"Coffee" as the name of a female slave

[Wilson Gray]

Old BE boast:

"They call me "Coffee" 'cause I grind so fine!"

Heb Stahlke write:

>"Bill Welmers pointed out to me years ago, back in the
> sixties, that the West Los Angeles telephone directory had about four
> pages of Coffee, a name that was barely represented in other LA area
> directories.

What conclusion are we to draw from this seemingly-meaningless
observation, given that you don't specify what section of Los Angeles
it was that Pacific Tel & Tel considered to constitute West Los
Angeles? I lived in Los Angeles from 1957 to 1969. The Watts Riot came
within three blocks of my house. I saw the fires from the Harbor
Freeway as I drove to work.

However, my point is that, in the 'Sixties, we black Angelenos
considered *West* Los Angeles, as represented by addresses in the West
Los Angeles telephone book, to be the *Jewish* section of Los Angeles.
I had occasion to shop at the West L.A. Bullock's and found nothing to
disabuse me of that impression. The *black* section of Los Angeles we
knew as the "East Side," home of poorer blacks, not to be confused
with the Chicano section known as "East Los Angeles," and the "West
SIde," home of less poor blacks and, as noted, not to be confused with
West Los Angeles. Perhaps your friend had heard colored people
speaking of the "West Side," of which much was made in Negro circles,
and thought that they really meant West Los Angeles, which was over
the hills and far away, to the average black person. I personally was
never in West Los Angeles before the Watts Riot. At that time, a
lawyer buddy, also from Saint Louis, invited me to stay with him, just
in case. (As usual, the Jews were the first to lower the barriers,
despite the Hitler of Soul, Minister Farrakhan and his ilk. Indeed,
the first house that my family owned in Saint Louis was across the
street from one of the largest synagogues in the city, at the time.)
Here, memory fails, but I *think* that I recall that this black area
was essentially covered by the *Central Los Angeles* telephone book.

The East Side was east of Main Street and the West Side was west of
Main Street. I once lived on East 80th Street. Later, I moved on up to
South ("South" is south of First Street and "North" is north of First
Street) Van Ness Avenue, north of Pico Boulevard and west of Western
Avenue, reputed to be be the longest straight street in the world, not
to be confused with what is reputed to be the longest street in the
world, Sunset Boulevard. This location is in the area now known as
"Little Korea." Before blacks were allowed - as someone once noted,
"You couldn't do *nothin'*, 'lessen The Man *said* you could" - to
live in Beverly Hills, etc., this was the area in which such Negro
luminaries as Nat "King" Cole, Hattie McDaniel, Eddie "Rochester"
Anderson, etc. lived.

Back in the day, blacks, Japanese-Americans (the women and girls wore
kimonos for dress-up occasions, so I knew what their ethnicity was,
even in those cases in which they were "Buddha-heads" that I didn't
know personally), Jews, a few other white ethnicities, Chicanos, etc.
- in numbers sufficient for there to be a Catholic church on the
corner of Pico & Mariposa, of couple of three blocks to the east.

As for the name "Coffee," either as forename or surname, of the
thousands of black people that I've met over the course of more than
seventy years, I've never met any so named or even so nicknamed. As
for nicknaming someone on the basis of his skin tone, well, you can
*not* be serious! That would be, at the least, "acting white." "[m@
'rajnowz]" tend to be nicknamed "Red,"
on the basis of their *hair* color and absolutely "not" on the basis
of their skin tone, which could be anything, from black to white.

OTOH, in grade school, I once knew some kids named "Cuffey": the
identical twins, Richard and Raymond, and their younger sister,
Jacqueline.
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.

And given that interracial sex and/or marriage between white and black
indentured servants preceded the institution of slavery, it's
certainly possibly the case that her owner may have *nicknamed* a
slave "Coffee" on the basis of her complexion, contrasted with that of
her fellow-slaves was coffee so well-known a beverage at that early
date that it would have occurred to him to do this?

Does anyone know the origin of the black (to the best of my knowledge)
surname, "Swyza"? The bearer of this name was known as "Big Swayze."
Hence, until it was too late to ask, I assumed that Big's surname was
the same as John Cameron's.

-Wilson
-----
-Mark Twain



On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 10:18 AM, Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "Coffee" as the name of a female slave
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> It's probably impossible to determine, but the day name in question,
> at least along the central West African coast, is Kofi, which is a
> common name.  Bill Welmers pointed out to me years ago, back in the
> sixties, that the West Los Angeles telephone directory had about four
> pages of Coffee, a name that was barely represented in other LA area
> directories.  There was an article, also back in the sixties, the
> details of which I don't remember, that discussed the use of Ashanti
> day names in the Caribbean, where they were fairly common.
>
> Herb
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 9:26 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
>> Subject:      "Coffee" as the name of a female slave
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> In 1713 in Little Compton (then Mass., now R.I.) a female black slave
>> was named "Coffee."  [Hull, "Female Felons: Women and Serious Crime
>> in Colonial Massachusetts" (1987), 112; primary source Superior Court records.]
>>
>> I have read that "Coffee" was derived from a male day name.  Perhaps
>> in this case the name was related to skin color; I wonder whether
>> that was unusual.
>>
>> Joel
>>
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