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Marking an ‘X’: Exploring the History of Grenada’s Surnames

Despite the widespread belief that most Grenadian surnames today are derived from plantation/slave owners, many former enslaved men actually used their first (and only) names to create their family names. This is the case for a plurality of both English and French-derived surnames today. That means your surname may contain a clue to the name of your last enslaved male ancestor. A smaller percentage of Grenadian surnames, both English and French, are derived from plantation owners, and this often indicates a blood connection. Maybe we can see these surnames as more a creation of the newly freed Grenadians to establish identity, rather than something imposed upon them, as was the case in other countries.   Malcolm X, the son of Grenadian Louise Langdon Norton Little (1895/6-1989), made famous the identity struggles of Black people in the diaspora when he replaced his family name of Little (or what has also been termed his “slave name”) with an ‘X’ to signify his lost or robbe
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“Slave Pens” in Grenada? Finding Ancestry in the Historical Landscape

Tours of estates like Dougaldston, St John, or River Antoine and Belmont, St Patrick today will reveal little to nothing of slavery unless one has knowledge of what took place here beyond the cocoa trees, sugar-cane fields, and old waterwheel technology that dates to the 18th and 19th centuries (Figures 1, 2). There were no family heirlooms to pass down, no shackles or whips that tell of the brutality, no memory of tears that tell of the suffering, no ruins of thatched houses that reveal the hearth of everyday (enslaved) lives, no drums beating out rhythms of melancholy melodies, no cultural artifacts that linger in museums, and no monuments that sing praises to heroic ancestors. It is a landscape and heritage barren of slavery except in the enduring nightmare of it all. Figure 1. River Antoine estate in St Patrick still producing rum utilizing slavery-era technology in its waterwheel and aqueduct system (courtesy Grenada National Museum) The current relic landscape, particularly the p
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The Grenadines Will Always Be Grenadian! (Because of Their Name)

The southern Caribbean and northern South America, with Grenada and the Grenadines, 1760 The Grenadines, from Bequia to Carriacou, were once entirely owned and administered by Grenada, hence their original name  Granada y Granadillos (<AmSp Granada + illos : “little Grenadas”). A few of the approximately 125 small islands, islets, and rocks were first settled by the French in the mid-1700s, the last islands to be colonized by Europeans, most likely due to their small size, arid landscape, and the absence of yearlong streams. Today, Carriacou, Petite Martinique, Ronde, and some 30 small islets are dependencies of Grenada. The rest are now part of St. Vincent. Map of the southern Caribbean by Johannes van Keulen, 1684, showing the Grenadines’ early association with Grenada  (note, the top is facing west; Grenada is colored red).  In 1784, the Grenadines were officially partitioned on the recommendation of Lieutenant Governor Valentine Morris of St. Vincent who believed
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