common last names for slaves in the 1800s

I was called by that name all the time I was with the Morrows. In 1850, Ward. Another slave named Bill who attended the sheep became Bill Shepherd. Tell me the name you were called before you met Phillip Fry? Wonderful to have first hand account that help shine light on the attitudes of our ancestors. Hi Susan, But if Romeo and Venus are now deemed baby-appropriate, why not Apollo? 1760-1810 Persons declared to be "white by law" or "free" (part 1), (part 2) at Jamaican Family Search Genealogy Research Library. A. The Voice of the Black Community in California, Last Updated on October 14, 2010 by Paulette Brown-Hinds. -William Faulkner, "Call it a clan, call it a network, all it a tribe, call it a family. This was the case with several others from Wessyngton. A 2nd great grandmother for example was baptised Sarah Charlotte Chase; her mother is recorded as being Ann Lewis Chase. 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. 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. The campaign in Britain to abolish slavery began in the 1760s, supported by both black and white abolitionists. There are also a few problems with the original dataset in name transcription such that a small number of first names were transposed with last names. Florence, Fiorella, Fleur, and Flower are translations, but we like Flora best of all. They cut it off from OCTAVIA. Students consider how US history books, films, and other works of popular culture have misrepresented the history of the Reconstruction era. CAs Push to Restore Voting Rights to System-Impacted Individuals Still in Custody, Eli Lilly to Cap Out-of-Pocket Insulin Costs, Asm. If searching for a slave owner with the same surname of your ancestor fails, check marriage records for the slave owners. Maria Aparecida Schumaher, Erico teixeira Vital Brazil. As enslavement continued through the 1800s, African American culture included naming practices that were national in scope by the time of emancipation, and intimately related to the slave trade. A. . 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. 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. 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. A. Mr. Thomas Jefferson of Louisville, bought me when I was three years of age from Mr. Dearing. I was only three years old when she died. Ref. It can be a difficult path, but just might be reachable. Minerva is the long-neglected name of the Roman goddess of wisdom and invention, the arts and martial strength, one of the. "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. They cut it off from OCTAVIA. I am an engineer by day, but my true passion lies in genealogy. . By clicking Accept, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. Another common way of distinguishing people would be 'son of', for example Johnson (son of John), Richardson, Wilson, Harrison etc. 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. . Search 30 million given names. 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. Is this the work of the evil spirits or from my bad karma? Is this my fate!To worsen matters, a given new European label applied only to one aspect of the nature (whereas his/her original name referred to a total identity) of the enslaved and this was an effective way to try to fragment a victims mindset. Have you visited the Whitney Plantation yet? In small communities where census takers and county officials knew African Americans personally and their previous owners, they often recorded the former slaves with the surnames of their last owners. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website. There was often a fluidity to the surnames that enslaved people had. I was called mostly Lewis Smith till after the war, although I was named Dick Lewis SmithDick was the brother of John Barnett whom I learned was my father . Unique Surnames to Grenada. Thanks for commenting and continued luck in your research, . There are certainly methods you can used to try to verify some of the storyyou can look for Carrington and Williams slaveholders in the area in which your ancestor lived in the 1870 census. Where did you get the maiden name of Smith from? He decided that he didnt want to be known as Cap Sherrod and that he would vote and marry under his choice of names. The three databases below provide details of 36,000 trans-Atlantic slave voyages, 10,000 intra-American ventures, names and personal information. I would appreciate any constructive comments on this question, which can be posted to me via my website address above. Explore the most common surnames in England. He was a planter with 20,000 acres of land in East Florida and was at the forefront of slavery in The . Many of the former slaves and some free people of color took the first name of their father, mother and sometimes former slaveowner as their last. 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. They established and held on to their own cultural traditions in the small spaces that slavery afforded them. 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. It is not uncommon to see an African American family listed with one surname in 1870 and another in 1880. Encyclopedia of North Carolina, University of North Carolina Press. Students learn about President Andrew Johnson and the Congressional Republican's conflicting visions of how to rebuild the nation after the Civil War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. I am the identical person who was named called and known as Dick Lewis Smith before the Civil War and during the Civil War and until I returned home after my military service . George Duncan Ludlow (1734-1808), colonial lawyer. Alfred Francis Russell (1817-1884), 10th President of Liberia. It starts with a young man falling in love with a girl. New surnames were created from a local regions name such as Smithfield the name taken might be Smith or Field. Facing History & Ourselves uses lessons of history to challenge teachers and their students to stand up to bigotry and hate. All rights reserved. Label vector designed by Ibrandify - Freepik.com, 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. Some of them developed a long-term relationship with one of the female slaves. My maternal grandmother was an Auber. 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. Some last names recognize certain histories or describe important events or narratives that mean a lot to the family. "While African-American genealogical research in many ways is like all genealogical research, the era of slavery makes the task especially challenging. Instead a wide variety of surnames came about that would be the family name for future generations. They cut it off from OCTAVIA. And my goodness, how kind of you to suggest a TED talk, maybe one of these days;) Genealogys pull is what initially pulled me into studying slavery, and also introduced me to the new understanding that historians are uncovering. Some of these individuals probably lived through the Civil War to become named citizens in Ashley County, Arkansas and may have taken the last name of Hollaway/Holaway or Terry/Tery. It starts with a young man falling in love with a girl. Harris: A patronymic meaning son of Harry. In the context of The Bahamas, the surname appears to originate with Denys Rolle, an American Loyalist who re-settled on Exuma, one of the so-called Out Islands of The Bahamas, sometime in the mid-1780s. These cookies do not store any personal information. . Edited by Gabriele vom Bruck and Barbara Bodenhorn, 178-199. Wide-ranging survey of naming practices in the (mainly Anglophone) Atlantic world both during and after slavery. See more details in the flier here and they are available for purchase for $10 . Until recently, scholarly consensus was that early African American names did not differ significantly from those of white Americans. In the late 1830s, Nathaniel Terry of Todd County, Kentucky died leaving a plantation of fifty slaves. 