Recovering their identities
The first arrived in North America most likely in 1539, brought to Florida as part of the expedition in which Hernando DeSoto attempted to establish a colony for Spain.1
The first arrivals in British North America came in the ships The White Lion and The Treasurer, near Point Comfort, Virginia, in 1619, described by John Rolfe as “20 and odd Negroes.”2
The Dutch first brought 11 enslaved people to New Netherland around 1626; the names of those who are known may tell us something about their origins: Paul d’Angola, Simon Congo, Anthony Portuguese, John Francisco.3
The last known to have arrived were on the ship The Clotilda, in Alabama, in 1860 — some 100 children, teenagers and young adults smuggled in from Benin under cover of night to evade American laws against the international slave trade.4
All then living and their descendants, freed by law by the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution, passed by Congress 31 January 1865 and ratified 6 December 1865.5
In between, some 10 million people of African descent who labored under the system of slavery in America. Deprived of freedom, of rights, of homeland, of culture and even, so often, of their names.
Names a new project is determined to recover and restore to the pages of history.
Announced yesterday, the 10 Million Names Project is “a collaborative project dedicated to recovering the names of the estimated 10 million men, women, and children of African descent who were enslaved in pre- and post-colonial America (specifically, the territory that would become the United States) between the 1500s and 1865. The project seeks to amplify the voices of people who have been telling their family stories for centuries, connect researchers and data partners with people seeking answers to family history questions, and expand access to data, resources, and information about enslaved African Americans.”6
Spearheaded by American Ancestors, the nonprofit center of the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS), in partnership with the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society (AAHGS), FamilySearch, the New Bedford Historical Society, and Daughters of the American Revolution, the project is designed to recover and restore the names from “records and source materials and made available in searchable databases to help facilitate research, connecting descendants with their ancestors.” The goal is “to recover the names of enslaved people of African descent. These names will be made available to the public through free, searchable online database to help people connect to their family history. All information recovered will be free, public, and available via a permanent website.”7
Information will be collected in all forms, including family histories, and shared freely online.
And individuals will be able to contribute what they know about their families to help in the task.
There are currently 33 databases on the website, ranging from U.S. census records to the records of the Gaines Funeral Home in Pittsburgh for the years 1925-1934. More will be added as time goes by, and current project initiatives involve enslaved laborers, records of Black institutions, oral histories, records of Black soldiers and more.
To say this is perhaps the most exciting development in genealogy in years may be an understatement. The Legal Genealogist and many others have long lamented the lack of any central database where information uncovered about the enslaved could be recorded and preserved. This initiative looks like it’s going to fill that need — and do so with the resources needed to ensure that it’s done right.
One of the most memorable moments in any family history is the moment when we can say the names of our ancestors. That is a moment denied to those whose identities have been lost. Before we can be saying their names, the task of recovering their identities has to be undertaken. It’s a job for all of us, descended from enslaved, enslaver, free people of color or all of the above.
Kudos to NEHGS and its partners for getting this underway.
I can’t wait to contribute what I know from my own family history.
To allow those descended from those enslaved by my own family members to do what so many of us take for granted.
Saying their names.
Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “Saying their names,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 3 Aug 2023).
SOURCES
- See Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, “Everyone is talking about 1619. But that’s not actually when slavery in America started,” Washington Post, posted 23 Aug 2019 (https://www.washingtonpost.com/ : accessed 3 Aug 2023). ↩
- “‘Twenty and odd Negroes’; an excerpt from a letter from John Rolfe to Sir Edwin Sandys (1619/1620),” Primary Document, EncyclopediaVirginia.org (https://encyclopediavirginia.org/ : accessed 3 Aug 2023). ↩
- Graham R. G. Hodges, Root and Branch: African Americans in New York and East Jersey, 1613-1863 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press), 8-9. ↩
- See Allison Keyes, “The ‘Clotilda,’ the Last Known Slave Ship to Arrive in the U.S., Is Found,” Smithsonian Magazine, posted 22 May 2019 (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/ : accessed 3 Aug 2023). ↩
- See “13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Abolition of Slavery (1865),” Milestone Documents, U.S. National Archives (https://www.archives.gov/ : accessed 3 Aug 2023). ↩
- “Our Mission,” 10 Million Names (https://10millionnames.org/ : accessed 3 Aug 2023). ↩
- Ibid., FAQ. ↩
thanks so much for highlighting this. I’d missed the news item. I see that familysearch is supposed to be involved, so I’m guessing the ROAR (restore our African roots) project is involved. I’ve submitted information relating to enslaved people I’d found during my study of non-indexed archival records. I hope this project also has a method to do that. I do see that you can upload family records and histories.
Again – thanks for noting this so that we can do our part to help gather this information
oops – that’s Reclaim Our African Roots.
I have long wanted to share the names of those who were enslaved by the branches of my family but never wanted to just put it out on some random family website to be lost in the vast internet. I wanted to find a meaningful site, one which has finally come to fruition. I have original purchase records with names going back to 1796 that I hope might help someone today.
I am so glad this project is finally available.
Thanks very much for blogging about this. I was reading my copy of American Ancestors last evening and thought, what a great project. It really need more attention. I’m the editor of my local society newsletter and it’s going in the August issue.