The Etymology of Caucus

[Joel S. Berson]

At 10/29/2007 12:03 PM, Stephen Goranson wrote:
>According to Life and Times of Joseph Warren By Richard Frothingham
>page 50 note
>1: "In the records of one of these caucuses, the word is spelt caucos
>("Siege of
>Boston," 30). In the "Boston Gazette" of 1760 are the following sentences:
>"Nothing of the least significance was rransacted at a late meeting of the New
>and Grand Corcas."-- "Votes are to be given away by the delicate hands of the
>New and Grand Corcas."
>
>If the same group (as appears), an antedating.
>
>Sure enough (perhaps an outsider view, perhaps spelling from oral account):
>Headline: [No Headline]; Article Type: Advertisements
>Paper: Boston Gazette, published as The Boston Gazette, and Country Journal;
>Date: 05-05-1760; Issue: 266; Page: Supplement [1]; Location: Boston,
>Massachusetts: [italics ignored]
>
>Whereas it is reported, that certain Persons, of the Modern Air and
>Complexion,
>to the Number of Twelve at least, have divers Times of late been known to
>combine together, and are called by the Name of the New and Grand Corcas, tho'
>of declared Principles directly opposite to all that have heretofore been
>known: And whereas it is vehemently suspected, by some, that their Design is
>nothing less, than totally to overthrow the ancient Constitution of our
>Town-Meetings, as being popular and mobbish...

Good find!  Now, I assume, we will start looking for "corca[s]" in the 1720s!

And any relation to the West Indies "Caucus", which appears (appear?)
in a few early Boston newspapers (1750s, if I remember correctly,
when I came across them in EAN)?  Or of the "Grand Corcas" to Grand
Turk?  (Just kidding; I am tentatively identifying the West Indies
Caucus as another instance of  18th century idiosyncratic spelling,
here for the Caicos.)

Joel

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org