Edited by Azizi Powell
This pancocojams post provides one excerpt and one complete post of two online articles/posts about astrology and Harriet Tubman. These are the only articles/posts that I've found to date on this subject. And one of those posts mistakes March 10, the date of Harriet Tubman's death, as her birth day.
This post also includes a third excerpt about dreaming and Harriet Tubman as it seems to me that the information in that article might be helpful in creating an astrological profile for Harriet Tubman. The information in that article about Ashanti (Asante) [Ghana, West Africa] traditional concepts about psychic dreams is particularly interesting to me, and I highly recommend anyone else interested in that subject to read that entire article.
Although I'm interested in astrology I unfortunately don't have the skill to create any astrological profiles. I hope that this compilation helps to spur someone to write more about this subject and attempt to come up with a possible astrological profile for this extraordinary woman.
The content of this post is presented for historical and socio-cultural purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thank you, Harriet Tubman for everything that you accomplished throughout your phenomenal life. Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.
-snip-
Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2016/04/dreams-as-validator-in-traditional.html for the related pancocojams post entitled ""Dreams As Validator In Traditional African Cultures" (pdf excerpt)"
Also, click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2016/04/harriet-tubman-biography-animated-movie.html for a pancocojams post entitled "Harriet Tubman (Biography, Animated Movie, & Announcement About Her Image On United States $20 Bills)"
Here are two excerpts from the biographical portion of that post:
From http://www.biography.com/people/harriet-tubman-9511430#early-life
..."Harriet Tubman was an American bondwoman who escaped from slavery in the South to become a leading abolitionist before the American Civil War. She was born in Maryland in 1820, and successfully escaped in 1849. Yet she returned many times to rescue both family members and non-relatives from the plantation system. She led hundreds to freedom in the North as the most famous "conductor" on the Underground Railroad, an elaborate secret network of safe houses organized for that purpose."
**
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Tubman
"Harriet Tubman (born Araminta Ross; c. 1822[1] – March 10, 1913) was an African-American abolitionist, humanitarian, and a Union spy during the American Civil War....
In 1849, Tubman escaped to Philadelphia, then immediately returned to Maryland to rescue her family. Slowly, one group at a time, she brought relatives with her out of the state, and eventually guided dozens of other slaves to freedom. Traveling by night and in extreme secrecy, Tubman (or "Moses", as she was called) "never lost a passenger". Her actions made slave owners anxious and angry, and they posted rewards for her capture. After the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was passed, she helped guide fugitives farther north into Canada, and helped newly freed slaves find work.
When the Civil War began, Tubman worked for the Union Army, first as a cook and nurse, and then as an armed scout and spy. The first woman to lead an armed expedition in the war, she guided the raid at Combahee Ferry, which liberated more than seven hundred slaves. After the war, she retired to the family home on property she had purchased in 1859 in Auburn, New York, where she cared for her aging parents. She was active in the women's suffrage movement until illness overtook her and she had to be admitted to a home for elderly African-Americans that she had helped to establish years earlier. After she died in 1913, she became an icon of American courage and freedom."...
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EXCERPTS ABOUT HARRIET TUBMAN AND ASTROLOGY
From http://www.astrologyweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=84273 ScorpioCrow, 05-16-2015, 06:31 PM
"Harriet Tubman?
It is very unfortunate that we do not know for sure when she was born. According to several biographies she was born in either 1820 or 1821 (into slavery), which tells us very little about what her chart might have looked like. Slaves' birthdays were not recorded. Darn!!
I'm sure if we did know, there would be significant aspects indicating her place in the fight for freeing slaves. If freedom = Jupiter, perhaps she had a prominent Jupiter or Pluto (radical change - it's said on this forum that a lot of celebrities and well-knowns have Pluto prominent)...
If an analysis of her personality is possible (maybe via quotes, etc), it might be feasible to reconstruct her chart. Like if she showed, for example, Cancer Moon and Scorpio Sun traits, we could assume she had those placements and determine a possible birthday from that.
