common last names for slaves in the 1800s

Now, that parent's surname could very well be the surname of the most recent slaveholder or an earlier slaveholder. Thank you. 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. . Elijah is derived from the Hebrew name Eliyahu, composed of the elements. Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts South Atlantic Creole Archipelagos An accessible introduction to the field. Once the slaves were freed they found they did need another name besides a given name. Beginning in the early nineteenth century, more biblical names were given to enslavedchildren, a reflection of the widespread attempts to Christianize enslaved communities. College, Advanced AA Gen Class, September 2011, AAHGS Annual Genealogy Conference, November 2008, Howard Comm. And even though slave marriages were not legal, many enslaved people followed the practice of the wife taking her husbands surname: My mother was named Mary Bradley and my father was named Hilliard Bradley. Some scholars of slavery have come to view the names and naming of enslaved people as agauge of many aspects oflife and culture during enslavement and of howcustoms changed over time. . Thomas: Thomas is a common surname of biblical origin meaning twin. It can be a difficult path, but just might be reachable. Bailey, Word Stories Surrounding African American Slavery. They were Nelson Nunn and George Nunn and they may have changed their names to Crosby too because they were my fathers children.. They identified 21 distinctly Black male names, among them biblical classics such as Abraham and Moses, and word names including Freeman and Prince. Copy this link, or click below to email it to a friend. 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. Many of these were names of heroesbut not Lincoln. Chapter 4 gives a brief and introductory outline of naming in the United States during slavery and its consequences in African American culture. Explore the most common surnames in England. Melvin, . However, research byLisa D. Cook and colleagueshas revealed evidence of racialized names from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Robyn, Unraveling the origins of FPOC and slaves in Francophone Louisiana takes some thinking outside the fact, meticulous research ,familiarity with the local culture, history and a bit of serendipity on your side. A favorite of British novelists including Evelyn Waugh and P. G. Wodehouse, Ambrose has an air of blooming well-being and upper-class erudition. My fathers name was Gilbert Jackson, and after I was set free I took the name of my father, and have been known by the name Smith Jackson. My mothers name was Octavia Smith and it was from her that I got it but where the name came from to her I never knew. Gerald, however, is a Germanic name meaning ruler) 2. Wide-ranging survey of naming practices in the (mainly Anglophone) Atlantic world both during and after slavery. Robyn. A valuable and incisive discussion, both theoretically and historically informed, of slave naming in two African societies, the Caribbean, and the American South. One ancestor was known as Baber Masse, Elizabeth SENET and Elisabeth Leveille in different documents. Plus, Jonah comes with a ready-made nursery-decorating motif. In many cases this is ignored and children use their fathers name! No superior alternative has yet been found. common last names for slaves in the 1800s. how the surnames former slaves had were connected to their experiences in slavery. Rank. I was born in Montgomery County, Ala. the child of Phillis Houston, slave of Sol Smith. Besides the Morrows, whom else did you live with in Louisville? Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006. George Duncan Ludlow (1734-1808), colonial lawyer. While enslaved almost all had just one Christian name. 6. Relish, (Old French Origin) Derived from relaisse meaning "flavor or taste". Its knowledge that I think most Americans (not even just white Americans) dont have and it is endlessly fascinating and sobering both at the same time. Abebe: The genesis of this Ethiopian name is Amharic, and it means 'flower' or 'blossom'. Nameberry is a registered trademark of Nameberry, LLC. Drawing on extensive archival records, this digital memorial allows analysis of the ships, traders, and captives in the Atlantic slave trade. Many names, whether African derived or English, refer to birth circumstances, including both the ubiquitous day-names, which derive from the West African Akan-Twi language group, and others such as birth order and time of birth (e.g., day of the week, month, or season). I was bornthe child of Phillis Houston, slave of Sol Smith. The table below shows the most common last names with statistics on the heritage and ancestry of those with the surname. Harriet Tubman and some of the slaves she helped free. You can read about this in the following two posts on my blog. Besides the Morrows, whom else did you live with in Louisville? 1. In 1801, the British government took the first census for Great Britain and Ireland. USA.gov, The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration 1. Search 30 million given names. One thing I envy about the Catholic church is the baptisms available for even the enslaved people there. (Media Note: If you quote a post, please credit me by name, Robyn N. A Wessyngton slave named Bill who was the plantations blacksmith was known as Billy the Smith during slavery. 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. I was called by that name all the time I was with the Morrows. In ancient history, Lysander was the name of an esteemed Spartan naval commander and his literary cred comes from one of the two star-struck young men in Shakespeare's. 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. Over time, East Tennessee, hilly and dominated by small farms, retained the fewest number of slaves. There has been disagreement about whether it was slaveholders or the enslaved who gave the recorded names. One of the less well known aspects of the history of slavery is how many and how often non-whites owned and traded slaves in early America. 2. The result was the birth of mulatto, quadroon, or mustee (mestee) children. Besides the Morrows, whom else did you live with in Louisville? Finding the Slave Who Bore Philomene Daurat. There is also another historian, Gwendolyn Midlo Hall who did work on African ethnicities in Louisiana, you can read more of that here if you havent seen that yet: http://whitneyplantation.com/the-louisiana-slave-database.html, Again, I applaud you for doing the research on the history of the areas where your ancestors livedmany researchers dont realize how crucial that understanding is. I love that your example shows two brothers, who came to different conclusions about their surnames. