[Ads-l] "cent store" and "Scipio"

[dave at WILTON.NET]

"Scipio" is his name. This article says the most common source of names were those names used by White people at the time, which make up the majority, followed by names of African origin, biblical names (those not used by Whites), and classical names:

Inscoe, John C. "Carolina Slave Names: An Index to Acculturation." _Journal of Southern History_, 49.4, November 1983, 527–54 at 541. JSTOR:

"The names themselves cover a wide range, from mythical gods and heroes to historic Greek and Roman statesmen, generals, and philosophers. The variety was greater in the colonial period, when such names as Bacchus, Virgil, Hannibal, Jupiter, Titus, Cato, Cicero, Hector, Cupid, Primus, Augustus, Scipio, Nero, Hercules, and Caesar appeared regularly among Carolina males. By the mid-nineteenth century only Cato, Cicero, Primus, Caesar, Pompey, and Scipio remained in common use. The number of female slaves with classical names was somewhat less than that of males, but more of them continued to appear on a regular basis. Venus, Diana, Phoebe, Juno, Daphne, Dido, and Flora were all common names throughout the slave era, with only names like Thisbe, Sappho, Cleopatra, and Minerva fading out after 1800."

The article is a bit old, but it's what popped up first in a quick search.

Also, in the nineteenth century there was a fad for naming towns after those in classical literature. A drive through upstate New York turns up many, Utica, Syracuse, etc.

-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> On Behalf Of James Landau
Sent: Sunday, November 22, 2020 7:58 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: [ADS-L] "cent store" and "Scipio"

In Nathaniel Hawthorne's _The House of the Seven Gables_ (1851) Hepzibah Pyncheon opens a "cent store", that is a store in which everything is priced at one cent, in one gable of the House.
This surprised me, for I had always assumed that the terms "dime store", "five and dime", "ten-cent store", etc. were introduced by F. W. Woolworth circa 1879.
Also chapter XIII is a flashback to the early 18th Century.  A man identified as "Mr. Pyncheon's black servant" delivers a message and a little later admits the recipient to the House.  The servant's name is never given.  He is described, and addressed, as "black servant", "black", "darkey", and "Scipio"  (he also refers to himself by the N-word).  "Scipio" is of course the Roman general Scipio Africanus and hence can refer to someone from Africa, although unlike the servant addressed as "Scipio", the original Scipio Africanus was a white man.
Does anyone know if "Scipio" was widely used as a term to address or describe a black man?

James Landau
jjjrlandau at netscape.com

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