Oh yeah, I just remembered that when she was about twelve she suffered a head injury which put her in a coma for like a month, and would fall asleep at random times for the rest of her life as a result. Sounds like an Aries/Pisces issue to me. She died at about 93 years old in 1913, if that helps rectify a chart."
**
From http://www.dailyhoroscope.com/horoscope-headlines/women-in-history-horoscope
Pisces (Feb. 19 to March 20)
"Harriet Tubman: March 10, c. 1820
Wherever selfless acts are found, so too is probably at least one Pisces. Harriet Tubman was born into slavery, so it was easy for her to understand why it was necessary to help others escape this inhuman condition, as she had done. As a result of a brutal accident caused by an irate slave owner, Harriet suffered a head injury which was said to have caused her to have visions -- vivid dreams and claims that she was receiving message from God. Given that she was born under the most visionary sign in the zodiac, it could be that Harriet truly was inspired by a power greater than anyone on the earthly plane.”
****
EXCERPT ABOUT HARRIET TUBMAN AND DREAMING
From http://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/dreamgates/2014/05/harriet-tubman-and-west-african-traditions-of-dreaming.html "Harriet Tubman and Ashanti traditions of dreaming" posted by Robert Moss
Adapted from The Secret History of Dreaming by Robert Moss. Published by New World Library. Source notes for quotes and facts here are in the book.
..."Harriet Tubman is an exemplar of how dreaming can contribute to liberating people and communities from an unjust order.
Harriet Tubman famous conductor of the Underground Railroad helped many escaping slaves to get to freedom in the years before the American Civil War. She used dreams and visions of maps to get parties of fugitive slaves across otherwise unknown terrain, even across a flooded river....
In 1907, a reporter for the New York Herald plucked this from her memories: “The old mammies to whom she told dreams were wont to nod knowingly and say, ‘I reckon youse one o’ dem Shantees, chile.’ For they knew the tradition of the unconquerable Ashantee blood, which in a slave made him a thorn in the side of the planter or cane grower whose property he became.”
The “Ashantee”, or Ashanti, are a matrilineal people of the forests and highlands of Ghana, known in Harriet’s time as the Gold Coast. Recollections of gossip heard in childhood are not evidence that Harriet had Ashanti blood, but they suggest that the Ashanti were known where she grew up, and she was associated with them in people’s minds...
Harriet said she inherited special gifts — including the ability to travel outside the body and to visit the future — from her father, who “could always predict the future” and “foretold the Mexican war”.
We have an interesting source on Ashanti dreaming in Captain Robert S. Rattray, a British “government anthropologist” stationed in the Gold Coast before and after World War I. Rattray became a passionate student of the Ashanti, who called this Scot “Red Pepper” because of his blazing red hair. Though sometimes baffled by the mobility of consciousness among the West Africans he interviewed, he did his best to record Ashanti dream practices.
“To the Ashanti mind,” Rattray explains, “dreams are caused either by the visitations of denizens of the spirit world, or by spirits, i.e. volatile souls of persons still alive, or by the journeyings of one’s own soul during the hours of sleep.” In the Ashanti language, “to dream” is so dae, which literally means “to arrive at a place during sleep” — implying travel.
For the Ashanti, dream incidents are real events. If you sleep with another man’s wife, for example, you are held to be guilty of adultery and may be punished for it.
Flying is a common experience in Ashanti dreams. “If you dream that you have been carried up to the sky…and that you have returned to the ground…that means long life.” This certainly held true for Harriet Tubman, who lived to be at least ninety-one.”...
****
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Visitor comments are welcome.
Showing posts with label United Sates slavery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label United Sates slavery. Show all posts
Thursday, April 21, 2016
Friday, February 26, 2016
Slavery In New England & In The United States South: Names & Titles As Strategies Of Subordination, Degradation, And Resistance
Edited by Azizi Powell
This post is part of an ongoing pancocojams series that excerpts online articles and books about naming practices during slavery in the United States, the Caribbean, and South America.
This post showcases an excerpt from Robert K. Fitts' 1998 book Inventing New England's Slave Paradise: Master/Slave Relations in Eighteenth-century Narragansett, Rhode Island
This excerpt focuses on eighteenth century Rhode Island (New England) slave masters' use of names and titles that preface those names strategies of subordination and degradation and enslaved Black people's resistance to those strategies.
