Siamese Connection (1879, 1884); Underdog (1884)

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:39 AM -0400 5/20/05, Fred Shapiro wrote:
>On Thu, 19 May 2005, Baker, John wrote:
>
>>          So "Sambo," as a derogatory name for Africans and
>>  African-Americans, was not taken from The Story of Little Black Sambo by
>>  Helen Bannerman (1899)?  (Little Black Sambo was from India, but the
>  > early illustrations portrayed Sambo as stereotypically African.)

And his parents' names were, as I recall, Black Jumbo and Black
Mumbo, which I assume are far more stereotypically African than
Indian.  Before Bannerman was married and living in India, she has
grown up with her parents in British colonies in Africa as well as
India.  (Her father was an army chaplain.)

Larry

>  >         I guess not.  Westlaw has examples of Sambo as a name for slaves
>>  as early as 1802.  And then there is this odd passage from the April
>
>The OED has this name cited from 1704.
>
>Fred Shapiro
>
>
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