Naming, Kinship, and Estate Dispersal: Notes on Slave Family Life on a South Carolina Plantation, 1786 to 1833

HE structure of slave families and kinship ties has become the central issue for historians concerned with the long-term impact of slavery on the social experiences of Afro-Americans. Recently Herbert G. Gutman has suggested that the pattern used by slave parents in naming their children reveals the importance of both paternal and maternal kinship in defining the place of the child in slave society. ' If, as Gutman supposes, the names for children were selected to preserve symbolically kinship ties, then the that developed must be viewed as a response by slaves to the threats and realities of separation imposed by their owners. In a critique of Gutman, Stephen Gudeman points out that definition of the internal system used by slaves to reckon their position in society is critical to understanding this response.2 Of equal importance is definition of the rules used by owners to govern their own behavior. Gudeman emphasizes the juridical ties, but it is useful to observe that owners viewed the slave family as a functional unit as well. In addition to its reproductive function, the family or household served as the basic structure for the distribution of food and clothing to slaves. Furthermore, Robert William Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman have suggested that owners encouraged family life as a deterrent to running away and other forms of resistance.3 The business records of Peter Gaillard, which span his career as a South Carolina cotton planter from I 782 to 1833, provide an unusual opportunity to examine both the values of slaves and the behavior of owners.4 '3 The business records of Peter Gaillard, which span his career as a South Carolina cotton planter from I 782 to 1833, provide an unusual opportunity to examine both the values of slaves and the behavior of owners.4