The content of this post is presented for historical, cultural, and linguistic purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to Robert K. Fitts for his research and thanks to all those who are quoted in this post. Thanks also to the enslaved and free Africans who lived in the Northern and Southern regions of the United States. Your legacy lives on.
****
Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-survival-of-several-akan-day-names.html for a related pancocojams post on Black names in South Carolina 18th and 19th centuries.
****
BACKGROUND INFORMATION ABOUT SLAVERY IN RHODE ISLAND
From http://slavenorth.com/rhodeisland.htm
"Black slaves were in Rhode Island by 1652, and by the end of that century Rhode Island had become the only New England colony to use slaves for both labor and trade. After overtaking Boston by 1750, Newport and Bristol were the major slave markets in the American colonies. Slave-based economies existed in the Narragansett plantation family, the Middletown crop workers, and the indentured and slave craftsmen of Newport....
In Narragansett County, conditions favored large-scale farming, and here more than anywhere else in the North a system began to emerge that looked like the Southern plantation colonies. In parts of "South Country" (as Narragansett also was called), one-third of the population was black work force by the mid-18th century. That's comparable to the proportion of slaves in the Old South states in 1820. Narragansett planters used their slaves both as laborers and domestic servants. William Robinson owned an estate that was more than four miles long and two miles wide, and he kept about 40 slaves there. Robert Hazard of South Kingstown owned 12,000 acres and had 24 slave women just to work in his dairy. The Stantons of Narragansett, who were among the province's leading landowners, had at least 40 slaves.
In keeping with the usual pattern, a higher percentage of blacks meant a more strict control mechanism. South Kingstown had perhaps the harshest local slave control laws in New England. After 1718, for instance, if any black slave was caught in the cottage of a free black person, both were whipped. After 1750, anyone who sold so much as a cup of hard cider to a black slave faced a crushing fine of 30.
Rhode Island, of course, was among the most active Northern colonies in importing slaves.
EMANCIPATION
During the Revolution, Quaker abolitionists and the powerful Newport shipping interest clashed over slavery. In February 1784 the Legislature passed a compromise measure for gradual emancipation. All children of slaves born after March 1 were to be "apprentices," the girls to become free at 18, the boys at 21. As with other Northern instances of gradual emancipation, this gave slaveowners many years of service to recoup the cost of raising the children.
No slaves were emancipated outright. The 1800 census listed 384 slaves, and the number fell gradually to 5 in 1840, after which slaves were no longer counted in the censuses for the state. And, in an essential element of the 1784 compromise, the right of Rhode Island ship-owners to participate in the foreign slave trade was undisturbed....
As was the case throughout the North, Rhode Island, having ended slavery, also sought to make it difficult for blacks to remain in the state or move there. In the early 19th century, Rhode Island towns especially turned to the old New England custom of "warning out" strangers to purify themselves racially. The custom continued to have as a stated goal the removal of poor and undesirable strangers from a community. But blacks were increasingly its targets, out of proportion to their numbers and without regard to whether they were long-term residents or not."...
