I discovered distant relatives during my ongoing family research who lived in Angola, New York about a century ago. That seemed like an odd location for a town to carry such a name. I wondered if it could have been a coincidence. Maybe early settlers corrupted a Native American word used by the Iroquois who inhabited the area. Certainly it couldn’t pertain to the Angola in Africa, I thought. What possible connection could it have to Africa?
That made me turn to the Geographic Names Information System where I discovered several other places named Angola. Some fell within the southern United States and I suspected those traced back to slavery associations. However that seemed far-fetched for a town on the western extremity of New York just outside of Buffalo (map).
New York
The answer came to light soon enough courtesy of the Village of Angola itself.
“‘ANGOLA’ …everyone asks where did the ‘Name’ come from… Many years ago when the trains came through this area, it was called Evans Station. The people applied to the Federal Government to put a post office in this area. The Quakers had started a Colony this side of Gowanda in the Collins area and were known to help many in need. The same Quakers also helped people of Angola, Africa. In 1855, when the Angola Post Office located in Taylor Hollow (used by the Quakers) closed, the Federal Government offered it to this area and said ‘here is your post office’ and authorities thought it best to move the post office to this area… hence the name ‘Angola’.”
That seemed plausible. The Religious Society of Friends — Quakers — had indeed settled in western New York. This included the Gowanda area during the very earliest part of the 19th Century, specifically in Collins Township. Also, the Quakers were staunch abolitionists by this time. So it seems plausible that they might select a name like Angola. This would establish solidarity with the plight of Africans and demonstrate an opposition to their slavery.
Indiana
Another noteworthy Angola existed in northeastern Indiana (map), practically on top of the Indiana-Michigan-Ohio tripoint. Scant information on the name existed. However, one source claimed, “In 1838 when the peoples from New York migrated west to the Vermont Settlement they created the town of Angola, named after Angola, New York”. So, if possibly true, they must have named it for the original Quaker settlement. The later village of Angola, New York didn’t become Angola until 1855.
The Local History Department of the Carnegie Library of Steuben County offered another theory, most simply,
“Angola received it’s name about the time the place was chosen as the county seat and it is said, before there was no other known place called Angola in this country or anywhere else, save in Africa. The name is supposed to have been chosen simply as being new and uncommon and one that pleased the chooser of it.”
Judge Thomas Gale, the man who selected the name, was a known abolitionist. Likewise, Indiana banned slavery in its Constitution when it became a state in 1816. This Angola firmly embodied Northern sentiments during the Civil War. It even constructed a large monument known locally as “The Mound” to commemorate its Union soldiers from Steuben County. It honored all four military branches that fought in the war (infantry, artillery, cavalry and navy).
So we may never completely understand the original inspiration for the Angola name in Indiana. Nonetheless, it seemed highly unlikely to be pro-slavery.
Louisiana
Angola in Louisiana presented the exact opposite condition. Isaac Franklin made his fortune selling slaves, establishing one of the largest slave trading firms in the nation, Armfield & Franklin. Money in hand, he pivoted from wealthy slave trader to wealthy plantation owner. He controlled several hundred slaves and large plantations in Tennessee and Louisiana.
His Louisiana holdings — not even his regular home — consisted of four contiguous plantation: Panola, Belle View, Killarney and Angola. Franklin died in 1846 and his wife joined the properties and later sold it as a set.
So the united property assumed the Angola name. The designation came from the African people forced to toil there in the fields there. Later the state of Louisiana acquired the Angola property in 1901 and built a prison on the site. It became the Louisiana State Penitentiary or simply Angola (map).
Twelve Mile Circle featured this Angola previously in A Prisoner to Geo-Oddities along with its prisoner rodeo and art show.
Morro da Cruz
I thought that slaves taken from Angola all went to Brazil. Both areas fell within the colonial domain of Portugal so it seemed logical. Most did, however some went elsewhere.
“One of the biggest surprises about the history of the slave trade to the United States is the high percentage of our ancestors who were shipped to this country from Angola. African Americans have traditionally thought of Ghana and Senegal as our most common ancestral homes on the African continent, but almost half of all of the slaves arriving in this country were shipped here from two sources: Senegambia, yes, but also, Angola.”
Historians believe that about a quarter of African-American ancestry came from Angola. Many of those leaving Angola passed through Morro da Cruz near Luanda (map). There priests baptized them before slave traders packed them onto ships for the notorious journey through the middle passage. The government of Angola preserved the site as the Museu Nacional da Escravatura, the National Museum of Slavery.
So three Angola locations in the United States were large enough to have histories readily available. One was an artifact of nostalgic slavery (Louisiana). One was not (New York). One might simply reflect a word that sounded interesting (Indiana).
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