Talk:Caesar Tarrant

A fact from Caesar Tarrant appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 27 June 2022 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Caesar Tarrant remained enslaved after his service as a boat pilot in the American Revolutionary War until the state of Virginia purchased his freedom in 1789?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2022/June. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Caesar Tarrant.

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Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by SL93 (talk) 14:00, 19 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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Article history

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... that Caesar Tarrant remained enslaved after his service as a boat pilot in the American Revolutionary War until the state of Virginia purchased his freedom in 1789? Source: Hucles, Michael E. (February 2000). "Tarrant, Caesar (1740-1797), patriot". American National Biography. Quote: "Following the Revolution, Tarrant returned to the status of slave despite the heroism he had displayed. His master Carter Tarrant continued to make money from his slave’s important skills ... In 1789 the Virginia General Assembly moved to secure Tarrant’s freedom ... Tarrant was finally free by 1789."
- Reviewed: I'm under 5 nominations, but I did review Stadthalle Hannover. I edit-conflicted with another user, but still left a (hopefully useful) comment/question. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 14:57, 7 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Created by Firefangledfeathers (talk). Self-nominated at 14:33, 7 June 2022 (UTC).[reply]

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: None required.

Overall: This article and hook look good, although I edited the hook to fix a typo. The original hook said 1786 but the source and article say 1789. BuySomeApples (talk) 20:52, 7 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Would it be possible to run this on Juneteenth? It's just around the corner and this would fit very well. BuySomeApples (talk) 20:52, 7 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- BuySomeApples, I like that idea a lot! Thank you for the year fix. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 20:56, 7 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  - Firefangledfeathers It is now too late for a Juneteenth promotion. This nomination should have been moved to the special occasion holding area, but it never was which makes it hard for prep builders to notice. SL93 (talk) 14:00, 19 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

SL93, thanks for letting me know. I feel very fortunate that one of my other DYKs is live today, also about a Black Virginian revolutionary. I can't claim to understand the DYK promotion and prep process, and if pressed I'd go with "tiny wizards using magnets in the server room" as an explanation. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 14:18, 19 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Birth year

Hey Johnpacklambert, hope you're doing well. Thank you for adding a category. I have a question about one part of your changes. Do you have a reason to suspect that Tarrant's birth year is approximate? American National Biography gives it as a straight 1740. It commonly uses question marks to indicate uncertainty, and none is present for Tarrant. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 16:54, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Very few enslaved people knew their actual birth year. Beyond this, in 1740 in the American colonies what we should be counting as that year is messy. Do we count the year from Jan. 1- Dec. 31, as we do now, or from March 25 - Mar 24 as they normally did then, and do we count the Gregorian or Julian calendar, which have about an 8 day discrepancy? With all these factors, I am hesitant to say that anyone really knows what year he was born in for sure.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:57, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm reluctant to use my own judgment to introduce uncertainty where the best source available has none. It's possible that ANB knows of credible records of Tarrant's birth and probable that they're aware of the calendar change. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 17:27, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]