****
BOOK REVIEW
From https://books.google.com/books?id=4KSN2QDsLBMC&dq=uncle+and+aunt+titles+before+black+names+in+19th+century&source=gbs_navlinks_s "Inventing New England's Slave Paradise: Master/Slave Relations in Eighteenth-century Narragansett, Rhode Island" by Robert K. Fitts
Taylor & Francis, 1998 - History - 274 pages
"Many 19th and 20th century historians have argued that Northern slavery was mild and that master/slave relations were relatively harmonious. Yet, Northern slavery, like Southern, was characterized by the conflict between the masters' desire to control their slaves and the slaves' resistance to this domination. For a variety of political, social, and intellectual reasons, 19th and 20th century historians ignored this inherent conflict in discussions of Northern slavery. Fitts' research focuses on how and why historians sanitized the history of slavery in Narragansett, Rhode Island, and then shows the inadequacy of these interpretations by examining several of the planters' and slaves' conflicting strategies of control and resistance. Topics include how planters used physical punishment, legislation, and the threat of sale in an attempt to control their slaves, and how slaves resisted through violence, running away, and non-violent crime. Fitts also examines the plantation landscape as a site of symbolic contestation and includes a chapter on slave names. (Ph.D. dissertation, Brown University, 1995; revised with new preface)"
****
FEATURED EXCERPT - "INVENTING NEW ENGLAND'S SLAVE PARADISE: MASTER/SLAVE RELATIONS IN EIGHTEETH -CENTURY NARRAGANSETT, RHODE ISLAND
From [Google Books]
page 190
...."masters used diminutive names to teach slaves their place in white society and to undermine their self-esteem so as to create docile slaves who accepted their position. There is little doubt that diminutives were degrading to the slaves. Genovese (1972:448) notes that when naming their own children, slaves rarely used diminutives and almost never shortened their proper names to diminutives among themselves. Furthermore, slave culture was built on beliefs and traditions from West Africa, where names were important symbols of personal identity.(Inscoe 1983; Paustian 1978). To use a name improperly showed great disrespect. (Price & Price 1972 352-354). By using diminutives, both white adults and children treated slaves as children. This was reinforced by the use of “boy” or “girl” to refer to slaves of any age.
page 191
Similarly, because of the special respect given to the aged, the misuse of titles for older people could be especially insulting . Maters purposely denied slaves the dignity of respectful titles. All slaves were known by their first names only. Some Southern masters rigidly reinforced this point. “The former Eastern Shore, Maryland free Black Levi Coppin, who was born in 1848, said merely that “White people didn’t permit us to say “Mr.” and “Mrs” to each other, so the children, for manners sake, were taught to call the older people “aunt” and “uncle”. (Gutman 1976:217). Whites did not start referring to older blacks by those titles until the nineteenth century. (Gutman 1976:217-218).* This form of disrespect clearly signaled the slaves’ position within society, but may have also undercut the slaves’ own self-esteem. Masters hoped that this degradation would keep slaves humble and thus easier to control....
The data suggests that degrading slaves with classical names and place names were common throughout colonial America. Likewise, degradation through diminutive names was also a common strategy....
page 193
THE INFLUENCE OF NAMES
Alien, degrading, and diminutive slave names were important symbols in upholding the Narragansett planters’ ideology of alienation and paternalism. There is no doubt that planters believed in these ideologies. Yet, it is unclear if these names caused slaves to internalize these ideologies. There are no surviving slave narratives from Narragansett; thus, one can never be sure how slaves viewed the names that planters imposed upon them....
page 194
These studies suggest that degrading names could have helped slaves develop poor self-images, which might have made them easier to control.
The historical evidence shows, however, that degrading names did not instill many slaves with inferiority complexes. Instead, slaves resisted their masters’ control over their names. Two primary sources suggest that slaves greatly resented their masters’ control and fought to retain their original names. “William Wells Brown recalled that he had “lost” his name ‘William’, when his master’s nephew of that same name arrived to live with them. Ordered to change his name in deference to the white boy, he balked. ‘This at the time, I thought to be one of the most cruel acts that could be committed against my rights; and I received severe whippings for telling people that my name was William after receiving orders were given to change it.” (Genovese 1972:445) Likewise, Gustavas Vassa only adopted his name after numerous beatings.(Edwards 1967:35-36)
Studies of African American names before and after emancipation suggest that blacks resented their slave names and quickly adopted new ones when the opportunity presented itself. (e.g. Berlin 1974; Nash 1988). Ira Berlin (1974:52) writes “Free Negroes commonly celebrated emancipation by taking a new name. A new name was both a symbol of personal liberation and an act of political defiance; it reversed the enslavement process and confirmed the free Negro’s newly won liberty, just as the loss of an African name had earlier symbolized enslavement.” This evidence suggests that most slaves did not internalize the degradation symbolized by their names. Instead, slaves in Narragansett and the American South used names to fight their masters’ control through symbolic ties to their African past.
