| Provided Southwick and her brother Daniel puritan governor John Endecott of Massachusetts Bay attempted to send into slavery in Virginia |
Provided Southwick Gaskill was born at Salem, Massachusetts Bay, in December of 1641, a daughter of Lawrence Southwick and Cassandra (Burnell) Southwick; she married Samuel Gaskill at Salem on the penultimate day of 1662.
John Greenleaf Whitter's poem "Cassandra Southwick" – while it bears, for reasons known only to the poet, her mother's given name rather than her own – in fact tells with reasonable accuracy the tale of Quaker Provided Southwick and her younger brother Daniel, whom puritan governor John Endecott of Massachusetts Bay attempted to send into slavery in Virginia or Barbados. Endecott's vindictive sentence, part of his wider punitive effort to banish or even exterminate the Quaker faith – as further witnessed by his lethal banishment of the senior Southwicks and the hanging of several Quakers, including Mary (Barrett) Dyer in 1660 – was thwarted only because he could find no ship's captain willing to become an accessory to the scheme.
From: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Southwick-71
The surname Southwick is of English origin, meaning "southern farmstead or village," and is derived from Old English elements describing a settlement in the south.
Etymology and Meaning
The name Southwick comes from the Old English words sūth, meaning "south," and wic, meaning "dwelling," "settlement," or "specialized farm" . It is a habitational surname, originally given to people who lived in or were associated with places named Southwick in England, including locations in Durham, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Northamptonshire, Sussex, and Wiltshire . Essentially, the surname identifies someone as being "from the south village" or a southern settlement .
Historical Origins
Southwick has roots in both England and Scotland. In Scotland, the surname was first found in Kirkcudbrightshire, part of present-day Dumfries and Galloway, where the family held estates from ancient times, possibly before the Norman Conquest of 1066 . In England, the surname is linked to multiple settlements named Southwick, reflecting the medieval practice of naming individuals after their place of origin