Categories and tags for profiles of slaves?

Question

I dont know how to do catagories /tags. I am doing some slaves who were named in various family wills so i need the profile to show African American, Slaves. I have further details to add to profile example but just did the minimum to be able to ask someone to give me an example on the profile of the cat/ tags needed. Thank you.

Answer 1

Gloria,

This question is more difficult than it looks.  We do not yet have a set of categories for slaves in the US.  We need them as your profile for Jacob shows.  I will work on this today - if you can wait I will have something with category structure within 24 hours.

While you are waiting - Project:Categorization gives a lot of detail on how to create a category - what it does not do and what is needed is what the name should be in this case and where it should fit in the category structure.  -  This is what I will work on.

If someone is thinking it is obvious - under African-American history - what about American Indians that were slaves ?  

----

OK I think we have a solution - please review the profiles for both Jacob and John Jamison

I have created a new category   Category: American slaves  it is under both Africian American History and US History.  The structure follows that of Slave-owners.  So - when a slave profile is created, the category of state slaves should be added.  Jacob is in  Category: Tennessee slaves  The corresponing category for slave owner should also be added for the owner.  John is in Category: Slave-owner: Tennessee  It also necessary to create a link in both profiles between the slave and the owner.  I have added them in both profiles - it is easier to look at the detail than to write instructions.  Both profiles are open so review is easy. 

Comments

Philip,

I don't know if you saw a couple of recent questions about slave related categories.  I believe that a member created some of these, but am not sure exactly where they are.  When I saw Gloria's question here, I assumed (bad me - I need to be slapped on the wrist) that she was talking about having found one of these and wanting to use it.

You may want to see if you can figure out what categories were created and where ... sorry I can't remember better and too busy getting the new Holocaust Project off the ground to go digging for those questions about it.

---

Gaile,

Not a problem.

While working on the categories I created I tried to find any existing slave categories, I did not find any others - it is possible I missed them but I doubt it.

I think the categories listed above will handle the slave category issues.  Hopefully users will also realize the the need to make the connections between owners and slaves as shown.

---

Thanks all for bringing this back up -I am working on joining these various conversation threads in order to come to a consensus on creating the category for Slavery or Slaves in America that will correspond to the existing Slave Owners in America category so that we can use the two to link up former slaves and their owners, thus providing more trails for those of us tracing enslaved ancestors. 

 

First, here are the other conversations: 

1.)   on LNAB for slaves: http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/89028/naming-conventions-for-slaves (thanks for suggesting the exqmple: [[Category: Gloria Dei Cemetery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania]] ...)

(and http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/111245/how-are-slaves-connected-to-their-owners)

2.) on the new category for slaves to link slave owners (who can then place Space profiles listing the slaves named in documents in the SlaveOwners category so that they will be easier to find...): 

http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/122830/servants-enslaved-persons-category-african-american-history

and

http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/89471/are-you-working-pre-civil-war-slave-owning-families-the-south?show=123269#c123269

 

3.)  on sites for slavery research: http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/94080/anyone-research-americans-slaves-african-americans-colonial

---

---

Hi Philip

 

  This discussion has beeen going on since July, and I have hesitated to create the category as it seemed that we were waiting for consensus.  Please let us know your thoughts on how to shape the new category based on the previous discussions: http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/123951/catagories-and-tags?show=124671#c124671

---

I think Phillip did a simple yet brilliant job on making the catagory and the connections. Why make it more than it needs to be? I have way too many to add . I am searching for where the black blood enters my line and dont want to waste things i find during research, but i would if i had to make ridiculously long code strings. Phillip, with his solution has kept the strings at a minimum yet totally explicatory.

---

I agree that it is a good category with good sub-categories.  What we still need is an over-arching category, such as Slavery in North and South America, to contain the categories of American Slaves as well as slaves from the Carribean, who had close ties with South Carolina and the rest of the USA.

 

We also need some way of tying the American Slaves category to space profiles such as this one:

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:List_of_Slaves_Owned_by_Stubbs_Family_Members

---

Shira,

Free space profiles use exactly the same categories as other profiles.  So all we need is the category for the profiles.

If you let me know the profile ID I can work on the category structure. - I find it very difficult to set up categories without a profile - it just makes it all much clearer.

Phil

---

Is this what you mean by Profile ID, Phil?  I thought putting the full url above was the same thing (?).

