common last names for slaves in the 1800s

In the 1760s Anglo-American frontiersmen, determined to settle the land, planted slavery firmly within the borders of what would become Tennessee. Now, that parents surname could very well be the surname of the most recent slaveholder or an earlier slaveholder. I was called by that name all the time I was with the Morrows. I want.to.know.where we (who are.descendants.of.freed.people.who.got sent.back.to Sierra Leone.from.maybe Nova Scotia.) He was a planter with 20,000 acres of land in East Florida and was at the forefront of slavery in The . 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. Corbin Corbin has an Old English origin. This entry was posted on Friday, August 28th, 2009 at 11:46 am and is filed under Civil War, Genealogy & DNA, Interviews. common last names for slaves in the 1800s. Robyn. In another case Sukey Ann and he 4 children were manumitted by their Ashby owner with only their first names. 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 . Bradley was the last man owned em. I mean, really retro. Robyn. 18. Thanks for this very thoughtful article. This unique-sounding French last name means 'bold' or 'daring'. To date there are no book-length studies covering the naming of slaves across the Anglophone Atlantic, but Burton 1999 and Kaplan and Bernays 1997 provide useful entry-level discussions for the Caribbean and mainland United States, respectively. Slaveholders often renamed newly acquired slaves; but self-naming by slaves, which also occurred, is likely to be underreported in the records, which were mainly created by and for slaveholders. When retained, a given name was generally changed to its full form: Thomas, not Tom; Elizabeth, not Bet. Thank you for posing your question. 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 Toussaint Louverture (1743-1803), a former slave, he enslaved a dozen people himself before becoming a general and a leader of the Haitian Revolution. 44. A. Mr. Thomas Jefferson of Louisville, bought me when I was three years of age from Mr. Dearing. Hello Slavery in America was the legal institution of enslaving human beings, mainly Africans and African Americans. The quote below, from a Southern Claims Commission file, is one of the most powerful and one of my favorites to use in lectures: I enlisted under Ross because that was my fathers name. Robinson: A patronymic of the name Robin. The last U.S.census slave schedules were enumerated by County in 1860 and included 393,975 named persons holding 3,950,546 unnamed slaves, or an average of about ten slaves per holder. No, I dont know to whom she belonged before she was brought from Virginia to Kentucky. I belonged to him until emancipation. LOTTIE had been the name of the nurse before me and so they just continued that same name. The first published African-American poet & author Phillis Wheatley was born in West Africa. There was often a fluidity to the surnames that enslaved people had. A. Lottie Smith was my name and what they called me before I met Phillip and was married to him. My father once told me his grandfather ran away from the Carrington place and changed his name to Williams. 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. Special slave censuses were kept in the early 1800s. James: (M) (Latin origin) means "heel" or "supplanter". This old French surname has Germanic origin, and means 'noble'. 1. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. Each is present in your body. 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. Your current browser may not support copying via this button. Brown: A common last name derived from an ancestor's complexion or the color of their hair. I hope youll sign up to receive my postsif you do, youll get a free PDF with some of my favorite tips! Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one" This phenomena makes research very complicated when you dont know the mothers surname. 7. Q. Political Participation in the Nineteenth Century Atlantic Portugal and Brazile in the Age of Revolutions, Poverty in the Early Modern English Atlantic, Reconstruction, Democracy, and United States Imperialism, Settlement and Region in British America, 1607-1763, Slavery in British and American Literature, Slavery in Dutch America and the West Indies, Slavery in North America, The Growth and Decline of. You can read about this in the following two posts on my blog. After emancipation, they all used the Terry surname because their families had been with the white Terry family for generations. Hi Jann, Gerald, however, is a Germanic name meaning ruler) 2. . One ancestor was known as Baber Masse, Elizabeth SENET and Elisabeth Leveille in different documents. Students explore the legacies of the Reconstruction era today, reflect on the idea of democracy as a continuous process, and consider how they can best participate in the ongoing work of strengthening our democracy. Thanks for all you to do keeps us all so enlightened! Accueil > > Avr > 18 > Uncategorized > common last names for slaves in the 1800s. ", "Call it a clan, call it a network, all it a tribe, call it a family. The surname issue really presents huge challenges for those of us doign this research, but you soulnd as though you are making headway. 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. Thats high on my to do list. See flier for more details. What are the most popular last names in the UK? Harriet Tubman and some of the slaves she helped free. This reading contains quoted text not authored by Facing History & Ourselves. 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. E. Togo Salmon Conference, E. Togo Salmon Conference 1993 Mcmaster University: Goodyear III, Frank H. "Photography changes the way we record and respond to social issues". Each name was a clue to her origins. The fifty most common Victorian surnames in England and Wales for 1853 are listed in alphabetical order below. In French-speaking Louisiana, Slave names reflected the dominant language and thus were generally different from those in the English colonies. Most did not want to use their former owners surname, even through about 20% did use the slave owners name. Copeland This last name comes from Old Norse origin. this page. 