The Power of Names

I wanted to share this record I found while searching the Toa Alta baptism records again. In all my years of researching, I have rarely come across an entry this detailed for a slave's baptism. Four years ago, I posted "Whispers of the Past" where certain entries for slaves in the Registry of 1872 contained the name of their parents. This is first time I am seeing a church record include so much information for a slave.

Juan Luis Sandoval, negro adulto - Bautismo [FamilySearch]

Below is a transcription of the document above.

Transcription: En la Rivera de Toa Alta el día diez y ocho de mayo del año mil ochocientos y siete yo el beneficiado presbiterio Don Joseph María Martínez Cura Rector de esta parroquia de la Inmaculada Concepción de Nuestra Señora bauticé solemnemente puse oleo y crisma a Juan Luis negro adulto de diez y seis años de edad natural de Guinea en el lugar llamado Gabó, hijo de Ocai y de Gavena y a él lo llamaban Guinbi, esclavo de Doña Manuela Sandoval, fue su padrino el caballero regidor Don Juan Antonio Mexía a quien advertí el parentesco espiritual y sus obligaciones, de que doy fe. [firmado] Joseph María Martínez. 

The main information to discern from above is that on the 18th of May 1807, Juan Luis, a black adult of 16 years of age, native of Guinea from the place of "Gabó" son of Ocai and Gavena who was previously known as Guinbi, slave of Manuela Sandoval, was baptized in the church of Toa Alta, Puerto Rico.

Interestingly enough, three other slaves belonging to Manuela Sandoval are also baptized in 1807 along with Juan Luis, none of them however have as much information to them as Juan Luis. The slaves are as follows: 

Juan Manuel, esclavo de Manuela Sandoval, adulto, natural de Guinea

Andrés Antonio, esclavo de Manuela Sandoval, adulto, natural de Guinea 

Manuel Antonio, esclavo de Manuela Sandoval, adulto, natural de Guinea 

Besides stating that they were "natives of Guinea" no ages or parents' names are mentioned. These type of entries are more common amongst slaves and it's interesting that Juan Luis' entry has so much detail. 

Why only Juan Luis?

It is possible that Juan Luis was quick to learn Spanish and was allowed to share his information when baptized. I'm not sure if Manuela Sandoval was kind enough to let him share this information or if Joseph María Martínez asked him these questions himself when he was baptized. It is likely that Juan Luis was brought to Puerto Rico that year or maybe the previous year and was well aware of who he was, where he was from, and the names of his parents. Potentially even his age is maybe correct seeing as how he was the only slave of four to mention an age. This would mean that Guinbi, later known as Juan Luis, was likely born around the year 1791. 

"El lugar Gabó"

My guess would be that Guinbi was originally from the country today known as Gabon (Gabón in Spanish). From my understanding of the 17-18th century slave trade, most of the western area was known as "Guinea" and so it included various countries that today are: Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Togo, Nigeria, Cameroon, and various islands and other countries as well. A map of the times gives us a better idea of the extension of this area known as the "Gulf of Guinea". 

Map of the Gulf of Guinea, 1740-1749 [Bibliothèque Nationale de France]

Unfortunately, this is the closest we are to knowing where Guinbi was from, no town is mentioned and the fact that his baptism includes the actual country and his parents' names is a feat in and of itself.

Guinbi, son of Ocai and Gavena

Since we are dealing with Spanish orthography, we are not sure the correct or accurate spelling of their names. For example, the "u" is used after the "g-" in Spanish but this might not be the case in other languages, the "n" might be a "m" giving us something like Ginbi or Gimbi. His father's name might take a "k" instead of a "c" and the "a" might be a more "e" sound, something along the lines of Okai or Okei. Lastly, his mother's name could take "b" instead of a "v" since Spanish doesn't distinguish the two giving us Gabena. And who's to say these weren't short versions of longer names as well! 

The three main indigenous languages in Gabon are Fang, Mbere, and Sira - all being Bantu languages. I would imagine their names fall under one of these languages but of course there is always the possibility it doesn't. An ethnographic and linguistic analysis of these names and cross referencing other sources of the time which help to distinguish African names in Spanish orthography would be helpful to discover their Gabonese names.

Conclusions

It would be interesting to follow Juan Luis' life and see what became of him in Puerto Rico. How long did he stay enslaved? Does he end up marrying and having children in Puerto Rico? Does he have descendants out there? If only these type of detailed records existed for all of our enslaved ancestors! 

