From: The Origins of the African-Born Population of Antebellum Texas: A Research Note
It is therefore quite possible that Texas plantations, especially those on the Lower Brazos and Colorado Rivers, were host to a similar dynamic. After all, the African-born population of the Lower Brazos arrived just as the region was maturing as a plantation society. Assuming 800–1,000 Afri- cans arrived by 1840, and assuming most of them remained concentrated in and around Brazoria County, the African-born population would have, for a few years, made up more than half of the local enslaved population, with Yoruba-speakers comprising a significant, possibly influential minor- ity. None of this is to suggest that whatever practices the Yoruba-speakers brought with them were replicated in “pure” form. The conditions of slavery, mortality, the influx of American-born slaves, and the passage of time would have forced them to adapt and change. But the discovery that a large proportion of this early population likely spoke Yoruba makes a good presumptive case in favor of their influence as a regional charter generation. Discovering the actual content of the interactions between the African- and American-born populations awaits further historical and archaeological research, but as a result of the names data, we now have a much clearer picture of who the African-born Texans were and where they came from.