THE AFRICAN AMERICAN RESPONSE
Despite their masters’ attempt to use names to control them, Narragansett’s slaves gave these names different meanings to undermine the planters’ domination. Sometimes this was done openly, but often this form of cultural resistance was only used among the slaves....
page 195
...this chapter examines four ways Narragansett slaves may have used their names as a form of resistance against their masters’ symbolic control.
Symbolic Appropriation
....Cheryl Cody’s studies of the Ball (1987) and Gaillard (1982) plantations shows that once slaves began naming their own children, they used names of kin. In this way names forced upon slaves, including degrading names, became family names with positive rather than degrading connotations....
Private Names
A number of slaves undermined the planters’ strategies by having two first names. One name was given and used by whites, but the other was bestowed on the slave by the African American community and used among them in private. Slaves probably saw the latter as their real name; thus, planter imposed degrading names would not have undermined their self-esteem. These private names could either be of African or Anglo origin, or nicknames used among the slaves....
page 196
Similarly, many slaves had family names that were used only among themselves. Even though slaves supposedly took their masters’ last name, in both the North and the South, many slaves rejected these in favor of names of their own choosing.(Gutman 1976: 230-232). Often they took the name of their first master, or an ancestor’s master, or chose an African inspired name. These names were often kept secret from whites, who at least in the nineteenth- century American South, sometimes whipped slaves for using them.(Gutman 1976:236)....
Page 197
Private last names were also an important means of resistance, because they fostered a sense of history by keeping ties alive to past family members and rejected their masters’ ideology of paternalism by symbolically stating that they did not consider themselves to be their masters; children.
African Names
Many scholars have noted the high retention of African names among North American slaves….African names were important symbols in the slaves’ cultural resistance against the masters’ ideologies of alienation and degradation (Genovese 1972; Inscoe 1983; Wood 1974)
Although the Narragansett probably named most of their slaves, ten percentage of slaves still held on to African names. The most common names were Cuff (11 people), Mongo (8), Bina (5), and Cudjo (4). Among the most unusual were Satria and Treedee. The prevalence of African names shows that some masters were not concerned about these retentions…..
Page 200
Table 6.8 Similar English and African names in Narragansett
English -African- Number of Slaves Bearing Name in Narragansett
Abby- Abba-0
Becky-Beke-1
Cato-Keta-3
Easter- Easter (time name) -2
Hercules-Hekles-2
Jack-Quaco-16
Joe-Cudjo-8
Phebe-Pheba/Phibbi-4
Phillis-Fili-19
Total- 55
Ten percent of Narragansett slaves were named one of the ten names shown in Table 6.8. This is consistent with other studies which also find these names to be common…
If slaves interpreted these names as African, then they were symbols of an African past and part of the slaves subordinate culture. Therefore, the number of slaves with these names should be combined with slaves with pure African names to get a true reflection of the extent of African symbolism. In Narragansett, 101 slaves out of the total 532 surveyed, or 19 percent bore names of these types. Once again, these results are similar to John Inscoe’s data from the Carolinas. Inscoe (1983: 535) found that 23 percent of all surveyed slaves bore names of possible African origin. This further supports the possibility
page 201
that Narragansett’s slaves held on to symbols of their African past to resist their masters’ racist ideologies.”....
-snip-
*Italics were added to highlight these sentences about enslaved and free Black people being prohibited from using the titles of respect(honorifics) "Sir", "Ma'am", "Mr", "Mrs." ("Missus", "Miss"). Those titles were reserved for White people only. As a means of showing respect to older people, Black people began using the titles "Aunt" and "Uncle", and White people also eventually began using those titles for older Black people. Some examples of "Uncle" and "Aunt" used as titles for Black people in popular culture in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries are "Uncle Tom" (as in Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel and play Uncle Tom's Cabin), "Uncle Remus", "Uncle Ben", Uncle John Scruggs (African American Old Time music banjo player), and Aunt Jemima.
****
Thanks for visiting pancocojams.
Visitor comments are welcome.
This post is part of an ongoing pancocojams series that excerpts online articles and books about naming practices during slavery in the United States, the Caribbean, and South America.