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. . Email:genealogy@slcl.org 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 . Isaac evolved from the name Yitzchaq, derived from the Hebrew word, Lysander is a distinctive Greek name that could be thought of as a more creative cousin of Alexander. . It is these single names that have been most often studied. Remember me. Rodriguez (Rodriguez is Spanish for the son of Rodrigo. Famous name bearers: many King Louis of France, Sandra Bullock's son and actor Louis Partridge. Q. 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. They ran away, fought back, feigned illness, destroyed tools, and clung to their families. . Delva 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.. John Lewis was born in 1831; in 1844 he and several family members were given to George A. Washington of Wessyngton. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. That is why you will find a lot of families in Louisiana with surnames like Baptiste, Narcisse, Jean-Louis, Nanette-Louise, Rene, Jacques etc Ive come across very few former slaves and fpoc using the surnames of their former owner. Gerald, however, is a Germanic name meaning ruler) 2. CLICK HERE TO SAVE YOUR SEAT! Davis: This name is a patronymic of David. Examples include: Francois, Jean, Pierre, and Leon for men; and Manon, Delphine, Marie Louise, Celeste, and Eugenie for women. 2023 Nameberry.com.Nameberry is a registered trademark of Nameberry, LLC. 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 Manifests - Alphabetical by Slave Names Return to Slave Manifests main page Click on each Slave name to view information on that voyage. That alone can make if difficult to research an African- American family during those years. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. Students consider what it means to be free by learning about the choices and aspirations of freedpeople immediately after Emancipation. For example, I know of one Louisiana family whose surname of Poulard evolved from a ancestor of the Poular nation(aka Fulani). This page is currently showing names ranked from 1 to 1000. At your request I have finally made available for viewing past popular webinars! Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. The resources Im getting from my colleagues through Facing History have been just invaluable. Thanks for adding your very experienced voice to the conversation. Robyn, youve done it again! Slavery. If the name is spelled Rodrigues, the name is Portuguese but has the same meaning) 3. 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). by John C. Inscoe, 2006; Revised May 2022 by NC Government & Heritage Library. Fortunately, the French and Latin were excellent record keepers and the Catholics were obsessed with knowing the kinship of everyone. This causes many researchers to wrongly conclude that enslaved people did not have surnames until after emancipation, which was not the case. Some of the most common or popular last names in the 1800s included Robinson, Clark, and Smith. Now, that parent's surname could very well be the surname of the most recent slaveholder or an earlier slaveholder. Elaine Fantham, Helene Peet Foley, Natalie Boymel Kampen, Sarah B. Pomeroy, H. A. Shapiro. The difficulties include using records that provide no surnames, the constant sale and breakup of families, and the lack of identification of fathers. 1-86-NARA-NARA or 1-866-272-6272, Finding Aids for the National Archives at Atlanta, National Archives Catalog (National Archives Identifier 2767350). ", "If you can't get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you might as well make it dance! Here, our list of notable early African American names. 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. Women tended to have two names, and slaves often just had one. 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. An accessible introduction to the field. However the frequent rebellions by . 2. I was bornthe child of Phillis Houston, slave of Sol Smith. 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. She served that family for a long time, perhaps more clues to her past lie in his family roots. This is common. Thank you. The majority of these slaves used the surname Lewis instead of Washington. 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. 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. ", "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? Corbin Corbin has an Old English origin. Surely the hundreds of black Culbert people living today cannot all be connected to those three cases. By examining periods of violence during the Reconstruction era, students learn about the potential backlash to political and social change. This is due in part to officials imposing surnames on them based on their last owners. 40. Place names that were disproportionately popular among Black Americans in history include Boston, Jamaica, York, and Africa. . Use the form below to get in touch with me and I'll get back to you as soon as possible. This phenomena makes research very complicated when you dont know the mothers surname. My father would be 105 if he were alive. A Wessyngton slave named Bill who was the plantations blacksmith was known as Billy the Smith during slavery. Turner was deeply religious,. 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. No, I dont know to whom she belonged before she was brought from Virginia to Kentucky. Login Forgot . It was after emancipation on that I went back to work for Col. Morrow and where I got the name Lottie, as already explained. I have been a researcher, writer, lecturer and teacher for over twenty years. In many cases this is ignored and children use their fathers name! So I asked my mother and she told me my father John Barnett, a white man, and I took up the name of Barnett . See flier for more details. Drawing on extensive archival records, this digital memorial allows analysis of the ships, traders, and captives in the Atlantic slave trade. Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on 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. Edited by Gabriele vom Bruck and Barbara Bodenhorn, 178199. . However, the common practice by slaveholders was to only use the given names of enslaved people in documents such as estate papers, court and deed records. You are the continuation of each of these people." Im very familiar with the work of Gwendolyn Hall and Elizabeth Shown Mills. Accueil > > Avr > 18 > Uncategorized > common last names for slaves in the 1800s. 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. Spencer is a name that has everything: it's both distinguished sounding and accessible, dignified but Spencer Tracy-like friendly. He identified father, mother and siblings in a Freedmans bank deposit in 1873, when he was already in New York City.

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