Space:List_of_Slaves_Owned_by_Stubbs_Family_Members

 

(sorry, I don't know if this will work: [Space:List_of_Slaves_Owned_by_Stubbs_Family_Members]

 

I'm sure I've seen other folks who've created profiles for wills -I shall search ...

Many thanks, Phil!

Shira

---

Shira,

What I mean by the profile ID is the ID for a regular profile of an person on Wikitree.

Your ID for example is Jones-29956.

The ID is always displayed on the top right of the profile.

What I would like to work on is a profile on Wikitree.  Have you created a profile for one for one of the slaves?  And one of the slave owners? If we are going to use categories for them we need profiles for them.

Phil

---

No, Phil, sorry, I do not have a profile for an actual enslaved person from the Carribean.  

I think part of the challenge is creating enough linking information via the various Free Space profiles for folks to be able to create the profiles for actually enslaved people.

Is this worth posing as a separate question right now, or is it better to wait a bit?

 

Btw, thank you for bringing up the issue of  American Indians who were slaves (yet another very touchy issue in my family)  -there were over 500 Tuscarora sold after the T. War, and of course the Cherokee were touchy about slave catchers entering Cherokee towns to search for runaways -but with so  few documented individuals, how do we create spaces to categorize them?

A category for American Indian Slaves under US History (being cafeful to distinguish from slaves owned by Amer. Indians, notably the Cherokee)?

Shira

---

Shira,

The free space profiles are great for details on a subject but they do not work very well for linking people.

I think you should create a profile for the slave owners at least.  Then the free space can be linked to the owner.  This way it can be found.  Finding information in a free space can be very difficult and it seems that most people will not make the connection.  As the goal is to allow managers to find profiles and connect them we need to make it easy - having a profile on the slave owner  will do that.

I see no reason to create a category for American Indian Slaves.  The current slave categories include all slaves and that should be sufficient.   Again - create a profile for the slave and the owner and make the links to those profiles.  

Wikitree is based on profiles of individuals.  To make connections we need to create those profiles.  Everything else connects to the profiles.

---

Fair enough -I agree that most folks who are researching individuals who owned slaves have  enough information to create profiles for owners, and they do so.

The question is what to do with the info. in documents:  if a Free Space list of slaves in a will is linked to the former owner and new owner or manumitted slave, that helps.

The question is then where to look for such Free Space pages.

 

So if folks create

1.  profiles for owners (who are placed in the category of Slave Owners in America by state/county/city) , and then

2. put the  document-information in Free Space pages for the Documents, which are

 

3. linked back to the owner then

that should help folks find infofmation so that

if/when there is enough information, create profiles for the slaves.

I think this is what people are thinking, if it makes sense.

Answer 2

It's as easy as pie to add category tags.  Use double square brackets at the start and end and put "Category:" followed by the category name in the middle.  If the name of the category is "African American, Slaves" then here is how the tag looks:

          [[Category:African American, Slaves]]

Put the tag at the top of the profile and you're all set!  If you enter the name of a category that does not exist already, then when you look at the page, the link will be red.  If you want to create a new category, just click the red link and add something in the editing box for the category page - presto - you will have created a new category!

If you need to create new categories, please contact the categorization project first to make sure you are structuring the categories correctly.

Comments

Gaile, is that the category format that the new project came up with? I thought it was Slaves in (location) ?

---

Jillaine,  It looks like I may have put my foot in my mouth.  I didn't know - or think about - any projects or category structure.  I assumed that Gloria found an existing category and wanted to add it to a profile she was working on.  All I did was to provide instruction on how to do it, and recommendation to contact categorization before creating new ones.

Answer 3

http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/123951/catagories-and-tags?show=124671#c124671

answering to tie all together...

Comments

You are again twisting my words to fit your agenda and to make wikitree conform to an idea that IS not consensus. A person without a last name is no more dehumanized than one with a last name. A slave may have been indentured by choice or by capture or by birth and is not dehumanized by that fact.If a person has no last name fine. If a persons last name is not known because it has not been found documented, fine. It is UNKNOWN untill one is found. You do not have the right to assign an arbatrary LNAB and make incorrect profiles any more than I do. If I know a lnab fine if not i assume nothing. It would dehumanize much more by assigning a lnab according to your standards as much as anything youve said. I trully hope African Americans can find family but they will need clues just as we all do to find them and I do not see any need for more than what jcob unknown aka jamison provides, because those are the known facts.