This post showcases an excerpt from Robert K. Fitts' 1998 book Inventing New England's Slave Paradise: Master/Slave Relations in Eighteenth-century Narragansett, Rhode Island
This excerpt focuses on eighteenth century Rhode Island (New England) slave masters' use of names and titles that preface those names strategies of subordination and degradation and enslaved Black people's resistance to those strategies.
The content of this post is presented for historical, cultural, and linguistic purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to Robert K. Fitts for his research and thanks to all those who are quoted in this post. Thanks also to the enslaved and free Africans who lived in the Northern and Southern regions of the United States. Your legacy lives on.
****
Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-survival-of-several-akan-day-names.html for a related pancocojams post on Black names in South Carolina 18th and 19th centuries.
****
BACKGROUND INFORMATION ABOUT SLAVERY IN RHODE ISLAND
From http://slavenorth.com/rhodeisland.htm
"Black slaves were in Rhode Island by 1652, and by the end of that century Rhode Island had become the only New England colony to use slaves for both labor and trade. After overtaking Boston by 1750, Newport and Bristol were the major slave markets in the American colonies. Slave-based economies existed in the Narragansett plantation family, the Middletown crop workers, and the indentured and slave craftsmen of Newport....
In Narragansett County, conditions favored large-scale farming, and here more than anywhere else in the North a system began to emerge that looked like the Southern plantation colonies. In parts of "South Country" (as Narragansett also was called), one-third of the population was black work force by the mid-18th century. That's comparable to the proportion of slaves in the Old South states in 1820. Narragansett planters used their slaves both as laborers and domestic servants. William Robinson owned an estate that was more than four miles long and two miles wide, and he kept about 40 slaves there. Robert Hazard of South Kingstown owned 12,000 acres and had 24 slave women just to work in his dairy. The Stantons of Narragansett, who were among the province's leading landowners, had at least 40 slaves.
In keeping with the usual pattern, a higher percentage of blacks meant a more strict control mechanism. South Kingstown had perhaps the harshest local slave control laws in New England. After 1718, for instance, if any black slave was caught in the cottage of a free black person, both were whipped. After 1750, anyone who sold so much as a cup of hard cider to a black slave faced a crushing fine of 30.
Rhode Island, of course, was among the most active Northern colonies in importing slaves.
EMANCIPATION
During the Revolution, Quaker abolitionists and the powerful Newport shipping interest clashed over slavery. In February 1784 the Legislature passed a compromise measure for gradual emancipation. All children of slaves born after March 1 were to be "apprentices," the girls to become free at 18, the boys at 21. As with other Northern instances of gradual emancipation, this gave slaveowners many years of service to recoup the cost of raising the children.
No slaves were emancipated outright. The 1800 census listed 384 slaves, and the number fell gradually to 5 in 1840, after which slaves were no longer counted in the censuses for the state. And, in an essential element of the 1784 compromise, the right of Rhode Island ship-owners to participate in the foreign slave trade was undisturbed....
As was the case throughout the North, Rhode Island, having ended slavery, also sought to make it difficult for blacks to remain in the state or move there. In the early 19th century, Rhode Island towns especially turned to the old New England custom of "warning out" strangers to purify themselves racially. The custom continued to have as a stated goal the removal of poor and undesirable strangers from a community. But blacks were increasingly its targets, out of proportion to their numbers and without regard to whether they were long-term residents or not."...
