Both are excellent researchers and historians. . Several names have been added under the letter representing the person's last name. On the U.S. Federal census that year, Wesley's birthplace was recorded as Alabama, the same as his father, and his mother's birthplace was South Carolina . In 1870, all of them were listed with the surnames of their last owner; however, each one of them named their sons for one of their brothers. I also have a Slavery and Freedom Collection available for $20. 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. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. Currently, the most popular Black last name in America is Williams, with a total count of 774,920 people who have the surname. Lastly,emancipation itself often provoked many to choose new surnames, one of the few actual freedoms freedmen had. Alfred "Teen" Blackburn (1842-1951), one of the last living survivors of slavery in the United States who had a clear recollection of it. Former slaves often made up surnames based on their occupations. The 2000 U.S. Census counted 163,036 people with the surname Washington. Some of the most common or popular last names in the 1800s included Robinson, Clark, and Smith. In my research so far, I have found very little evidence of white Culbert slaveholders only three cases so far. No superior alternative has yet been found." . When I was born my mother was known as Phillis Smith and I took the name of Smith too. Mary Deborah Petite, "1836 Facts about the Alamo and the Texas War for Independence". 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. 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. -Unknown, "Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city;)" Just from the detail in your first comment, I knew there was a good chance you were already familiar with those authors. See flier for details; cost of this event is $25. FamilySearch Centers. -Hugh Kingsmill, "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?" Slavery is a social-economic system under which people are enslaved: deprived of personal freedom and forced to perform labor or services without compensation. A krio from.Freetown Sierra Leone. Farley, (English Origin) Victorian-era last names meaning "fern woodland". Your current browser may not support copying via this button. It was after emancipation on that I went back to work for Col. Morrow and where I got the name Lottie, as already explained. Besides the Morrows, whom else did you live with in Louisville? This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. This database is a compilation of information on over four thousand slaves from Louisiana who were involved in manumission (the formal emancipation from slavery) between 1719 and 1820. You can find many more examples of the above in my post, The Mind of the Slaveowner. This event is $12. By clicking Accept, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. Garcia is the Spanish variation of the word Gerald that means a pointed weapon, like a spear. I was born in Montgomery County, Ala. the child of Phillis Houston, slave of Sol Smith. Thank you for your comment, 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. . My maternal grandmother was an Auber. Introduction. There was often a fluidity to the surnames that enslaved people had. I belonged to him until emancipation. Finding State Laws About Slaves and Free Blacks, More Suggestions for White Slaveholder Descendants, http://justthinking130.blogspot.com/2009/09/calvin-r-yarborough-where-it-all-began.html, http://justthinking130.blogspot.com/2013/11/many-rivers-to-cross-my-priscilla.html, https://www.historicpathways.com/articles.html, http://whitneyplantation.com/the-louisiana-slave-database.html. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries African-American slaves retained Africanisms in their naming practices. Florence, Fiorella, Fleur, and Flower are translations, but we like Flora best of all. Dorothy, Doris or Dora: Meaning 'gift of God', this Victorian girl's name was popular in the 19th century. Email:genealogy@slcl.org Are you thinking this woman Eliza Ellis was married to Wash Ellis? So far Ive found no one who can give me any information about how these people assumed the Culbert surname. Brief, but stimulating and thoughtful for students coming new to the subject. Another slave named Bill who attended the sheep became Bill Shepherd. This event is $25. This reading contains quoted text not authored by Facing History & Ourselves. In 1911, Barnett and Frys widow, Mollie, both applied for pensions from the government. The association with the infamous Nero, the fiddling Roman emperor, would be unavoidable. Enslaved people suffered constant sale, where children were frequently torn away from parents at young ages and spouses were often separated. Hi Jann, . 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. Search 30 million given names. Three formerly enslaved people discuss their names and the changes they underwent after Emancipation. 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. You can use the links below to view more common surnames. I make extensive use of tables for organization, analysis and citation in my research, and they have proven very popular with genealogists. Leo (M) (Russian origin) means "lion". Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on Abel, the name of Adam and Eve's unfortunate younger son, compensates with positive connotations: capable, competent, ready and willing. For more details, see the flier here, and you can purchase them here. The Washingtons of Wessyngton Plantation: Stories of My Familys Journey to Freedom, A Thank You Letter from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, Plantation Records Key Link to African American Past . In his pension file, my great great grandmother his widow expressed that he chose his former enslaver surname because his father had been enslaved by them, too. Nonetheless, this is a situation where two brothers selected different surnames. The Washingtons of Wessyngton Plantation: Stories of My Familys Journey to Freedom is proudly powered by WordPress Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS). Dick Lewis Barnett and Phillip Fry were African American veterans of the Union Army during the Civil War. "Injurious Names: Naming, Disavowal, and Recuperation in Contexts of Slavery and Emancipation." In The Anthropology of Names and Naming. There are issues, too, about how to interpret the recorded names, which have been classified in different ways depending on researchers interests. American slave owners or slaveholders were owners of slaves in the United States which typically worked either as agriculture laborers or house servants. 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 made up my mind I'd find me a different one. Harris: A patronymic meaning son of Harry. I communicate with them on Facebook. Robyn. Slavery was coexistent with the founding in 1670 of the first permanent colony in South Carolina, and early official records occasionally contain the names of slaves.3 An inventory of the estate of Francis Jones in 1693 lists 'a negro man Jack' and 'a negro Woman name Jugg.'4 An inventory of the For personal use and not for further distribution. Perhaps Wash Ellis registered under the name of one of his parents. 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. Of the 972 names of male Slaves recorded between 1619 and 1799 the leading ones were Jack, Tom, Harry, Sam, Will, Caesar, Dick, John, Robin, Frank, Charles, Joe and Prince. 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. Place names that were disproportionately popular among Black Americans in history include Boston, Jamaica, York, and Africa. Extensive records of slaveholding over several generations exist for a number of North Carolina plantations, most notably the Skinner and Hayes plantations in Chowan County; Pettigrew plantations in Tyrrell, Washington, and Wake Counties; Bennehan-Cameron plantation in Orange County; Hargrove plantation in Granville County; Arrington plantations in Nash and Edgecombe Counties; Avery plantation in Burke County; and Lenoir plantation in Caldwell County. All rights reserved. The table below shows the most common last names with statistics on the heritage and ancestry of those with the surname. The Voice of the Black Community in California, Last Updated on October 14, 2010 by Paulette Brown-Hinds. 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. A. Mr. Thomas Jefferson of Louisville, bought me when I was three years of age from Mr. Dearing. 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. by John C. Inscoe, 2006; Revised May 2022 by NC Government & Heritage Library. John C. Inscoe, "Carolina Slave Names: An Index to Acculturation," Journal of Southern History 59 (November 1983). Unique Surnames to Grenada. Q. The battle was long and hard-fought, with pro-slavery campaigners arguing that the slave trade was important for the British economy and claiming that enslaved Africans were happy and well-treated. Slavery's reach is still with us, and part of the gift of doing African-American genealogy, "The past is not dead. Now, that parents surname could very well be the surname of the most recent slaveholder or an earlier slaveholder. Also, the government seemed to be in a almighty hurry to have us get names. Thank you for posing your question. Pinckney, Randolph, and Rutledgeappear only incidentally among any list of modern Black peoples names. 40. James: (M) (Latin origin) means "heel" or "supplanter". . Please submit permission requests for other use directly to the publisher. 5. Plus, Jonah comes with a ready-made nursery-decorating motif. [15] Alice Clifton (c. 1772-unknown), as an enslaved teenager, she was a defendant in an infanticide trial in 1787. Clark is a common surname of Anglo-Scottish origin. In 1911, Barnett and Fry's widow, Mollie, both applied for pensions from the government. 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. 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. The following documents are excerpts from government records in which Dick Barnett and Mollie (Smith) Russell explain when and why they changed their names. Jackson: This name is a patronymic of Jack. 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. Got.the name.Auber.. Hi Roxana, The brothers were sold when they were very young and remained with their last owners nearly thirty years. The resources Im getting from my colleagues through Facing History have been just invaluable. 42. 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. They are recorded with the Ashby surname on subsequent documents. Chery Meaning: derived from the Latin Cariacus, which means "land belonging to Cariu"; darling Origin: French 5. A Wessyngton slave named Bill who was the plantation's blacksmith was known as Billy the Smith during slavery. It is these single names that have been most often studied. Q. Ninety percent of them were African-American, a far higher black percentage than for any other common name. Rounding out the Top 40, here are the next 30 most common names among African-Americans and Caribbean people: Taylor (Jayceon Terrel Taylor "The Game") Wilson (Charlie Wilson) Moore (Shemar Moore) White (Barry White) Lewis (Carl Lewis) Walker (Jimmie J. J. Walker) Green (Al Green) Thompson (Kenan Thompson) Washington (Denzel Washington) common last names in the 1800s Patronymic surnames such as Jansen/Janssen, Hansen, and Petersen are the most common names in the far north (Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein). Where did you get the maiden name of Smith from? Rodriguez (Rodriguez is Spanish for the son of Rodrigo. No, I dont know to whom she belonged before she was brought from Virginia to Kentucky. 