Further Antedating of "African-American"

Shapiro, Fred fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU
Sun Sep 25 12:02:20 UTC 2011


African-American (OED3 1855)

1832 _Edinburgh Encyclopedia_ XVII. 275 (Google Books)  Since the year 1822 the Americans have founded a colony at the mouth of the river Mesavada, to the south of Sierra Leone.  This colony has been called Liberia, and the principal town Monrovia.  The population consists of African-Americans, and of free negroes.

NOTE:  Although the 1832 dating appears to be accurate based on the digitized title page, one never knows with Google Books, so this would need to be verified in the print before being accepted.


Fred Shapiro
Editor
YALE BOOK OF QUOTATIONS (Yale University Press)

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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