Buckaroo: supposed African origin

[Gerald Cohen]

    I found David Dalby's article "The African Element in American
English" in Thomas Kochman's _Rappin' and Stylin' Out_, U of Illinois
Pr., 1972,
pp. 170 -186.-- Page 177 has the heading: "A tentative list of
Africanisms and probable Africanisms in American English", and one of
the items (p. 178) is *buckra. On p. 175 Dalby explains the asterisk:
"Items which can be shown to have originated in black English are
marked with a star (*) in the following list..." --- Here now is the
item:

"*buckra -- 'white man,' esp. a 'poor or mean white man' (now rare in
U.S., but still current in black Jamaican English);  hence also
buckaroo, bucker ('cowboy' -- convergence with Spanish vaquero,
'cowboy'; used derisively by black cowboys?) . Cf. Efik mbakara,
'white man,' and related forms in a number of languages of
southeastern Nigeria and southern Cameroon."

After the last word (Cameroon) Dalby has a footnote: "For a
discussion of the etymology of buckaroo, see Julian Mason, American
Speech 35 (1960): 51-55.

Gerald Cohen