"A Mustee Negro Man, named Sam": one label for two ancestries (Charlestown, SC, 1738–1739)
Record: the document says itPattern: documents line upLens: our readingOpen: not yet provenDisputed: argued, often by a hostile witness
Year: 1738 · Places: Carolinas, Georgia, Europe
SUMMARY"A Mustee Negro Man, named Sam": one label for two ancestries (Charlestown, SC, 1738–1739) [Connections: Carolinas, Nov 5, 2026]
RECORDRunaway advertisements in the South Carolina Gazette: March 23–30, 1738, placed by Benj. Godin, for "a Mustee Negro Man, named Sam"; February 1, 1739, placed by Rebeccah Massey, for "a Mustee young Wench, named Ruth" (as reprinted in Reading the American Past, Macmillan). In the Georgia Gazette of May 20, 1767, Archibald Bulloch advertised for Jenny, "a MUSTEE WENCH." The Adverts 250 Project notes that "mustee" was probably a shortened form of "mestizo," and that it could mean mixed ancestry of several kinds, including Indigenous American ancestry. Hostile witness: enslavers describing people in order to recapture them
PATTERN"Mustee" (from mestizo, a Spanish term for people of Indian and European descent) was stacked onto "Negro" in the same ad. The person was described as Indian-descended and Black at once, and was held as a slave either way
LENS (WW9)The old word for "part Indian" was printed right next to "Negro," and only one of those labels lasted
OPENThe OED defines "mustee" more narrowly (a person with one white parent and one parent who was a quarter Black). Usage varied, so each ad cannot be read as proof of Indian ancestry
DISPUTEDthe meaning in any single ad
SOURCEReading the American Past, ch. 5 (Macmillan); Adverts 250 Project, "mustee" tag. Primary: South Carolina Gazette, Mar. 23–30, 1738 and Feb. 1, 1739; Georgia Gazette, May 20, 1767.