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. . As a result, many slaves used the surnames of their owners wifes family. Robyn. The link was not copied. I belonged to him until emancipation. My father would be 105 if he were alive. 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. CAs Push to Restore Voting Rights to System-Impacted Individuals Still in Custody, Eli Lilly to Cap Out-of-Pocket Insulin Costs, Asm. Corbin Corbin has an Old English origin. Abebe: The genesis of this Ethiopian name is Amharic, and it means 'flower' or 'blossom'. -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." Derived from the word anull that is the Catalan language dominantly used in southern France, Anouilh means 'slow worm'. The first published African-American poet & author Phillis Wheatley was born in West Africa. Robyn. 2019 (cited under the Anglophone Caribbean) includes a good general introduction to slave naming. Proving their identity as former soldiers often revealed some of the most detailed explanations for former slaves choice of surnames. A small number of creoles in Louisiana also acquired surnames derived from ethnic identities in Senegal. All children of a female slave were automatically slaves, considered as belonging to the owner of the mother. Even many given names of ancestors eventually became a surname, such as Todd or William. No superior alternative has yet been found. The following is a list of historical people who were enslaved at some point during their lives, in alphabetical order by first name. Wonderful to have first hand account that help shine light on the attitudes of our ancestors. How did you ever come by the name of "Mollie"? All of them are alive in this moment. Chapter 4 gives a brief and introductory outline of naming in the United States during slavery and its consequences in African American culture. Robyn, youve done it again! Copeland This last name comes from Old Norse origin. I am searching for information about a woman named Eliza Ellis, from Versailles KY or that area. I also see that in 1900 she is listed as widow with 1 child living, so you may have luck trying to find out who her child was. In Greek mythology, Daphne was the nymph daughter of Peneus, a river god. 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. For example, I know of one Louisiana family whose surname of Poulard evolved from a ancestor of the Poular nation(aka Fulani). Accueil > > Avr > 18 > Uncategorized > common last names for slaves in the 1800s. 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.". . slave rebellions, in the history of the Americas, periodic acts of violent resistance by Black slaves during nearly three centuries of chattel slavery. You are the continuation of each of these people.". Through a video-based activity, students examine Americas struggle for a stronger democracy during Reconstruction and today. College, Advanced AA Gen. Class, September 2009, Alice, Robyn and Lajoye, CM AAHGS, September 2017, Robyn and Andrea, NGS Conference, May 2014. (Media Note: If you quote a post, please credit me by name, Robyn N. 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 . BRATHWAITE - This name was derived from a geographic location in the north of England. 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. A valuable and incisive discussion, both theoretically and historically informed, of slave naming in two African societies, the Caribbean, and the American South. Daniel Odgen, Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts In The Greek and Roman Worlds, p. 119, Laurence Vidal, Los Amantes de Granada, Ed. Peneus saved Daphne from Apollos romantic obsessions by transforming her into a laurel tree. But I tell you, trying to document that all those names refer to the same person is hard, hard work! A great and timely article. What remains utterly amazing to me is that in the worst of circumstances, and in spite of every attempt to crush any idea that slaves were anything other than commodities, slaveholders did not succeed. Going back a decade to the 1850 Slave Schedule, both William Wood and Samuel O. One name you find frequently used was Freeman or Freedmen to declare their new freedom. An accessible introduction to the field. Although it is not widely known, some African Americans used surnames before they were emancipated. For him, this meant claiming his new identity as a freedman and a citizen. There are 15 tables, blank and editable for you to populate, as well as samples of using each. 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. One former slave Bill Scott from Wessyngton reported in his pension application for military service that when he enlisted in the Union Army officials put down his surname as Washington. Because I like to let formerly enslaved people speak for themselves, here are several examples of freedmen and women discussing their surnames. The Missouri Compromisealso referred to as the Compromise of 1820was an agreement between the pro- and anti-slavery factions regulating slavery in the western territories. One given name the childs family selected and kept secret and one the child was known by given by the slave owner. Over time, East Tennessee, hilly and dominated by small farms, retained the fewest number of slaves. Herbert G. Gutman, The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 1750-1925 (1976). A. Slavery. If the name is spelled Rodrigues, the name is Portuguese but has the same meaning) 3. I love how you have documented the history of your own surname. They established and held on to their own cultural traditions in the small spaces that slavery afforded them.