Date:  Fri, 18 Nov 1994 12:23:00 EDT

From:  "David A. Johns" <DJOHNS[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UFPINE.BITNET>

Subject: Suwanee



Back to this again ...



Our library just got a copy of Joseph E. Holloway's _The African

Heritage of American English (Indiana U. P., 1993). _Suwanee_ is

listed under both Georgia and Florida place names as possibly of

African origin. On page 115-116 they suggest that it could have come

from Bantu _nsub-wanyi_ 'my house'. Apparently there was a large

Black Seminole settlement near the mouth of the Suwanee until 1818,

when it was destroyed during the Seminole Wars.



There's also a town named Suwanee in Georgia, a little northeast of

Atlanta, but there's no explanation in the book of how the name got

that far north.



David Johns

Waycross College

Waycross, GA