common last names for slaves in the 1800s

Email:genealogy@slcl.org You should give a TED talk! 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. 2023 The Voice of the Black Community in California. Manifests - Alphabetical by Slave Names Return to Slave Manifests main page Click on each Slave name to view information on that voyage. They cut it off from OCTAVIA. In 1911, Barnett and Frys widow, Mollie, both applied for pensions from the government. Popular English baby names by decade - 1840s - 1990s 1840s 5 Robert - 53 Margaret - 47 The 1860s first saw the Rimmers' use of 1870s Boys Girls Total registered births - 1,944 1 John - 160 Mary - 151 The 1870s first saw the Rimmers' use of What was the first girl's name in the 1900s? I love to hear from my readers. This event is $20. This was done more because it was the logical thing to do and the easiest way to be identified than it was through affection for the master. Most did not want to use their former owners surname, even through about 20% did use the slave owners name. Please share, in the comments below, examplesyou have come across of the surnames of enslaved people, especially if it was different from their last slaveholder. When Wessyngtons owner George A. Washington married Margaret Lewis in 1849 her father gave the couple twenty-nine slaves. Evie (F) (English origin) means "life" or "lively". Danish West Indies, Denmark, Records of Enslaved People, 1672-1917 Letter to James Edward Calhoun, August 27, 1831. Here are some common black last names: Jackson Davis Brown Wilson Harris Lewis Clark Walker Hall Thomas Young Allen King Wright Scott Baker Adams Nelson Carter Mitchell Perez Roberts Turner Phillips Campbell Parker Evans Edwards Green Hall Baker Bell Coleman Crawford James Reyes Most Common Black Last Names I worked for him as nurse for his children, and my full and correct name was OCTAVIA, but the family could not catch on to that long name and called me LOTTIE for short. - Jane Howard, "Friends are God's apologies for relations." Besides the Morrows, whom else did you live with in Louisville? These cookies do not store any personal information. Popular Last Names in the 1920s Gatsby Flapper Girl Louisiana, U.S., Records of Enslaved People, 1719-1820 - Ancestry.com There has been much debate among scholars, historians and genealogists whether enslaved African Americans used the surnames of their last owners, previous owners, or a surname that had no connection to slavery. African Americans in the U.S. Federal Census, 1870-1890 (National 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. Enslaved people suffered constant sale, where children were frequently torn away from parents at young ages and spouses were often separated. I especially recommend Mother, Thy Name is Mystery! this page. . common last names for slaves in the 1800s This unique-sounding French last name means 'bold' or 'daring'. I am the identical person who served in the said companies under the name of Lewis Smith. He was a slave owner and, in 1800 as Chief Justice of New Brunswick, he supported slavery in defiance of British practice at the time. . Surnames. 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. 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 . Therefore, a few of the most common first names of the time such as Mary (rank 815) and Sarah (1010) will appear in the list and surnames which correspond to personal names (e.g. Thank you. 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. When slave owners married, they often received slaves as wedding gifts and inheritances from their wifes family. Middle Tennessee, where tobacco, cattle, and grain became the favored crops, held the . Both comments and pings are currently closed. Q. Im very familiar with the work of Gwendolyn Hall and Elizabeth Shown Mills. Isaiah derives from the Hebrew Yeshayahu, containing the elements. A. Mr. Thomas Jefferson of Louisville, bought me when I was three years of age from Mr. Dearing. Robyn N. Smith, [insert post title], Reclaiming Kin (https://reclaimingkin.com: accessed [insert date you read the post]), [insert the date the post was written]. They called me OCK. Genealogy becomes so much more than just names and dates, it really feels like a true passion indeed. I am researching the surname Culbert worldwide, and the data can be found at: culbert.one-name.net There are a growing number of African Americans with this surname, which I believe originates in Scotland. 7. Delva 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. A. Lottie Smith was my name and what they called me before I met Phillip and was married to him. Enslaved people often transferred such names to later generations in modified form or relied on African naming traditions, such as "day names" or names reflecting the order of birth among siblings. Going back a decade to the 1850 Slave Schedule, both William Wood and Samuel O. Edited by Gabriele vom Bruck and Barbara Bodenhorn, 178199. Now, that parents surname could very well be the surname of the most recent slaveholder or an earlier slaveholder. 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. 