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. I love that your example shows two brothers, who came to different conclusions about their surnames. I have been unable to trace several of his siblings and now wonder if it might be because others did not take that name. Herbert G. Gutman, The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 1750-1925 (1976). I took the name of Jackson for the reason that I preferred to go by my fathers name, rather than the name of my last owner.. The 2000 U.S. Census counted 163,036 people with the surname Washington. Wood were recorded as slave. But there was also the detective Nero Wolfe, hero of many mystery stories. 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. In 1870, he is listed as John Washington. 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. While enslaved almost all had just one Christian name. The most common of 603 names of female Slaves were Bet, Mary, Jane, Hanna, Betty, Sarah, Phillis, Nan, Peg, and Sary. 43. The name.Auber.is also.in.Haiti and.is of.French orign. The given name Athena was derived from the city name Athens, which is of uncertain origins. that lists the slaves along with their surnames. 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. 41. In fact, it's not even past." They were all sold to different owners: Connell, Rose, Johnson, and Hughes respectively. Or, the Slaves were given numbers or classical Greek names. 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. Rather than being derived from the supernatural world, European given names were a mere handle or tag. 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). Best of luck to you, One frequently occurring name is Rolle. Thank you so much for your kind words. By clicking Accept, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. 77th U.S. Col Inf and Co. D. U.S. Col H Art under the name Lewis Smith which was the name I wore before the days of slavery were over. . For descendants, I would add the substantial emotional impact of seeing an ancestor's name attached to a dollar value, or being valued in a list with silverware and cattle. The idea was for the children to enter the inhumane system of slavery protected by a sense of Selfhood and history. You already know the rich historical terrain of FPOC in Louisiana, what terrific grounds for family research. After Emancipation, many former slaves adopted new names and surnames. By the late 19th century, England was home to about 300 surnames with traceable genealogy. College, Advanced AA Gen Class, September 2011, AAHGS Annual Genealogy Conference, November 2008, Howard Comm. I make extensive use of tables for organization, analysis and citation in my research, and they have proven very popular with genealogists. Evie (F) (English origin) means "life" or "lively". In 1836, William Turbeville died leaving an estate with several slaves who were brothers: Turner, Nelson, Simon, Jordan, and Jacob. EDHASA, 2006, 359 pages, (. If searching for a slave owner with the same surname of your ancestor fails, check marriage records for the slave owners. 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. Interestingly, the five most common American surnames as of 2010 haven't changed that much over time and are Smith, Johnson, Williams, Brown, and Jones. 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. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Newly emancipated slaves also frequently chose new first names, discarding those associated with slavery. 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. 3. Louis (M) (English origin) means "famous warrior". The table below shows the most common last names with statistics on the heritage and ancestry of those with the surname. Cora: We first fell in love with this short baby girl's name from Downton Abbey, but Cora was already popular in the 1800s, meaning 'maiden' or 'good'. 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. An accessible introduction to the field. Perhaps Wash Ellis registered under the name of one of his parents. 13 March 2022, 1-2:30pm [PAST EVENT], Eastern Standard Time: Cant find some of your ancestors in the census? It was after emancipation on that I went back to work for Col. Morrow and where I got the name Lottie, as already explained. -Unknown, "Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city;)" If a surname was needed, the slave owners family name might be used. Join me as I present this NEW webinar that covers why we miss our ancestors in these records and presents numerous strategies to assist in finding every clue in census records. 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. Robyn, youve done it again! Ninety percent of them were African-American, a far higher black percentage than for any other common name. 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.". Just makes me sad for the human spirit that anyone, let alone hundreds of thousands of people could participate in it. Most common last names names: 1-1000 | 1001-2000 | 2001-3000 | 3001-4000 | 4001-5000 He decided that he didnt want to be known as Cap Sherrod and that he would vote and marry under his choice of names. Encyclopedia of North Carolina, University of North Carolina Press. Currently, the most popular Black last name in America is Williams, with a total count of 774,920 people who have the surname. 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). 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. As a result, many slaves used the surnames of their owners wifes family. 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.

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