Antedating of "Of Color"

[Fred Shapiro]

OED has 1796 as its earliest usage for "people of colour" and 1803 for
"man of colour."  Evan Kirshenbaum has posted the following earlier
ProQuest citations on alt.usage.english:

"Using ProQuest I can push "man of colour" back to 1793:

    On the 17th of June, as the armed mulattoes were going out to Fort
    Picolet, they were met by feveral failors, who were in liquor, and
    one of them joftled againft one of the men of colour ; he
    immediately drew his dagger and wounded him ; and the reft of the
    failors immediately ftoned them, and they flew.

(Okay, they're long s's, not f's.)  (Except for the ones that are.)
That's from _Weekly Museum_, July 13, 1793, page 3.  (There are also
four hits from 1792, but they are multi-page articles and it's harder
to find the match.)"

Fred Shapiro


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Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
Associate Librarian for Collections and     YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS
  Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press,
Yale Law School                             forthcoming
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               http://quotationdictionary.com
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