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. Robyn. Hi Pat, But the bureau also compiled lists of the fastest-growing surnames in the United States and these include Zhang, Li, Ali, Liu, and Khan - a testament to the wonderful diversity of our nation. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one", "Friends are God's apologies for relations. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. Your current browser may not support copying via this button. It means 'clerk' or 'secretary'. 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. Proving their identity as former soldiers often revealed some of the most detailed explanations for former slaves choice of surnames. In French-speaking Louisiana, Slave names reflected the dominant language and thus were generally different from those in the English colonies. Most Popular African Last Names Or Surnames. 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. My maternal grandmother was an Auber. Q. St. Louis County Library. An 's' at the end of a personal name also meant 'son of', for example Richards, Stevens, Williams and so on. Names from the Bible were another common practice, for given and surnames. All of them are alive in this moment. I hope you dont mind my sharing those posts. Along with records from churches,manumission societies, enslavers, and estate settlements, these documents provide a vast pool of data from which to trace patterns and trends from the colonial period through emancipation. I also meant to email you and tell you how I enjoyed your article in the last NGSQ. 40. The idea was for the children to enter the inhumane system of slavery protected by a sense of Selfhood and history. [15] Alice Clifton (c. 1772-unknown), as an enslaved teenager, she was a defendant in an infanticide trial in 1787. 6. Or, the Slaves were given numbers or classical Greek names. Unfortunately, I am not knowledgeable enough about African and Caribbean research in the areas you name. They are part of Records of the U.S. Customs Service . I am not able to find any slaveholders in the Versailes area by the name of Ellis. In addition to time and place, a likely variable is whether the birth rate, in a severely overworked and maltreated population, was sufficient to ensure a relatively stable population over several generations, or whether the high mortality associated with slavery led to declining numbers and hence to the frequent acquisition of new slaves. Of course my mother wasnt a Bradley fore she married. Baby Name Generator. 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! When Wessyngtons owner George A. Washington married Margaret Lewis in 1849 her father gave the couple twenty-nine slaves. I found in the Civil War registry, an enslaved man who enrolled in the infantry under the name of Wash Ellis. Karen Halttunen, Murder Most Foul, p. 175. See flier for details; cost of this event is $25. Recognizable patterns of change in names and naming practices are evident from the mid-eighteenth century to the early nineteenth century and on through the 1860s. I focused on surnames but many of these books also discuss first names. ", "If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all the generations of your ancestors. I am awar eof the different naming traditions practiced in that area and I thank you for sharing them here for my readers. I make extensive use of tables for organization, analysis and citation in my research, and they have proven very popular with genealogists. Love you, Some last names recognize certain histories or describe important events or narratives that mean a lot to the family. If the former slave had been befriended or assisted in getting established after the Civil War, they might have taken that person's name. Names. It helps me to understand the complexity of surname variation I have found in researching the ancestral patterns of an African-American cemetery in my local area. Thank you, my dear friend, for adding this about enslaved people owned in the Caribbean is really important, as some of the customs were certainly different. "Slave revolts in Puerto Rico: conspiracies and uprisings, 17951873"; by: Guillermo A. Baralt; Markus Wiener Publishers; harvnb error: no target: CITEREFAssociation_of_Muslim_Social_ScientistsInternational_Institute_of_Islamic_Thought2008 (, sfnm error: no target: CITEREFSmith2001 (, sfnm error: no target: CITEREFWhite2016 (, sfn error: no target: CITEREFBrands2012 (, sfnm error: no target: CITEREFMcFeely1981 (, Last edited on 22 February 2023, at 03:19, sued her master for her freedom on that ground, United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, Diego Pacheco Tllez-Girn Gmez de Sandoval, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, South Carolina's 5th congressional district, List of the last surviving American slaves, Timeline of abolition of slavery and serfdom, Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, National Museum of African American History and Culture, "What is the divine purpose for sending prophets? He was a planter with 20,000 acres of land in East Florida and was at the forefront of slavery in The . this page. Join my mailing list below to learn about upcoming webinars. Names of prominent slaveholderse.g. In the. Email:genealogy@slcl.org 2023 The Voice of the Black Community in California. Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. It had always been passed down in the family that Thomas has been owned by the Blacks. The majority of these slaves used the surname Lewis instead of Washington. Ninety percent of them were African-American, a far higher black percentage than for any other common name. Herbert G. Gutman, The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 1750-1925 (1976). Slavery's reach is still with us, and part of the gift of doing African-American genealogy, "The past is not dead. My fathers name was John Crosby and he lived in the town of Geneva, Alabama, I had two brothers and one sister. that lists the slaves along with their surnames. Genealogy becomes so much more than just names and dates, it really feels like a true passion indeed. Others who wanted no connection to their former owners used surnames like Freeman or Freedman. 19. Phillis Wheatley (May 8, 1753 - December 5, 1784) Source = Wikimedia. -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." The resources Im getting from my colleagues through Facing History have been just invaluable. Trinidad and Tobago. She served that family for a long time, perhaps more clues to her past lie in his family roots. Seating is limited. The slave schedules of 1860 Arkansas do not give the names of the slaves. 1760-1810 Persons declared to be "white by law" or "free" (part 1), (part 2) at Jamaican Family Search Genealogy Research Library.

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