[Ads-l] "bulldoze(r)" (June 1876)

[Jonathan Lighter]

> a compound word, the first of which is 'Bull's.'

And the second?

JL

On Thu, Feb 15, 2018 at 3:59 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:

> > On Feb 15, 2018, at 3:08 PM, Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > John Kelly has a post on the Oxford Dictionaries blog about the racist
> > roots of "bulldozer" -- it goes back to violent voter intimidation
> tactics
> > in the 1876 elections.
>
> Ah, not *that* John Kelly.  Whew.
>
> LH
> >
> > ----
> > https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2018/02/14/word-racist-roots-
> bulldozer/
> > To suppress their vote or coerce them away from casting their ballots for
> > Republicans, Democratic supporters would intimidate black voters with
> > threats or acts of violence. This practice especially plagued the 1876
> > presidential election, and in Louisiana came to be called bull-dozing.
> > ----
> >
> > Linking to:
> > https://jubiloemancipationcentury.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/
> bulldozing-reconstruction-and-southern-voters/
> >
> > The post mentions that the earliest known examples of the word, from
> > Louisiana sources, date from the summer of 1876, but I don't see the
> early
> > cites given anywhere. HDAS and GDoS have cites from later in 1876, and
> the
> > OED2 entry for "bulldoze" just cites an unnamed and undated "American
> > newspaper" from that year. ("If a negro is invited to join it [a society
> > called ‘The Stop’], and refuses, he is taken to the woods and whipped.
> This
> > whipping is called a ‘bull-doze’, or doze fit for a bull.")
> >
> > Here are the earliest examples I've found for the various forms.
> >
> > * bulldozle, bulldozer
> >
> > New Orleans Republican, June 20, 1876, p. 1, col. 1
> > Monday or Tuesday night W.Y. Payne, a colored man, of East Baton Rouge,
> was
> > taken from his home, at Holt's place, at night, from his bed, and was
> > afterward found hung to a tree, two miles above that place, on the plank
> > road near White's bayou. He had committed no offense; all had been quiet,
> > but he was the secretary of the Third Ward Republican Club of that
> parish.
> > He was therefore "bulldozled," which is of late the local name of the
> > actions of the "Regulators." Besides this many other negroes have within
> a
> > few days been taken from their homes and brutally whipped and beaten, a
> > milder means of correction sometimes adopted by the bulldozers.
> > https://www.newspapers.com/clip/17471753/bulldozled/
> >
> > * bulldoze
> >
> > New Orleans Republican, June 24, 1876, p. 1, col. 4
> > Lorenzo Jackson, of J.A. Campbell's plantation, was bulldozed, terribly
> > whipped, the excuse being he had stolen a gun in 1872.
> > https://www.newspapers.com/clip/17471800/bulldozed/
> >
> > * bulldozing (ppl. adj.)
> >
> > New Orleans Republican, June 28, 1876, p. 1, col. 5
> > So complete is the reign of terror created by the bulldozing Regulators
> of
> > East Feliciana and East Baton Rouge, that a half of the inhuman
> brutalities
> > practiced on innocent colored men will never be told.
> > https://www.newspapers.com/clip/17472010/bulldozing/
> >
> > --bgz
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



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