A Puerto Rican Look at: Ancestry's "MyTreeTags"

A bit earlier on in the year, around spring/early summer, Ancestry released "MyTreeTags" which can be added to your ancestors in your tree. Hyperlinked above, you will find how to set up the tags and the different types that exist already. Another feature of the tags is that you can create your own "custom tags" which you can make and define to your liking. In this post I want to highlight some of the different ways I've used the MyTreeTags in order to build out specific aspects related to Puerto Rican genealogy. Definitely feel free to play around with the tags and create your own that may fit the specific needs of your tree.

Ancestry's MyTreeTags

When this feature was initially released, I was a bit hesitant in its use. I knew my family pretty well as I work on genealogy basically everyday and so I wondered how it could help me. So I decided to explore some of the pre-designed tags (some pictures below). The tags are broken down to various categories, for example: DNA, Life Experience, Research, and Relationships.

MyTreeTags - Research [Ancestry]

MyTreeTags - DNA [Ancestry]

Right away "actively researching", "brick wall", and "immigrant" stood out to me. These were tags that I could easily attach to some of my ancestors. My Correa ancestors were definitely under the list of actively researching and brick wall while my Guadeloupean, Martinican, and Mallorcan ancestors fell under immigrant. Here's an example of how the tags look on an ancestor's profile, below I've marked my ancestor with two preset tags created by Ancestry.

My 5th Great-grandfather, a brick wall I'm actively researching [Personal Ancestry Tree]

However, these were facts that I knew pretty well - so I thought, how can I make these tags work for me personally? I tried to think of tags that would make sense for my family and aspects that were important when it came to genealogy when suddenly it clicked (hint above). Why don't I create tags that track race and social statuses in Puerto Rico? 

Creating My Own Personal Tags

MyTreeTags - Custom Tags [Ancestry] 

As you can see above I've created the tags: Blanco, Español, Pardo, Slave, Slave Owner, and Twin. Forgive my Spanglish creations, at some point I'll probably switch them all to Spanish as most of my notes on my tree are in Spanish to match documents. The "race" tags reflect what was written on the documents, for example blanco or pardo seem to be the main two I've found so far through my tree. "Negro" hasn't really appeared in my documents besides my ancestors that came from the French islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe but I've categorized them as "slave" since I know both had served as slaves on their respective islands. Below is another example of a custom tag and a preset tag, my 4th great-grandmother Julienne Lautin was an immigrant from Martinique who had previously been enslaved until 1848, she would have been four years old when she received her freedom.

My 4th Great-Grandmother from Martinique [Personal Ancestry Tree]

On the other hand, my 7th great-grandfather Manuel Ruiz had been a slave on the island of Puerto Rico but was listed as 'pardo' on his documents. Linked above is the post about how I traced his enslavement on the island. Below you can see an example of two custom tags on his profile.

Manuel Ruiz, Pardo slave in Puerto Rico [Personal Ancestry Tree]

What's cool about the tags is that you can search in your tree for everyone you've tagged with that specific phrase/word. So for example, if I wanted to see who was enslaved in my family, I could search 'slave' and retrieve a list. Below, you can see a few of my direct ancestors who were slaves at some point of their life. 5 of these 6 ancestors were from outside of Puerto Rico while Manuel Ruiz is currently the only slave I've traced in Puerto Rico. I know there are probably more slave ancestors hidden somewhere in the mid-early 1600s in Puerto Rico but I have yet to identify them.

MyTreeTag - Slave [Personal Ancestry Tree]

Another tag I've created is "Español", this tag is reserved for ancestors who themselves immigrated from Spain to Puerto Rico. Recently, I discovered my 6th great-grandfather Dávila ancestor who came from southern Spain, and thus I tagged him as "Español". Also, my 3rd great grandfather Damián Magraner is also tagged as "Español". 

6th Great-grandfather, Spanish Immigrant [Personal Ancestry Tree]

Finally, another interesting tag I've created is "Slave owner". I don't have many of these in my tree but it is important to know who owned slaves as it influences the narrative and story of my ancestors. One specific ancestor is my 4th great-grandmother who owned slaves in Adjuntas, Puerto Rico. Discovering this information allowed me to better understand her life in the late 1800s in Puerto Rico and how her own mother (my 5th great-grandmother) also owned slaves thus leading me to find her last will and testament. 

4th Great-Grandmother, Slave Owner [Personal Ancestry Tree]

What's next?

As I continue to learn more about my family, my goal is to continue creating tags that will allow me to quickly identify facts about them that might not be obvious from their biographical information. Some of the tags I've recently added include, for example: "twin" and "triplet" as I've had a couple cases of twins and one case of triplets in my family. There are some pre-created tags for DNA such as "common DNA Ancestor", "DNA Match", and "DNA Connection" but I'm not sure if I want to use those yet. We'll see how these keep developing and how I can seamlessly incorporate them into my tree. 

