Juneteenth is a relatively new Federal holiday in the United States of America.1
As with many other such holidays – including Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Labor Day – Juneteenth offers us an opportunity to remember and reflect on key elements of our nation’s history.
And such remembrance has special meaning, given the intentional, systematic erasure of names – and also of public records of families’ origins – across more than seven decades of that history.
"Until 1870, enslaved human beings were listed on federal censuses along with heads of cattle and value of farm equipment, not by their names.
Their names were Isaac and Elvira and they were farmers."
Melvin E. Edwards, in his June 19, 2020 Twitter thread which begins, “My own personal Juneteenth revelation ...”23
According to the US National Archives and Records Administration, in African Americans and the Federal Census, 1790–1930:
“Slaves in the 1790–1840 Census: no notation of slave by name, age, sex, or origination appears. The census lists slaves statistically under the owner’s name. …
“Slaves in the 1850 and 1860 Censuses. For these two censuses, slaves were enumerated on a separate schedule. The census does not record slave names; census takers were instructed to substitute numbers in place of names on the slave schedules.4 … These schedules record the number of slaves owned and their color (black or mulatto); sex; age; whether “deaf, dumb, blind, insane, or idiotic”; the number of fugitives from the state; and the number manumitted.” (emphasis added)
Even going well beyond census records, into the vast realm of other documentation, History Professor Martha S. Jones at Johns Hopkins University noted that:
“… generally in the US the purchasing, selling, mortgaging and indenture of enslaved people were private and contractual matters …” [i.e., leaving no public records]
“Most often these records were created only when disputes arose, including differences between buyers and sellers, freedom suits brought by enslaved people, and challenges to or extensions of indenture agreements.”
Alongside Fabiola Cineas’s excellent overview of the Juneteenth holiday in Vox, here’s a summary of some of the ways it’s celebrated, by Terry Tang of the Associated Press.
Shannon Christmas, a professional genealogist and biological family reunification specialist, wrote in a February 2021 post on his blog, Through the Trees, that despite the challenges of slaves’ names being elided from census records and undocumented across much of the slave trade, those seeking to explore their family histories should still take heart. “A bevy of easy-to-access, but too often overlooked digital resources and archival records contain far more detail about African American lives – free and enslaved alike. All ancestors had names. And stories too.”
As for Melvin E. Edwards’ statement that “until 1870, enslaved human beings were listed on federal censuses along with heads of cattle and value of farm equipment,” he might have been referring to the Nonpopulation Census Records maintained during the latter part of that era:
“Agricultural schedules of 1850, 1860, and 1870 provide the following information for each farm: … Number of livestock owned by farmer … Cash value of the farm, farming machinery, livestock, animals slaughtered during the past year, and "homemade manufactures".”
Excerpts from the US Census Bureau’s web page listing 1850 Census Instructions to Enumerators, excerpted in turn from “Measuring America: The Decennial Censuses From 1790 to 2000”:
“1. Under heading 1, entitled ‘‘Name of slave holders,’’ insert, in proper order, the names of the owners of slaves. Where there are several owners to a slave, the name of one only need be entered, or when owned by a corporation or trust estate, the name of the trustee or corporation.
“2. Under heading 2, entitled ‘‘Number of slaves,’’ insert, in regular numerical order, the number of all slaves of both sexes and of each age, belonging to such owners. In the case of slaves, numbers are to be substituted for names.”
Ancestry.com’s 1860 U.S. Federal Census – Slave Schedules web page mentions that this practice, while extremely widespread, may not have been absolute: “most [slave] schedules [compiled as part of the US Census] omit personal names. Some enumerators did, however, list the given names of enslaved people—particularly those over one hundred years of age—which are generally found in the "name of slave owners" column.”
There's an interesting, detailed comment by Erusian on the Astral Codex Ten blog about the topics covered in this post and more, with some thoughtful replies on their part and by various others in that thread, as well. The thread starts here:
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/open-thread-281/comment/17514288
In part, Erusian asserts that "the British didn't record them either so it's actually about 200 years of [name] erasure. The desert actually starts with the end of the indenture of African Americans (in the 1660s mostly) and the shift to [chattel] slavery. Prior to that we have, though only sometimes preserved, indenture contracts."