Sambo as a slave name -- etymology?

[Joel S. Berson]

I did have time to look at Caterall and Donnan today, and came across
something (in Donnan) I thought interesting -- that is, until I went
to Google Books and found my supposition already in several
dictionaries of English.

"The second voyage of John Hawkins, 1564-1565"; apparently published
in Hakluyt, _Principal Navigations_, and Markham, _The Hawkins'
Voyages_, discusses an African tribe called the "Samboses".  This is
noted in _The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology_,  ed. Charles
Talbut Onions; Farmer and Henley's _Slang and its Analogues_; _A
Concise Etymological Dictionary of Modern English_, by Ernest
Weekley; and Partridge's _Name Into Word: Proper Names that Have
Become Common Property_.

In his 1927 book  _Slave ships and slaving_ (not 2002, as Google
claims), George Francis Dow wrote "and three years before they had
been conquered by the Samboses (the modern Sambos), a tribe that
lived beyond Sierra Leone. ..." [Limited preview].

The OED (1989 entry) has for the etymology of "sambo' "[a. Sp.
_zambo_ ...applied ... to persons of various degrees of mixed Negro
and Indian or European blood ...; perh. identical with _zambo
bandy-legged ... .]"  It suggests for sense 2 = "A nickname for a
Negro", the etymology "[Perh. a different word; it has been suggested
that it may be the Foulah _sambo_ uncle.]"

So, should the OED give some credence to a different derivation of
"Sambo" -- from the Samboses?  "Samboses" as the plural changing into
"Sambos" (see Dow), thus "Sambo" taken for the singular, and given as
a name to a slave who said he was of the Sambos tribe?


As for the alleged Sambo in a Maryland record of 1692, no luck.

1)  Donnan contains "documents", generally books, chapters,
pamphlets, British or colonial government documents.  In addition,
the documents are undated in the table of contents.  I skimmed the
TofC of both vol I (early documents) and vol. III (Maryland), but
didn't notice anything that might be termed a "Maryland record of 1692."

2)  Caterall has many court records from Maryland.  But in a fast
skimming of all his records from Maryland in the 17th century (about
20 pages), I did not see "Sambo".

Joel

At 12/19/2007 10:36 AM, I wrote:
>OED2 has as its earliest citation for "Sambo" sense 2 ("A nickname
>for a Negro") "1704 Boston News-Let. 2 Oct. 2/2 There is a Negro man
>taken up supposed to be Runaway from his Master,..calls himself Sambo."
>
>According to Newbell Niles Puckett, there is a slave named Sambo in a
>Maryland record of 1692.
>
>"Names of Negro Slaves", in _Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrell_
>(University Press of Mississippi, 1990), p. 158, col. 2.
>
>Puckett does not give a specific citation, but it is presumably one
>of the sources cited in note 4, p. 158, the two most likely being
>Caterall's _Judicial Cases Concerning American Slavery and the Negro_
>(3 vols.) and Donnan's _Documents Illustrative of the History of the
>Slave Trade in America_ (4 vols.).  I don't intend to follow this up
>myself, but perhaps 1692 and Maryland will be sufficient for someone
>to locate the source in one of these seven volumes.
>
>Joel
>
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