Spiggotie (1909); Firemen, or Moors and Christians

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SPIGGOTIE

EL TORO:
A MOTOR CAR STORY OF INTERIOR CUBA
by E. Ralph Estep
Packard Motor Car Company, Detroit
1909

Pg. 13:  One was a country doctor who was riding miles to visit a stricken "spiggotie" in some distant hut.
   A spiggotie is any kind of a provincial Cuban, when mentioned by an outsider.  He is one of that species of uncertain race which populates the Spanish-American countries and makes it difficult for a visitor to draw a color line between negro (Pg. 14--ed.) and Castillian blood.  I have also met spiggoties who were a charming mixture of Spanish, negro, and Chinese.

(John Ayto's OXFORD DICTIONARY OF SLANG (1998), pg. 37, gives 1910 for spiggoty/spiggity/spigotti/spigoty and guesses it's from "no spika de English."  Jonathon Green's CASSELL DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN SLANG (1998) has "19C, US" and "? broken English 'spikka da English.'"  What cites does he have??--ed.)

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FIREMEN, OR MOORS AND CHRISTIANS

CUBA
by Irene A. Wright
MacMillan Company, NY
1910

Pg. 83:
CHAPTER IV
_Arroz con Frijoles*_

*White rice and black beans,--a popular dish, known as "Moors and Christians," or, in Havana, as "Firemen,"--_i.e._ a vari-colored company.

(The book has "_cazabi_ bread" on page 6 and much more.  Gotta finish it--ed.)