Do you have any special tree tags you've created? 

Manuel Ruiz - A Pardo Slave in the 1700s

In line with my goals for the new year, I've been taking a look at my lines trying to push them back in the 1700s. Many of my Coamo lines have been pushed back to 1700s but I always like to take another look at them and see if I'm missing any children or to find new hints. Taking a look at the catalogue of indexed baptisms in Coamo created by another Puerto Rican genealogist, I noticed that in two years there is a Manuel (esclavo de María Ruiz) and Victoriana Sánchez listed. In my tree, I have a Manuel Ruiz and Victoriana Sánchez (my 7 great-grandparents) so immediately I was intrigued. So I began to search more into the possibility of them being my ancestors seeing as how both names matched up. So in this post I will break down the information I currently have on Manuel Ruiz and run through the documentation that these two men are one and the same.

Who was Manuel Ruiz?

Before finding this new information, I knew that one of my 7th great-grandfathers was named Manuel Ruiz. He lived what it seems most of his life in Coamo, Puerto Rico where he both married and passed away.

Coamo, Puerto Rico [Google Maps]

Manuel Ruiz would have married around the 1750s and 1760s based off the years of baptism from his children. He married a woman named Victoriana Sánchez (sometimes she just went by Victoria and in one occasion her last name was written down as "Matos"). Victoriana Sánchez fairly young, died around the age of 37 on the 15th of October 1775. No parents were listed for Victoriana and she had left no testament or will since she was poor. Later in 1784, almost 10 years after his first wife's death, Manuel Ruiz would marry for the second time to a woman named Lucia Morales.

From his first marriage, so far I have been able to count about 10 children: Francisco (1758), Manuel, José (1761), María (1763), Lucas (1765), Francisca (1768), Gregorio, Juan Manuel (1770), Josefa, and María de Gracia (1773) - my 6th great-grandmother. Those children who have no birth year listed after their names means that so far I have no baptism record in Coamo for them though I may have found a death or marriage record. Manuel would pass away in October 1795 in Coamo and left no will for lack of worldly possessions. 

Recently, I discovered sons Francisco and José by chance. I noticed that a Manuel, slave of María Ruiz was registering his children's births in 1758 and 1761 and that his wife was listed as Victoriana Sánchez. What are the odds that there were two men with the same wife's name in 1700s Coamo? I would guess the odds were slim. So I decided to take a look at the records. 

Tracing Manuel Ruiz through records

Originally, my earliest child for Manuel Ruiz and Victoriana Sánchez was María, born in 1763. Below, you can see underlined the name of Manuel Ruiz and Victoriana Sánchez. As you can see there is no mention of either of them being slaves, pardos libres, or white. 

María Ruiz, hija de Manuel Ruiz y Victoriana Sánchez [FamilySearch]

As I had mentioned above, there were various children from this couple that I had no idea when they were born exactly. One of them was Francisco Ruiz, who married in 1783 to a slave named Angela de Santiago. I found it interesting that Francisco Ruiz would marry a slave seeing as how in the 1700s, social class and status was probably a big deal. Thinking nothing of it, I tucked it away in the back of my head and keep researching for other siblings.

Francisco Ruiz y Angela de Santiago, eslava [FamilySearch]

Seeing as how they married in 1783, I would guess that Francisco Ruiz was born somewhere in the 1750-1760s. Usually when I find a marriage but no baptism, I take away 18 years from the marriage date to get a guesstimate of when the person was born. In this case, Francisco was potentially born in 1765 (this is definitely not an exact science, but it helps to give me an idea of where to search next for baptisms). I was very surprised when I found a "Francisco, legitimate son of Manuel, slave of María Ruiz, and Victoria Sánchez, parda libre" being registered for a baptism in 1758. 

Francisco, hijo de Manuel Ruiz y Victoria Sánchez [FamilySearch]

I was initial surprised to see this! Mainly because it went against one of my theories about the pardos libres in Puerto Rico. I had always thought that a pardo libre was someone who had never been a slave and was marked that way to signify their free status in society. Here we can see that Manuel Ruiz, who I am guessing was the same man, was originally a slave before receiving freedom. Though no race is mentioned in these current records, later on in his second marriage to Lucia Morales there are multiple times that he is mentioned as "pardo libre" (this term could possibly be akin to the term "mulato"): 1786 (baptism of his son Antonio), 1787 (baptism of his son José), and 1790 (baptism of his daughter Petrona).

