Talk:Peter Mills (freedman)

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Title

Is it possible change the name, specifically the "(slave)" part? I don't know, it doesn't seem to fit the pattern, as most wiki articles describe their profession or what they did, not their relationship to another person. It'd be like an article being titled, "Jackie Kennedy (Wife)". 2600:4040:B383:7300:4585:5AB3:D8FD:91EF (talk) 21:25, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

and just to clarify, "Formerly enslaved Person" seems like it would at least better describe his relevance. 2600:4040:B383:7300:4585:5AB3:D8FD:91EF (talk) 21:27, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Came here to say this. Maybe "freedman"? 134.56.183.3 (talk) 03:55, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Verified by whom?

The article claims that his age was verified, but doesn't state by whom, and the source doesn't say so either (just showing a newspaper article). At 110, Mills would have been the oldest living man in the world at the time of his death, but Oldest people#Chronological list of the oldest living man since 1954 doesn't list him, suggesting that his age is wrong. There are many dubious claims of extremely old age reported in newspaper articles throughout the 20th century, including from former slaves; compare the list of last survivors of American slavery. Mills' age seems to be one of those cases. Renerpho (talk) 05:34, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Historical records for enslaved individuals are often incomplete or inaccurate due to systemic racism, general lack of documentation, and other challenges of the time.

This has been a noted shortcoming of lists of alleged centenarians, particularly of the era the subject lived in. There were many people born in the 19th century, both in the US and abroad, who may well have lived to be over 100 but would not be able to prove such a claim. This is particularly true of enslaved individuals. There is noted direct correlation between verified longevity claims and record keeping, in turn there has been a historical correlation between record keeping and wealth/occupational class.

It’s very unlikely that any individual born into slavery could meet a rigorous standard of proof for verifying their age. Even individuals like Cudjoe Lewis, Fountain Hughes, and Delia Garlic who undoubtedly were former enslaved people that survived until the 21st century have no widely accepted date of birth. That does not mean we should discount any claims of longevity by these people out of hand.

There were over 2000 centenarians listed in the 1970 census. Around 1 in 6 Americans were slaves before the Civil War. The claim that a former slave could live until 110 is not so extraordinary inconceivable claim that it can’t be taken at face value from contemporary reporting.

I don’t think the subject of this article is comparable to cases like Sylvester Magee or Charlie Smith where their longevity claims were much longer than any other human being being on record and would be considered truly extraordinary even by modern standards. Even then, Charlie Smith was believed by researchers to have actually been born around 1874, which would have made him 105 by the time of his death in 1979, not too far off the subject of this article. Musicisdeadon (talk) 22:54, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]