• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1429 0

Clinch Heyward conceded, “the slaves all had surnames, and immediately after they were freed these names came to light. The surnames were selected by the Negroes themselves. Scarcely ever did a Negro choose the name of his or her owner, but often took that of some other slaveholding family, of which he knew.” Occasionally, surnames other than that of the master would surface beyond the confines of the slave quarters, much to the surprise of the white family. “Mammy, what makes you call Henry Mr. Ferguson,” Susan Dabney Smedes remembered asking her “usually indulgent” mammy, who had taken her to a slave wedding. “Do you think ’cause we are black that we cyarn’t have no names?” she replied indignantly. Usually, however, such names were not publicly revealed until after emancipation.57

Although family pride was reason enough, certain practical considerations also encouraged the selection of names after emancipation. Whether to enlist in the Union Army, live in the contraband camps, apply for relief at the Freedmen’s Bureau office, or, some years later, vote in an election, blacks needed to register both a given name and a surname with Federal authorities. Henry Banner took his surname under the erroneous impression that it would qualify him for a government bounty of forty acres and these appear to have been exceptional cases; the ex-slaves themselves usually took the initiative—like the Virginia mother who changed the name of her son from Jeff Davis, which was how the master had known him, to Thomas Grant, which seemed to suggest the freedom she was now exercising. Whatever names the freed slaves adopted, whether that of a previous master, a national leader, an occupational skill, a place of residence, or a color, they were most often making that decision themselves. That was what mattered.62

That freedmen should have assumed the surnames of prominent white families might have flattered the patriarchal ego and self-image of the planter class, but it also left some whites in utter dismay and few of them had any notion of the considerations that entered into such decisions. “I used to be proud of my name,” Caroline Ravenel wrote a close friend. “I have ceased to be so. I fear it will no longer [be] spotless, as the two meanest negroes on the place have appropriated it.” Eliza Frances Andrews, the daughter of a prominent Georgian, expressed some amusement over the names taken by the family’s former slaves but she also proved to be far more perceptive than most whites. In the Andrews household, the family servant, Charity, announced on her wedding day that she had two names, like her “white folks”; she would henceforth be addressed as Mrs. Tatom, while her husband, Hamp, a field hand, would now be known as Mr. Sam Ampey Tatom. Trying to keep a straight face, Eliza Andrews asked her how they had come by the name of Tatom. “His grandfather used to belong to a Mr. Tatom,” she replied, “so he took his name for his entitles.” The blacks “seldom or never” adopted the names of their most recent owners, Miss Andrews observed; almost always, they would take the name of some former master, “and they go as far back as possible.” After all, she surmised, “it was the name of the actual owner that distinguished them in slavery, and I suppose they wish to throw off that badge of servitude. Then, too, they have their notions of family pride.” But even as these changes both amused and impressed her, Eliza Andrews had to confess to herself that they were not altogether pleasing.

All these changes are very sad to me, in spite of their comic side. There will soon be no more old mammies and daddies, no more old uncles and aunties. Instead of “maum Judy” and “uncle Jacob,” we shall have our “Mrs. Ampey Tatoms,” and our “Mr. Lewis Williamses.” The sweet ties that bound our old family servants to us will be broken and replaced with envy and ill-will.63

5

BEING FREE was often a day-to-day struggle, if only to understand the new possibilities and dangers. The achievement of an individual dignity and self-respect commensurate with their legal