****
BOOK REVIEW
From https://books.google.com/books?id=4KSN2QDsLBMC&dq=uncle+and+aunt+titles+before+black+names+in+19th+century&source=gbs_navlinks_s "Inventing New England's Slave Paradise: Master/Slave Relations in Eighteenth-century Narragansett, Rhode Island" by Robert K. Fitts
Taylor & Francis, 1998 - History - 274 pages
"Many 19th and 20th century historians have argued that Northern slavery was mild and that master/slave relations were relatively harmonious. Yet, Northern slavery, like Southern, was characterized by the conflict between the masters' desire to control their slaves and the slaves' resistance to this domination. For a variety of political, social, and intellectual reasons, 19th and 20th century historians ignored this inherent conflict in discussions of Northern slavery. Fitts' research focuses on how and why historians sanitized the history of slavery in Narragansett, Rhode Island, and then shows the inadequacy of these interpretations by examining several of the planters' and slaves' conflicting strategies of control and resistance. Topics include how planters used physical punishment, legislation, and the threat of sale in an attempt to control their slaves, and how slaves resisted through violence, running away, and non-violent crime. Fitts also examines the plantation landscape as a site of symbolic contestation and includes a chapter on slave names. (Ph.D. dissertation, Brown University, 1995; revised with new preface)"
****
FEATURED EXCERPT - "INVENTING NEW ENGLAND'S SLAVE PARADISE: MASTER/SLAVE RELATIONS IN EIGHTEETH -CENTURY NARRAGANSETT, RHODE ISLAND
From [Google Books]
page 190
...."masters used diminutive names to teach slaves their place in white society and to undermine their self-esteem so as to create docile slaves who accepted their position. There is little doubt that diminutives were degrading to the slaves. Genovese (1972:448) notes that when naming their own children, slaves rarely used diminutives and almost never shortened their proper names to diminutives among themselves. Furthermore, slave culture was built on beliefs and traditions from West Africa, where names were important symbols of personal identity.(Inscoe 1983; Paustian 1978). To use a name improperly showed great disrespect. (Price & Price 1972 352-354). By using diminutives, both white adults and children treated slaves as children. This was reinforced by the use of “boy” or “girl” to refer to slaves of any age.
page 191
Similarly, because of the special respect given to the aged, the misuse of titles for older people could be especially insulting . Maters purposely denied slaves the dignity of respectful titles. All slaves were known by their first names only. Some Southern masters rigidly reinforced this point. “The former Eastern Shore, Maryland free Black Levi Coppin, who was born in 1848, said merely that “White people didn’t permit us to say “Mr.” and “Mrs” to each other, so the children, for manners sake, were taught to call the older people “aunt” and “uncle”. (Gutman 1976:217). Whites did not start referring to older blacks by those titles until the nineteenth century. (Gutman 1976:217-218).* This form of disrespect clearly signaled the slaves’ position within society, but may have also undercut the slaves’ own self-esteem. Masters hoped that this degradation would keep slaves humble and thus easier to control....
The data suggests that degrading slaves with classical names and place names were common throughout colonial America. Likewise, degradation through diminutive names was also a common strategy....
page 193
THE INFLUENCE OF NAMES
Alien, degrading, and diminutive slave names were important symbols in upholding the Narragansett planters’ ideology of alienation and paternalism. There is no doubt that planters believed in these ideologies. Yet, it is unclear if these names caused slaves to internalize these ideologies. There are no surviving slave narratives from Narragansett; thus, one can never be sure how slaves viewed the names that planters imposed upon them....
page 194
These studies suggest that degrading names could have helped slaves develop poor self-images, which might have made them easier to control.
The historical evidence shows, however, that degrading names did not instill many slaves with inferiority complexes. Instead, slaves resisted their masters’ control over their names. Two primary sources suggest that slaves greatly resented their masters’ control and fought to retain their original names. “William Wells Brown recalled that he had “lost” his name ‘William’, when his master’s nephew of that same name arrived to live with them. Ordered to change his name in deference to the white boy, he balked. ‘This at the time, I thought to be one of the most cruel acts that could be committed against my rights; and I received severe whippings for telling people that my name was William after receiving orders were given to change it.” (Genovese 1972:445) Likewise, Gustavas Vassa only adopted his name after numerous beatings.(Edwards 1967:35-36)
Studies of African American names before and after emancipation suggest that blacks resented their slave names and quickly adopted new ones when the opportunity presented itself. (e.g. Berlin 1974; Nash 1988). Ira Berlin (1974:52) writes “Free Negroes commonly celebrated emancipation by taking a new name. A new name was both a symbol of personal liberation and an act of political defiance; it reversed the enslavement process and confirmed the free Negro’s newly won liberty, just as the loss of an African name had earlier symbolized enslavement.” This evidence suggests that most slaves did not internalize the degradation symbolized by their names. Instead, slaves in Narragansett and the American South used names to fight their masters’ control through symbolic ties to their African past.
