Carvalho Name and History

The Carvalho Oak, outside Porto, Portugal

Carvalho History

There are variations on the family name, depending on where the originating tribe came from. The name is Latin rooted, and is originally Iberian Latin (the remnants of Pompey's defeated army became the Spaniards, and the geographic isolation of the Iberian peninsula is why Spanish is the closest language to the original Latin today). In the old Latin/Iberian tongue, it was spelled "Carballo," a descriptive, topographic name for someone who lived by a conspicuous Oak tree or in a stand of Oak woods.

The name "Carvalho" in Portuguese comes from an ancient Lusitanian/Greek/Latin mixture and literally means "the oak." It became a family name for the tiny family tribal group of Lusitanians which lived in a small, oak-grove valley on the continent east of what the Romans called Portu Cale (now Oporto). The name was very specifically applied to this family group, and one of its warriors was the great Virathus, who was the only ancient to ever successfully hold off the Roman Legions and force the Empire to negotiate (154-130 BC). Because of this, our family heritage is somewhat better preserved than most of the Lusitanians, but there are still great gaps due to any number of reasons. However, the Romans kept good records on this part.

The Lusitanians and the Carthaginians had traded and intermarried from the time of Hamilcar Barca (father of the famous Carthaginian General Hannibal) around 238 BC. The Carthaginians settled on the Mediterranean side of Iberia about 800BC. From this mixture of language we get the distinctive Portuguese "Carvalho," which is sometimes said "de Carvalho" which simply means "of the Carvalho clan."

If the name is spelled this way, we are all from the same roots. However, being good sailors and merchants, our forefathers managed to, how can we say delicately, "spread the seed" of the great Oak Clan, and various sub-tribes and clans have spread far and wide.

Until the early 1800's, there was a strong central family patriarchy and ties to the linear descendents of the original tribe, to the point that much of the family formed a huge trade and political empire within the Portuguese Empire itself. From the original tiny village (still tiny, and still called 'Carvalho') on the continent, to China, Hawaii, Goa, Angola, Madagascar, Brazil, the Azores, Cape Verde, New England, Tahiti, Japan, Siam, Indonesia, and other places, we can still find our cousins!

Our Great-grandfather Sebastian was the Marquis de Pombal, whom some say was a ruthless dictator and others call a visionary. he was the first ruler to dispatch the national military to disaster relief (Lisbon earthquake 1755); broke the control of the nobility over the common man, and allowed common people to own and control trade. Samuel Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson all made reference to his releasing of the common man from the oppression of the Royalty during their reigns.

After Sebastian, the family fortune took a turn for the worse. For a short while, the China and Japan trade and settlement of Brazil kept the Acorn Fleet (it's true name!) a prominent business. By the late 1800's, however, war, revolution, plague, famine, the rise of Hong Kong, and increased competition from the British, Dutch, and American sea merchants took their toll.

The Acorn Fleet was contracted to Britain and for a while hauled slaves from Angola and Mozambique to the new world. After a decade or so of that, the fleet became whalers, out of New Bedford, Nantucket, and the Azores. By then, most of the family had splintered into factional groups, and there was no central figurehead beyond the small circle of direct descendants from Sebastian, and even some of that group branched off in search of their own fortune and identity.

The whaling fleet was sold in New Bedford in 1883, and the family splintered further.

Your great-great-grandfather, Joao Joaquim Carvalho, came to the San Joaquin Valley in California after revolution drove his large family into poverty. He went to work on Grandpa Manuel Tomas' ranch, where he met Grandma Emma Carvalho, who was a young girl of 14 or 15. I once asked her how it was that she and he were married, and she replied that "he worked for my dad. One day my dad caught us talking in the barn, and he told us 'the lovebirds need to get married!' So we were married!"

The ranch you know of on Elder Avenue in Hanford, the ranch I write of in the "Annie's Adventures" stories, was given to them as a wedding gift by Grandpa Tomas, who died in a horse and buggy accident at the corner of Elder Avenue and 10th Avenue.

I have wonderful memories of that ranch, and will do my best to share them with you as time passes and I have the opportunity.

For now, know that the Carvalho blood is old and strong, like the Oak Tree… its roots go deep …and you can certainly wear this name with pride!