enslaved people. Former slaves often used surnames names of historical figures such as Washington, Jefferson or Jackson. Hi Donna, "Albumen print of enslaved women and their children near Alexandria, Virginia." -Elbert Hubbard, "Families are like fudge; mostly sweet with a few nuts." Tell me the name you were called before you met Phillip Fry? Currently, the most popular Black last name in America is Williams, with a total count of 774,920 people who have the surname. Former slaves often made up surnames based on their occupations. This financial assistance was available to all Civil War veterans and their families. On another branch, members of the Griffin family from around Campbell County VA all stuck together and are believed to have kept family bonds & name of their father after Emancipation. An enslaved child sold away from their parents at a young age to the Deep South would probably have a different sense of naming than enslaved children who were able to grow up in the presence of their parents and extended family. Chapter 4 gives a brief and introductory outline of naming in the United States during slavery and its consequences in African American culture. The Genealogy Source Table Collection includes 10 blank, editable source tables for death certificates, city directories, obituaries and funeral programs. 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. Until recently, scholarly consensus was that early African American names did not differ significantly from those of white Americans. Going back a decade to the 1850 Slave Schedule, both William Wood and Samuel O. My great great grandfather in Mississippi took the surname of the previous SC enslaver, whose widow sold him away. In 1836, William Turbeville died leaving an estate with several slaves who were brothers: Turner, Nelson, Simon, Jordan, and Jacob. The Voice of the Black Community in California, Last Updated on October 14, 2010 by Paulette Brown-Hinds. Students consider what it means to be free by learning about the choices and aspirations of freedpeople immediately after Emancipation. Used by permission of the publisher. Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), born into slavery in Maryland and escaped to the Northeast in 1838, where he became an internationally renowned abolitionist writer, speaker, and diplomat. My fathers name was John Crosby and he lived in the town of Geneva, Alabama, I had two brothers and one sister. Mining the Census: Are You Finding Every Clue? 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. Alfred Francis Russell (1817-1884), 10th President of Liberia. This reading contains quoted text not authored by Facing History & Ourselves. Q. Ebba: One of the more unique girl names from the 1800s. Jackson: This name is a patronymic of Jack. The following documents are excerpts from government records in which Dick Barnett and Mollie (Smith) Russell explain when and why they changed their names. No superior alternative has yet been found. This event is $20. this page. I also have a Slavery and Freedom Collection available for $20. They did so either to take on a surname for the first time, or to replace a name or surname given to them by a former master. Abel, the name of Adam and Eve's unfortunate younger son, compensates with positive connotations: capable, competent, ready and willing. . South Atlantic Creole A Spanish America After Independence, 1825-1900, Tudor and Stuart Britain in the Wider World, 1485-1685, Warfare, Medicine, and Disease in the Atlantic World. i did a simple search of the 1860 slave schedule using the name Culbert and came up with slaveholders in MS,VA,NC,AL,GA and SC holding 17 enslaved people. In the 1760s Anglo-American frontiersmen, determined to settle the land, planted slavery firmly within the borders of what would become Tennessee. Women tended to have two names, and slaves often just had one. Garcia is the Spanish variation of the word Gerald that means a pointed weapon, like a spear. Table 7. 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. Im very familiar with the work of Gwendolyn Hall and Elizabeth Shown Mills. The names that were brought together to form "Geffery" were "Gaufrid" (territory-peace), "Godafrid" (god-peace), and "Galfridus" (song-peace). . Eliza Moore (1843 - January 21, 1948) Source = Pinimg. With your explanations in mind, I will go back over a couple of family groups and re-assess the surname ambiguousness I have in my notes. In 2001, I began a process of transcribing names of some of the largest slaveholders and matching the surnames with numbers of African Americans on the 1870 . Q. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. I was only three years old when she died. Davis: This name is a patronymic of David. This lively Old Testament nature name (belonging to one of the three beautiful daughters of Job) may be missing from the current US Top 1000 list, but it ranks highly here on Nameberry making it one to watch! However, a small change to searching on C?lbert, which accounts for the variations in spelling expands that initial list to 877 enslaved people owned by people with those names. On Anglican (Church of England) baptisms records the child legally and officially is documented with the surname of the mother if she and the father were not married. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. The result was the birth of mulatto, quadroon, or mustee (mestee) children. Thank you so much for your kind words. 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. By examining periods of violence during the Reconstruction era, students learn about the potential backlash to political and social change. In fact, it's not even past. I hope you dont mind my sharing those posts. 77th U.S. Col Inf and Co. D. U.S. Col H Art under the name Lewis Smith which was the name I wore before the days of slavery were over. I dont know what became of his parents. Surnames like Chantimel have disappeared, while names like Horsford and Ackie, coming from Antigua (where they are common), or Quarless, Dowden, Chandler, and Dottin from Barbados, have enriched Grenada's family history and cultural identity. Karen Halttunen, Murder Most Foul, p. 175. The 2000 U.S. Census counted 163,036 people with the surname Washington. Elijah is derived from the Hebrew name Eliyahu, composed of the elements. For more information about the records covered in this index,please contact the History and Genealogy Department. A. The table below shows the most common last names with statistics on the heritage and ancestry of those with the surname. Names. Q. Recently, I was looking for more information on Wesley Thompson, who was born about 1835 and who was living in Morgan County, Alabama with his wife, Nellie, and five children in 1880. I was called mostly Lewis Smith till after the war, although I was named Dick Lewis Smith After the War, I was wearing the name Lewis Smith, but I found the negroes were taking the names of their fathers, like the white folks. Join me as I present this NEW webinar that covers why we miss our ancestors in these records and presents numerous strategies to assist in finding every clue in census records. Harris: A patronymic meaning son of Harry. The box for father states unknown in law. Her marriage record states her name is Sarah Charlotte Gale, her father being John Sinclair Gale! . Available from https://nmaahc.si.edu/object/nmaahc_2014.174.8?destination=/explore/collection/search%3Fedan_q%3Denslaved%26edan_fq%255B0%255D%3Dobject_type%253A%2522Photographs%2522 (accessed May 6, 2022). "The past is not dead. . Nat Turner's Rebellion One of the most famous slave revolts in American history came in 1831 when Nat Turner led a bloody uprising in Southampton County, Virginia. Eugene D. Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (1974). 17. 1. 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. Born in Union County, South Carolina, he was sold to his last enslaver in 1858 and then brought to Mississippi. Explore the most common surnames in England. No, I dont know to whom she belonged before she was brought from Virginia to Kentucky. Place names that were disproportionately popular among Black Americans in history include Boston, Jamaica, York, and Africa. Join my mailing list below to receive my posts and get a free PDF with some of my favorite tips! 44. The population was more than 16 million and the industrial revolution was under way, which debunks any perception of a broadly colonial society. Slaveholders often renamed newly acquired slaves; but self-naming by slaves, which also occurred, is likely to be underreported in the records, which were mainly created by and for slaveholders. Students examine the factors that led many northerners to turn against federal policies passed during the Reconstruction era that protected freedpeople. Numerous historical sources confirm that enslaved people had surnames that they used among themselves and in many cases were known by their slaveholder. Whereas names withAfrican, classical, or other unique origins were popular during enslavement, --- often continuingfrom one generation to the next and creating a distinctive nomenclature unlike that of southern whites -- free black peopleoften used more traditionally Anglicized versions of their first names. Although enslavers often assigned names to newly acquired enslaved peoplethat were whimsical, satirical, or condescending in intent, the frequent appearance of classical names-Venus, Cato, Hercules, Bacchus, Pompey-reflect enslavers' own educations and libraries. I have done quite a bit of genealogy for my own family, and it was difficult enough, but what you are doing, is incredible work. 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. Your current browser may not support copying via this button. Many enslaved people were allowed to keep their original African names or names assigned them elsewhere (as reflected by the frequency of Spanish and Portuguese names among the first generation of enslaved people in the Carolinas.) Brief, but stimulating and thoughtful for students coming new to the subject. Data from the 2010 Census tells a different story. Geographic names were common, as were the names of ships or distant ports for enslaved peopleborn in places such as Wilmington or New Bern. Isaiah derives from the Hebrew Yeshayahu, containing the elements. In 1911, Barnett and Fry's widow, Mollie, both applied for pensions from the government. 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.

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