THE AFRICAN AMERICAN RESPONSE
Despite their masters’ attempt to use names to control them, Narragansett’s slaves gave these names different meanings to undermine the planters’ domination. Sometimes this was done openly, but often this form of cultural resistance was only used among the slaves....
page 195
...this chapter examines four ways Narragansett slaves may have used their names as a form of resistance against their masters’ symbolic control.
Symbolic Appropriation
....Cheryl Cody’s studies of the Ball (1987) and Gaillard (1982) plantations shows that once slaves began naming their own children, they used names of kin. In this way names forced upon slaves, including degrading names, became family names with positive rather than degrading connotations....
Private Names
A number of slaves undermined the planters’ strategies by having two first names. One name was given and used by whites, but the other was bestowed on the slave by the African American community and used among them in private. Slaves probably saw the latter as their real name; thus, planter imposed degrading names would not have undermined their self-esteem. These private names could either be of African or Anglo origin, or nicknames used among the slaves....
page 196
Similarly, many slaves had family names that were used only among themselves. Even though slaves supposedly took their masters’ last name, in both the North and the South, many slaves rejected these in favor of names of their own choosing.(Gutman 1976: 230-232). Often they took the name of their first master, or an ancestor’s master, or chose an African inspired name. These names were often kept secret from whites, who at least in the nineteenth- century American South, sometimes whipped slaves for using them.(Gutman 1976:236)....
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Private last names were also an important means of resistance, because they fostered a sense of history by keeping ties alive to past family members and rejected their masters’ ideology of paternalism by symbolically stating that they did not consider themselves to be their masters; children.
African Names
Many scholars have noted the high retention of African names among North American slaves….African names were important symbols in the slaves’ cultural resistance against the masters’ ideologies of alienation and degradation (Genovese 1972; Inscoe 1983; Wood 1974)
Although the Narragansett probably named most of their slaves, ten percentage of slaves still held on to African names. The most common names were Cuff (11 people), Mongo (8), Bina (5), and Cudjo (4). Among the most unusual were Satria and Treedee. The prevalence of African names shows that some masters were not concerned about these retentions…..
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Table 6.8 Similar English and African names in Narragansett
English -African- Number of Slaves Bearing Name in Narragansett
Abby- Abba-0
Becky-Beke-1
Cato-Keta-3
Easter- Easter (time name) -2
Hercules-Hekles-2
Jack-Quaco-16
Joe-Cudjo-8
Phebe-Pheba/Phibbi-4
Phillis-Fili-19
Total- 55
Ten percent of Narragansett slaves were named one of the ten names shown in Table 6.8. This is consistent with other studies which also find these names to be common…
If slaves interpreted these names as African, then they were symbols of an African past and part of the slaves subordinate culture. Therefore, the number of slaves with these names should be combined with slaves with pure African names to get a true reflection of the extent of African symbolism. In Narragansett, 101 slaves out of the total 532 surveyed, or 19 percent bore names of these types. Once again, these results are similar to John Inscoe’s data from the Carolinas. Inscoe (1983: 535) found that 23 percent of all surveyed slaves bore names of possible African origin. This further supports the possibility
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that Narragansett’s slaves held on to symbols of their African past to resist their masters’ racist ideologies.”....
-snip-
*Italics were added to highlight these sentences about enslaved and free Black people being prohibited from using the titles of respect(honorifics) "Sir", "Ma'am", "Mr", "Mrs." ("Missus", "Miss"). Those titles were reserved for White people only. As a means of showing respect to older people, Black people began using the titles "Aunt" and "Uncle", and White people also eventually began using those titles for older Black people. Some examples of "Uncle" and "Aunt" used as titles for Black people in popular culture in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries are "Uncle Tom" (as in Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel and play Uncle Tom's Cabin), "Uncle Remus", "Uncle Ben", Uncle John Scruggs (African American Old Time music banjo player), and Aunt Jemima.
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