If memory serves me correctly, Puerto Rico like the United States based the status of a slave on their mother. In this case, since Victoriana Sánchez was a parda libre herself, all of her children would have been born free despite Manuel Ruiz having slave status. Manuel Ruiz and Victoriana Sánchez had another child while he was still a slave, born in 1761 by the name of José Ruiz Sánchez.  I would imagine Manuel was freed between 1762-1763, since when María was born there was no mention of him being a slave.

José, hijo de Manuel, esclavo y Victoria Sánchez  [FamilySearch]

After finding these records, I was intrigued by Manuel's status of slave to pardo libre and continued to dig around. And this is where things got interesting!

Manuel Ruiz A.K.A. Manuel Torres?

Manuel Ruiz and his wife also served as godparents a few times for other children in Coamo. Here in 1767 for example, we see Manuel Ruiz coming forth with Victoria Sánchez to be the godparents to a boy named Manuel, son of Francisca (slave of María Ruiz) - to me this helps solidify that Manuel (slave of María Ruiz) and my ancestor are the same man. 

Padrinos: Manuel Ruiz y Victoria Sánchez [FamilySearch]

Now seeing that María Ruiz had another slave named Francisca Ruiz, I decided to look into her and see if she could potentially be a sister or of some other relation to Manuel Ruiz. I found another baptism for Francisca's son in 1762, a son named Martín was being baptized - 5 years earlier than this one above. This time the godparents were Manuel Torres and Victoria Sánchez. I did a double take, I thought my ancestor was Ruiz and not Torres? Martín Ruiz was registered as free though his mother was still a slave herself.

Martín, el que se bautizó libre [FamilySearch]

What's interesting here is the year 1762, the middle year between José Ruiz's birth and María Ruiz's birth when my ancestor went from enslaved to free. Could María Ruiz having passed away in 1762, given Martín freedom knowing she was at the end of her life and ultimately freed Manuel Ruiz upon her death? I was able to find a María de las Nieves Ruiz passing away in December 1762, who was married to Juan Manuel Feliz, no testament was left upon her death though. I'm not sure if I'm connecting threads that are supposed to be separate, but the odds here seem to be high that these are one and the same man. Could it have been that Manuel originally was the slave of a Torres and then transferred over to a Ruiz? Would that explain the back and forth of Ruiz and Torres? One more document helped to make things even more interesting.

Defunción - María de las Nieves Ruiz [FamilySearch]

As I had mentioned, there were some children of Manuel Ruiz and Victoriana Sánchez in which I only had a marriage for... another one of those was Francisca Ruiz Sánchez. Francisca would marry in July 1785 to man named Francisco de Borja Piñero, illegitimate son of Bernardina, deceased. 

Francisca Ruiz, hija de Manuel y Victoriana Sánchez [FamilySearch] 

Taking Francisca's marriage year and subtracting 18, I got 1767. I had found no Francisca being born to Manuel Ruiz and Victoriana Sánchez in that year, but could she have been born a "Torres"? BINGO! I was able to find a Francisca, born to a Manuel Torres and Victoriana Sánchez! 

Francisca, hija de Manuel Torres y Victoriana Sánchez [FamilySearch]

Remember that by 1767, Manuel would have been free already so the use of "Torres" is interesting. There is always the possibility that this was another man but seeing as how Victoriana/Victoria Sánchez was the wife and that is constant throughout all of these records helps to plead a stronger case for it being my 7th great-grandfather.

It seems like María Ruiz and another slave owner had a close connection seeing as how their slaves married and then based off his last name I think creates a bigger tie - his name was Manuel Torres. In 1756 a slave named "Vicente" was born to Andrés, slave of María Ruiz and María, slave of Manuel Torres. Later, a set of twins were born in 1759 to Andrés, slave of Manuel Torres, and María, slave of Manuel Torres. It seems that Andrés would have been transferred over from María Ruiz to Manuel Torres now that these two slaves were married. The twins, Tiburcia and Valeria, had two separate godparents. Tiburcia's godparents were Felipe Torres and Anastasia Torres while Valeria's were Manuel Torres and Victoriana Sánchez, and here Manuel is a Torres again, could he have been named in honor of his first original master? 

Andrés, esclavo de María Ruiz y María, esclava de Manuel Torres [FamilySearch]

As you can see there is still some searching to do. Could Manuel Torres or María Ruiz have left wills in Coamo detailing their slaves and what to be done now that they had died? What was Manuel's life like as a slave in the 1700s? Would his life been any different to other slaves since he was pardo? Did pardo slaves have a certain mix to them,  for example white father, slave mother? No records point to parents for Manuel Ruiz and the baptisms from the 1730s in Coamo seem to be missing, so for right now there is no more to learn about his background. 

I'll definitely have to keep my eyes out now for pardos libres who potentially were slaves before they received their freedom status!