", "Call it a clan, call it a network, all it a tribe, call it a family. Thank you for your comment, There has been disagreement about whether it was slaveholders or the enslaved who gave the recorded names. Thomas Black Cobbs was owned by a small slave owner Catherine Black. Unique Surnames to Grenada. Top 130 French Last Names or Surnames With Meanings - FirstCry Parenting Numerous historical sources confirm that enslaved people had surnames that they used among themselves and in many cases were known by their slaveholder. Robyn, youve done it again! My hat goes off to you and your passionate efforts. See flier for more details. Renate, 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. The three databases below provide details of 36,000 trans-Atlantic slave voyages, 10,000 intra-American ventures, names and personal information. Famous name bearers: many King Louis of France, Sandra Bullock's son and actor Louis Partridge. The 2000 U.S. Census counted 163,036 people with the surname Washington. Most did not want to use their former owners surname, even through about 20% did use the slave owners name. Q. 16 Most Famous Female Slaves of African American Origin 1. Many took the surname of famous or celebrated people; such as 'Lincoln', 'Grant', and 'Washington' was very popular. 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. They identified 21 distinctly Black male names, among them biblical classics such as Abraham and Moses, and word names including Freeman and Prince. Injurious Names: Naming, Disavowal, and Recuperation in Contexts of Slavery and Emancipation. In The Anthropology of Names and Naming. James: (M) (Latin origin) means "heel" or "supplanter". 100 Victorian Last Names With Meanings And History | Kidadl Slavery existed in the United States from its founding in 1776 and became the main . Robinson: A patronymic of the name Robin. Osprey Publishing 2008. Washington: The 'blackest name' in America | The Seattle Times Here, three different former slaves discuss their names and the changes they underwent after Emancipation. African Americans in the U.S. Federal Census, 1870-1890 (National If the former slave had been befriended or assisted in getting established after the Civil War, they might have taken that persons name. I was bornthe child of Phillis Houston, slave of Sol Smith. Olympic speed skater Apolo Anton Ohno might inspire some parents. Top 100 Southern Surnames or Last Names With Meanings - FirstCry Parenting Other common surnames included Jones, Matthews, Sinclair, and Bennett, Price, and Gray.. Where did you get the maiden name of Smith from? The Complexity of Slave Surnames > Reclaiming Kin Of course my mother wasnt a Bradley fore she married. I belonged to him until emancipation. Slave Names In The Americas - Black Voice News I think mostly about family separationas a mother now myself, the very idea that my dear child could be sold to who knows where, never to be seen again..just reduces me to tears anytime. They were Nelson Nunn and George Nunn and they may have changed their names to Crosby too because they were my fathers children.. Thanks for writing this post! The campaign in Britain to abolish slavery began in the 1760s, supported by both black and white abolitionists. Join my mailing list below to learn about upcoming webinars. Another slave named Bill who attended the sheep became Bill Shepherd. Lists Of Most Common Bajan (Barbados) Last Names - Blogger Top 100 Best Names From The 1800s | Kidadl I just cannot imagine (thankfully) the idea of my name being changed with every new owner, with not having any idea of what my parents surnames were, of having a white father but not being able to have a father/child relationship with himand all the other myriad of circumstances that enslaved people faced. The names they gave their children provide a valuable, if limited, index of that process over time. Sabe, Anque, Bumbo, Jobah, Quamana, Taynay, and Yearie) used in the Slave quarters. 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. 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. Both comments and pings are currently closed. No, I don't know to whom she belonged before she was brought from Virginia to Kentucky. The most common of 603 names of female Slaves were Bet, Mary, Jane, Hanna, Betty, Sarah, Phillis, Nan, Peg, and Sary. I am sure your father would also be very proud of your interest in family history. Abebe: The genesis of this Ethiopian name is Amharic, and it means 'flower' or 'blossom'. Wood were recorded as slave. I found in the Civil War registry, an enslaved man who enrolled in the infantry under the name of Wash Ellis. If a surname was needed, the slave owners family name might be used. Enslaved people resisted in ways large and small. 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]. In my research so far, I have found very little evidence of white Culbert slaveholders only three cases so far. Part of what drives me in this research, I think, is the feeling that I am reclaiming their stories, their names, and their very being, even if what I uncover is just a tiny bit. If the slaveholder or another free white man was their father, many Creoles did use either is first or last name as a surname. In order to receive their pensions decades later, these former soldiers and their family members had to demonstrate to the government that they were who they claimed to be. CAs Push to Restore Voting Rights to System-Impacted Individuals Still in Custody, Eli Lilly to Cap Out-of-Pocket Insulin Costs, Asm. This is due in part to officials imposing surnames on them based on their last owners. Thanks LaBrenda! And now that it's been chosen by Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale, it could take off as their first son's nameKingstonhas. 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. Turner was deeply religious,. It is these single names that have been most often studied. Enslaved peoplethemselves sometimes chose names denoting weather conditions at the time of their child's birth or some distinctive feature of his or her appearance. -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." Proving their identity as former soldiers often revealed some of the most detailed explanations for former slaves choice of surnames. CLICK HERE TO REGISTER NOW! So far Ive found no one who can give me any information about how these people assumed the Culbert surname. 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. Surely the hundreds of black Culbert people living today cannot all be connected to those three cases. Benson, Susan. This meant that army records documented their service with their old names instead of their new ones. I did not even check the 1850 slave schedule. Q. 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. 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. In these cases, unless the name change had been passed down in the family by oral history, it would be impossible to trace the family back any further. Post Author: Post published: 18 avril 2022; Post Category: . Baptiste Meaning: derived from the name Bautista; the Spanish form of Baptist Origin: Spanish 3. The poster on each page *provides the link to the handout* for that lecture, so be sure to copy it. Danish West Indies, Denmark, Records of Enslaved People, 1672-1917 CLICK HERE TO SAVE YOUR SEAT! Slavery is a social-economic system under which people are enslaved: deprived of personal freedom and forced to perform labor or services without compensation. It comes from the same Greek root as 'ambrosia', the food of the gods, said to confer immortality. Thanks for this very thoughtful article. Even many given names of ancestors eventually became a surname, such as Todd or William. Abel, the name of Adam and Eve's unfortunate younger son, compensates with positive connotations: capable, competent, ready and willing. Ive taken back reclaimed some of that lost memory, especially that of my enslaved ancestors. 100 Most Common US Surnames Origins and Meanings - ThoughtCo 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. 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. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Also, the government seemed to be in a almighty hurry to have us get names. African Americans tended to use surnames associated with their own families instead of the last slave owner. Each is present in your body. Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on 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. The result was the birth of mulatto, quadroon, or mustee (mestee) children. ", "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? Place names that were disproportionately popular among Black Americans in history include Boston, Jamaica, York, and Africa. Who called you by that name and where was it done? 13 March 2022, 1-2:30pm [PAST EVENT], Eastern Standard Time: Cant find some of your ancestors in the census? This topic interests me greatly and Id like to do more research. It means 'raven'. Until recently, scholarly consensus was that early African American names did not differ significantly from those of white Americans.