The Slave Years 1750-1759: African-American Genealogy, #1

By Alex K Patterson

After hundreds of hours searching, this book consists of slave names, owners and more, most with exciting detail for each slave. True history and a keeper.

• Language: English
• Publisher: DMSF
• Release date: May 5, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386686583

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

MANY of African heritage have no idea where to look for leads to solve old mysteries concerning their ancestors. Some are lucky as they know some older names, sometimes those including last names or the name or names of owners, maybe southern plantation owners.  A few have very old family stories or lore lurking in the background that should be taken as leads.

This book, book number one of the Slave Years, will take you back to 1750, the earliest year found for public printings. Included within this book are items where names were listed, most showing varied details for each person. Added, to help show how life and circumstances were at this time frame, are a few general things found pertaining to people put up for sale although those few items show no names.

It is amazing the overall education that was gained by doing extensive research and putting this book together. It is highly recommended that the reader read through each listing as slowly a perspective of the time frame will blossom. You will be reading the actual words of history during 1750-1759.

Jails were known as ‘His Majesty’s Goals’ as the United States was still the property of England. The lands in America were known as Provinces and Colonies.

The year 1773 brought the Boston Tea Party followed by the independence of America on July 4, 1776, the break from the British Empire.

You will find some words spelled differently than they are spelled today. Those spellings were not altered as they are very common in this early day. A few of them, with current day spelling on the right, are:

Cloaths - cloths or clothes

Colour - color

Complection – complexion

The word ‘country’ is usually with a small ‘c’.

Harbouring - harboring

Linnen – linen

Midling - middling

Molatto and Molattoe - Mulatto

Negro usually has an ‘e’ and sometimes not capitalized.

Osenbrigs - Ozenbrigs

Publick - public

Traveller - traveler

Trowsers - trousers

Wolen - Wollen – Woollen – wool

FORWARD

THE YEAR OF 1750 APPEARS to be when public printings began that listed slave names, those being various advertisements concerning runaways, auctions and slaves for sale. The fact is that printers thought much that could be printed was a sideline.

Searching for named people in the early years of this book took hundreds of hours. What was found is from what survived that early time frame. The population total for America, including all races was at 1,800,000, being close to the current day population for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, per 2010 figures. It is easy to see that overall, there were not a lot of people and they were widely spread in the settled British Provinces, now our cities and states.

In that time period there were but a few newspapers and no federal or state laws as is known today. This early time in the history was before the United States became a country so if you expect to see all of the slave states listed in this first book, you won’t find them. You will however find familiar city names and current state names, many stated as Provinces, for areas that were populated, most being in the north. Many Africans taken from Africa for slavery actually came to this country in the early years and many, through the generations, found their lineage in the south.

It is said that the first legal slave owner was a black man named Anthony Johnson. His birth was circa 1600 with his death in 1670. Sadly, Anthony was captured by an enemy tribe in Africa and sold to Arab slave traders. Eventually he was sold to a merchant that was employed by the Virginia Company. Anthony came to the Colony of Virginia in 1621 aboard the James and he was sold as an indentured servant. In 1635 he had his freedom and became a successful tobacco farmer in Maryland. Extensive information for Anthony can be found on the web so it is not repeated here and due to copyrights, those pages cannot be copied to this book.

Interestingly, found were many runaway indentured servants where it was expected that runaway slaves would be found. The Irish and Dutch seemed to rule for runaways during the years of this book, they being indentured servants. The Irish and Dutch white indentured servants are not shown in this book unless they ran away with a slave. 

Everything shown in this book was originally written in old English. It was typed for this book in modern day English.

By the last year in this book, the number of entries is much more for the year than they are in the beginning of the book. Speculation is that the slave population grew fast during this ten year span &/or the use of public printings grew.

HOW to USE the INFORMATION

EACH LISTING WILL BE different. You will see any of the following with each person: Name, possible physical descriptions including scars, possible family members named, a possible current and previous owner name, the place where the item was published and further information such as where the person came from. Added notes and clarifications were added when found.

Adding actual views wouldn’t work for this time frame as originals were in terrible or very light ink condition.

If you see a name of interest, be sure to check all other pages as there are many names repeated some many times. Often you can match a person by the descriptions of the person and some have a long history thru the years, some yet to be published in further books for the year it applies to.

Two name lists for people is located in the back of this book. One is for slaves, the other is slave owners and other people. These are not indexes in this digital book. The paperback DOES have name indexes.

Keep in mind that people were not expert spellers and there were accents to deal with. Names shown may be close to names. Examples: Jemmy may be Jimmy, Jupiter may be Juniper, and Methias may be Mathias.

DEFINITIONS of OLDER WORDS

BREECHES: Men’s short pants that hit above or to just below the knee.

Chirurgeon: Surgeon.

Coloured: Colored

Drest:  A bodice and skirt in one piece for girls and women.

Goal: Old English word for jail.

Indentured Servant: A person who came to America and was placed under contract to work for another over a period of time, usually seven years, especially during the 17th to 19th centuries. Often this was to pay back the cost of passage to America.

Inst: Current, as in the current month.

Kersey: (1) A coarse woolen cloth, (2) A coarse ribbed woolen cloth for work clothes, (3) A kind of coarse, ribbed cloth with a short nap woven from short-stapled wool, (4) A smooth woolen cloth used for overcoats.

Ozenbrigs: A tough, coarse linen woven in Osnabruck, Westphalia, Germany. Used for about anything including sheets, carpetbags and table covers.

Peniston: A coarse woolen cloth.

Tow: A heavy coarse linen.

Ultimo: Preceding, as in the preceding month.

Visage: Face.

SAMPLES of OLD ENGLISH WORDS

AMONGST = AMONGFT

BESIDES = befides

COMMISSION = commiffion

DRESS = drefs

HORSE = horfe

HOUSE = houfe

LAST = laft

MASTERS = Mafters

PERSON = perfon

PURCHASE = purchafe

PURSUED = purfu’d / purfued

REASONABLE = reafonable

SAID = faid

SECURE = fecure

SERVICE = fervice

SELL = fell

SETTLED = fettled

SEVERAL = feveral

SHORT = fhort

SO = fo

SPECIAL = fpecial

SHALL = fhall

SUBSCRIBER = fubfcriber

SURE = fure

SUPPOSED = fuppos’d / fuppofed

VESSEL = veffel

WILLIAMSBURG = Williamfburg

SAMPLES of UNREADABLE PRINTINGS

(Not Used)

Please Note:

ALL ENTRIES ARE TYPED TRUE to the ORIGINAL

EXCEPT that CURRENT ENGLISH WORDS

ARE USED in PLACE of OLD ENGLISH WORDS.

SPELLING VARIANCES, punctuation and word use are as shown in the original. Occasionally a clarification has been added in a footnote. A question mark in a word is a letter that cannot be read.

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Alex K Patterson can be seen at

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MAPS

ALL MAPS CAN BE ENLARGED. To copy and print a map to a book, it would be very small and all detail would be lost.

Note that below there is an underscore mark after the word ‘Map’ in the links listed.

1750 circa

Created in 1752 at London, a map of the United States

http://tiny.cc/Map_USA1750

...

1752 circa

New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, New England

http://tiny.cc/Map_1752

...

1755 circa