Freedom's Promise: Ex-Slave Families and Citizenship in the Age of Emancipation

Chapter Two: “We All Have Two Names”: Surnames and Familial Identity

 “We All Have Two Names” Surnames and Familial Identity H B’ identity as the widow of Joseph Berry was called into question when pension officials discovered that her surname might have been Bell. In free white society surnames operated according to traditional assumptions about the nature of family and familial roles and relationships. A surname was the outward sign of familial identity. Signifying the descent of the family through the male line, the family name passed from father to son, who kept it permanently. A daughter also inherited the family name from her father but used it only until she married. According to the principles of coverture , when a woman married, she took her husband’s name. Thus Harriet should have possessed the same surname as her husband. That she did not suggested to pension officials that Harriet may not have been Joseph Berry’s widow. In free white society every citizen had a permanent family name by which he or she could be identified. Within the pension process, as within any large bureaucratic organization, a surname provided officials with an efficient means to locate a particular soldier’s records. A surname also served as a cursory method of identifying a claimant’s relationship to a soldier, as Harriet’s case suggests. Harriet’s predicament—that her surname actually complicated rather than clarified family relationships —leads to the question of what role naming practices played in the transition from slavery to freedom. Naming Practices among Slaves and Ex-Slaves T  southerners may have been generally interested in monitoring the size of the slave population, only masters were concerned with keeping track of individual slaves. Once the slaves were freed, they had to be accounted for like all members of free society. When former slaves enlisted in the army, enrolled in school, applied for aid, registered their marriages , or applied for pensions, officials asked them for their full names. Because many former slaves had not possessed a surname in slavery, whites encouraged them to adopt one. The Freedmen’s Bureau instructed former slaves: “Every freedman having only one name is required to assume a ‘title’ or family name. It may be the name of a former owner, or any other person . When once assumed it must always thereafter be used, and no other.”1 Bureau officials did not appear concerned about what particular surname a former slave chose, as long as the name was permanent. Some whites advised former slaves to choose surnames more carefully. Helen E. Brown, a northern white woman, wrote educational tracts designed to guide former slaves through the transition from slavery to freedom. In  she published John Freeman and His Family with the American Tract Society, an association that published books of “practical advice” for newly freed slaves. Brown’s chapter on John Freeman’s surname is suggestive of how many whites conceived of a surname’s function and expected former slaves to choose their surnames accordingly. In Brown’s story a surname was crucial to self-definition. When a lieutenant in the Union army asked the character of the former slave for his name, the former slave could only respond with his given name. “John what?” “I’m Colchester Lenox’s John,” was the reply, “I’ve no other name.” Surnames and Familial Identity  “John Lenox, then, I shall call you from this time forward for ever. Remember, will you?” “Oh, no, master lieutenant, please don’t put that down . . . I’ve objections to that. . . . It will always make me think of the old ways, sir, and I’m a free man now, sir. . . .” “Suppose we call you John Freeman, then.”2 When asked to elaborate upon his identity, the former slave referred to himself as the property of his former master, calling himself “Colchester Lenox’s John.” According to Brown, the problem with John’s name was not simply that he lacked a surname but that this lack left him unable to define himself independently of his slave past. Further, the story suggests, just as it would not do for John to refer to himself as Colchester Lenox’s John, it was not proper for him to take his former master ’s surname. John’s adamant rejection of his master’s surname as one that would remind him of slavery underscored this need to rid the name of the past. Instead, he received a totally new name...