Been in the Storm So Long_ The Aftermath of Slavery - Leon F. Litwack [186]
If freedmen retained or adopted their master’s surname, this did not necessarily reflect any deep affection for him or the conditions of bondage on that plantation. In many instances, the name of the ex-slave’s parents or grandparents was the same as that of the master, and that alone was sufficient reason to hold on to it. Martin Jackson, who had been a slave on the Fitzpatrick plantation in Texas, thought many years later that taking the master’s name after emancipation had reflected expediency more than anything else. “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. Also, the government seemed to be in a almighty hurry to have us get names. We had to register as someone, so we could be citizens.” When forced to choose his own surname, however, Jackson thought about all the slaves who would assume the name Fitzpatrick. “I made up my mind I’d find me a different one. One of my grandfathers in Africa was called Jeaceo, and so I decided to be Jackson.”60
The freedman who took the name of an earlier owner, perhaps the first owner he could recall, often made that choice out of a sense of historical identity, continuity, and family pride—the reputation of the particular master notwithstanding. The idea was not to honor a previous master but to sustain some identification with the freedman’s family of origin.
I don’t know whether my father used his master’s name or his father’s name. His father’s name was Jerry Greene, and his master’s name was Henry Bibb. I don’t know which name he went by, but I call myself Greene because his father’s name was Jerry Greene.
After emancipation, Aleck Gillison adopted the surname of a previous master who had sold him; so did Jim Henry’s father, who had once belonged to the Patrick Henry family of Virginia; Isaac Thomas, the slave of I. D. Thomas, a Texas planter, returned to his old home in Florida, where he “find out he people and git he real name, and dat am Beckett.” Similarly, Anson Harp had belonged to Tom Harp, a Mississippi planter, before being separated from his parents and sold to James Henry Hammond, a prominent South Carolina planter. After the war, he refused to take the name of Hammond, “ ’cause too many of his slaves do,” and decided to keep the name of his old master. That was “the one my daddy and mammy had,” he explained, though he never saw them again after their forced separation.61
In adopting surnames, as in other manifestations of their new freedom, the ex-slaves defied any easy categorization. If, for a variety of reasons, some took the names of old or recent masters, many openly repudiated such names. “That’s my ole rebel master’s title,” a young South Carolina black protested after he used the name of Middleton in a freedmen’s school. “Him’s nothing to me now. I don’t belong to he no longer, an’ I don’t see no use in being called for him.” While enrolling a freedman in the Union Army, a recruiting officer in Tennessee demanded that he take a surname and suggested that of his previous master. The proposal struck the young black man with obvious dismay. “No, suh,” he replied emphatically. “I’se had nuff o’ ole massa.” In some instances, Federal officials expedited the naming process by furnishing the names themselves, and invariably the name would be the same as that of the freedman’s most recent master. But they had spent together, and the forced separation, she could only say, “White folk’s got a heap to answer for the way they’ve done to colored folks! So much they wont never pray it away!”53
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COMPARED TO THE MANY acute problems facing the freedman, the question of his name might have seemed the least consequential. But the newly freed slaves thought otherwise, sharing a concern