---

Gloria: "A slave may have been indentured by choice or by capture or by birth and is not dehumanized by that fact."

Being used as cattle doesn't dehumanize, for sure, isn't it?

By the way, as you're speaking about what you call "facts", a person indentured by choice is not a slave.

Answer 4

duplicating this answer to keep us on the same page:

---

Forehead-palm -sorry for my poor organisation.  And I keep remembering things that need to be added.   ( Is this tagged categorisation?)  -pls resee above for explainations and definitions of Freedmen, FPoC,Contrabands...)

OK:

African American History (with AmerIndian disclaimer...)

1. Pre-Civil War
   1. Slavery [in North America, South Am., Carribean, America==USA] [this could also be a subcategory under Colonial South -but after the Am. Rev??]
      1. Slave-Owners -Slave-owners in [location]
         1. wills/testaments/documents listing slaves ??
         2. profiles of families/individuals/speculators??
      2. Slaves -Slaves in [location]
         1. individual profiles
         2. Slave cemetaries (also buried FPoC)
         3. Slave Coffles
         4. Slave Penns
         5. Working "Out"
      3. The Black Codes (applied in the South to both slaves and FPoC)
      4. Free People of Color -- in [location] (also under A. A. History, but in context of Slavery...)
         1. The Colored Press (also post-Civil War)
         2. Mutual Aid Societies
      5. Underground Railroad
         1. 1. Watch Night services
            2. Clandestine Schools
            3. Slave Preachers
2. Civil War
   1. US Colored) Troops -by State and by Unit
   4. Lincoln's
   5. the
3. Post-Civil War
   1. the
   5. Segregation aka Jim Crow
      1. the Black Church/African American Church(es)
      3. ---

please reply at :

http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/89028/naming-conventions-for-slaves?show=124979#c124979

 

Comments

Slave/Colored . Churches

---

Conductors (Colored and White)

---

Stations (routes, quilts/guide-signs)

---

African-American Troops (

---

Contraband Camps

---

Contrabands

---

DC compensated emancipation

---

Emancipation Proclamation

---

13th Ammendment

---

Freedmen

---

the Freedmen's Bureau

---

---

the Freedmen's Savings Bank

---

---

---

Colored Cemetaries (needs to link to Black/A.A. Churches somehow)

Answer 5

Based on comments made over the past 7 months by others (summary:)

• Last Name At Birth for persons born enslaved should be the first known owner's name, subsequent owner names as "Other Last Names" and final owner or freely-chosen name as 'Current Last Name' at time of death.

The convention seems to be (becoming) that this person's LNAB should be listed as Jamison .

 

(please see http://www.wikitree.com/g2g/89028/naming-conventions-for-slaves?show=94084#a94084)

Best,

Shira

Comments

Lnab is NOT Jamison if Jacob was not born to John Jamison. If he was born to John Jamison then his last name IS Jamison. At this time that is UNKNOWN so his lnab is UNKNOWN. I am willing to not add the over 300 named slaves in my slave owner files rather than give a last name to a slave that was not theirs.

---

Well, if you feel that way about it, then please enter those slaves as you wish.  The important thing, to me, is the have as much information out in public as possible for those of us searching for our enslaved ancestors.

Best,
Shira

---

> Lnab is NOT Jamison if Jacob was not born to John Jamison.

Gloria, LNAB means Last Name At Birth, not father's name, therefore there is no need for Jacob to be born to John Jamison to receive Jamison as his last name at birth.

I may be wrong, but I think the usage was that the last name of a slave who was born as slave of owner XYZ is XYZ at birth. So, in that case LNAB of Jacob Jamison is Jacob Jamison. Not Jacob UNKNOWN.

If what you want to say is that the name of Jacob shouldn't have been Jamison, but the name of his father, as he was born slave with a slave as father, his father owned by Jamison, then his father's last name was at that time Jamison. So Jacob Jamison's LNAB was not Jacob Jamison (due to John Jamison) but... Jacob Jamison (due to his father Xyz Jamison owned by John Jamison).

Jacob Jamison instead of Jacob Jamison!

Pretty much the same isn't it?

---

As i said above semantics does not make an unknown last name at birth the true last name. If there is none listed or documented it is UNKNOWNuntill a last name appears in a recorded document. Untill that time do not assign or assume anything.