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. . . In doing slave research in Barbados, I have found one group of enslaved Chase ancestors who were manumitted (freed) and given the last name of the former slave owner. Ones occupation also set the naming method, such as Sheperd, Cooper, or Smith. The given name Athena was derived from the city name Athens, which is of uncertain origins. "More than half of the surnames are derived from the Christian or fore-name of the father," [1] and based on a total of 3,253,800 people, nearly 18 in every 100 persons was known by one of these fifty surnames. Login Forgot . You can read the introductory maps for a high-level guided explanation, view the timeline and chronology of . Currently, the most popular Black last name in America is Williams, with a total count of 774,920 people who have the surname. Slavery's reach is still with us, and part of the gift of doing African-American genealogy is recovering the stories of those caught in its grasp who could not in their own time leave their own witness.". 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. Another common way of distinguishing people would be 'son of', for example Johnson (son of John), Richardson, Wilson, Harrison etc. 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. Geographic names were common, as were the names of ships or distant ports for enslaved peopleborn in places such as Wilmington or New Bern. Others who wanted no connection to their former owners used surnames like Freeman or Freedman. 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. Who called you by that name and where was it done? See flier for more details. Please submit permission requests for other use directly to the publisher. Dick Lewis Barnett and Phillip Fry were African American veterans of the Union Army during the Civil War. 5. Students examine how freed people in the United States sought to define freedom after Emancipation. Q. Can you steer me in the right direction? Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts South Atlantic Creole Archipelagos Victorian Surnames in England and Wales - Geri Walton Bradley was the last man owned em. Im jealous;) The common names there (Marie, Louise, etc) would test anyones genealogical skills, so I take my hat off to you. One of the largest sources are the Civil War pension records of the almost 200,000 black men who served in the US Army and Navy. Here, three different former slaves discuss their names and the changes they underwent after Emancipation. One thing I envy about the Catholic church is the baptisms available for even the enslaved people there. Q. Some of the most common or popular last names in the 1800s included Robinson, Clark, and Smith. 1850 US Census Name Frequencies - buckbd.com By country & year of birth. 7 Famous Slave Revolts - HISTORY Daniel Odgen, Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts In The Greek and Roman Worlds, p. 119, Laurence Vidal, Los Amantes de Granada, Ed. For more information about the records covered in this index,please contact the History and Genealogy Department. A. Lottie Smith was my name and what they called me before I met Phillip and was married to him. Facing History & Ourselves uses lessons of history to challenge teachers and their students to stand up to bigotry and hate. -Thich Nhat Hanh, evolve theme by Theme4PressPowered by WordPress, Maryland Genealogical Society Holiday Luncheon, December 2017-2, Washington FHC Annual Conference, May 2011, Baltimore Family History Conference, October 2017-2, International Black Genealogy Summit, September 2016-2, Carroll County Genealogical Society Dinner, June 2018, Baltimore Family History Conference, October 2017, Reginald Lewis Museum, September 2011-2.jpg, Maryland State Archives Family History Festival, October 2014-2, Central Maryland AAHGS Meeting, March 2013, Robyn, Vonda, Andrea and Glenn, NGS Conf., May 2014, Maryland Genealogical Society Holiday Luncheon, December 2017-1, Howard Comm. Expand or collapse the "in this article" section, Slave Names and Naming in the Anglophone Atlantic, Slave Names on Emancipation and after Slavery, Expand or collapse the "related articles" section, Expand or collapse the "forthcoming articles" section, African Retailers and Small Artisans in the Atlantic World, Alexander von Humboldt and Transatlantic Studies, Atlantic New Orleans: 18th and 19th Centuries, Black Atlantic in the Age of Revolutions, The, Chinese Indentured Servitude in the Atlantic World, Cities and Urbanization in Portuguese America, Colonial Governance in the Atlantic World, Comparative Indigenous History of the Americas, Criminal Transportation in the Atlantic World, Domestic Production and Consumption in the Atlantic World, Economy and Consumption in the Atlantic World. In the early years, especially between the 1860 and 1880s, families even changed a surname several times until they settled on a certain one. I make extensive use of tables for organization, analysis and citation in my research, and they have proven very popular with genealogists. . 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. . 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. Explore the most common surnames in England. Thanks for commenting and continued luck in your research, In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries African-American slaves retained Africanisms in their naming practices. Where did you get the maiden name of Smith from? I made up my mind I'd find me a different one. -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 box for father states unknown in law. Her marriage record states her name is Sarah Charlotte Gale, her father being John Sinclair Gale!

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