I'm not necessarily a "historian" by any means. I acknowledge that several cultures may have had dreadlocks in some form or another before Rastafari. What is the origin of the term "dreadlocks" in African American liberation and Rastafari?
I am white and locked my hair with the freeform method before unknotting them to backcomb them. In a discussion my friends made several claims about the origins.
My friend said without a link: dreadlocks were originally called that because they were meant to inspire fear in the heart of the white oppressor
My friend quoted urban dictionary: The name "Dreadlocks" originated on European slave-ships during the middle passage. / The white crews would bring the enslaved Africans up on deck to wash them off. They saw that the thick Hair of the Africans, full of vomit, blood, and shit, had matted into "dreadful locks". / It is therefore offensive and incorrect to refer to the dolltails worn by ignorant white children as Dreadlocks.
I quoted knottyboy.com: The followers of this [Marcus Garvey's] movement called themselves "Dreads," signifying that they had a dread, fear, or respect for God. Emulating Hindu and Nazarite holymen, these "Dreads" grew matted locks of hair, which would become known to the world as "Dreadlocks" - the hair-style of the Dreads.
Are any of these different stories accurate? Are none of them accurate? What's the true story of the "dread" in dreadlocks?
I believe the authoritative study on this is Barry chevannes' "the origin of the dreadlocks". It seems that the term and the hairstyle trace back to a "fundamentalist"-like faction of the Rastafarians called the Youth Black Faith. In the late 1940s They were known for being hyper-critical of both non-Rastas and most other Rastas, and they displayed so much anger when they criticized people that they earned the nickname "dreadful" (they supposedly made people "dread" them). This group also had a strong desire to separate themselves from society (which they believed already rejected them because of their race and faith). Most Rastas had already been not cutting their hair, which they believed was part of traditional religious law, but the still combed it. The YBF therefore decided to go further and model themselves after a locally popular homeless man who was a black nationalist and didn't even comb his hair, so it turned into matted locks. Since he was the the biggest social outcast they knew, they modeled their hair after his. Their nickname "dreadful" soon got identified with their hair.
There would later be history-based justifications for dreadlocks, such as african warriors, but that apparently came afterward
You should at least xpost this in /r/etymology