Antedating of spiggoty/spigotty (1900)

[Sam Clements]

Nothing new except an earlier instance than my 1908 Panama story.  This time from Puerto Rico.

Using Proquest, 20 May 1900 _New York Times_   pg 12   article entitled "LIGHT-HEARTED PORTO RICO"

<<The American designation of the native is Spiggoty, accented on the first syllable.  Its origin is indefinite, but it may have come from the native ambition to speak English and to inform all comers of that desire.  The native tongue, accustomed to soft letters, struggles hard with the k in "speak," and makes it sound like g cut off short.  English is Ingles.  When "speak English" encounters a Porto Ricon, the result may be not unlike "spiggely," which some Anglo-Saxon mind roughened into "spiggoty."  Whatever the origin, one hears everywhere of spiggoty people, spiggoty money, and all else spiggoty.  Everybody uses the term, the natives having almost accepted it as a proper disignation.  If into some official document sent to Washington it should slip, the public may know that it has come to stay, and that a fresh coin has enriched the language.>>

Sam Clements