"Sambo" 1657, antedates OED 1704-

[Wilson Gray]

Somewhere, probably in one of the other Tom Sawyer books, such as the
one in which Jim argues that "birds of a feather flock together" is
bullshit, 'cause ain't no two birds more of a feather than a blue jay
and a bluebird, yet even the most casual observation reveals that
these two birds, under any reasonable interpretation of the phrase,
"flock together," do *not* perform said act, as any fool kin plainly
see. Q.E.D., Jim is referred to as "Miss Watson's _ole(?)/ol'(?)_
nigger Jim," which, for some reason, is the version that sticks in my
mind.

In short, Charlie is correct.

-Wilson

On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 4:21 PM, Charles Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "Sambo" 1657, antedates OED 1704-
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> In the 1960s and earlier, scholars and professors of American literature commonly referred to the character in _Huckleberry Finn_ (orally and in print) as "Nigger Jim."  Yet, as realized by a graduate-school friend of mine, James McIntyre (after encountering great skepticism, he eventually published the finding), nowhere in the book is the character so designated. The closest is a reference to "Miss Watson's nigger Jim."
>
> Racist projection meets careless reading!
>
> --Charlie
> _____________________________________________________________
>
> ---- Original message ----
>>Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 15:45:39 -0400
>>From: Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>>Subject: Re: "Sambo" 1657, antedates OED 1704-
>>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>
>>FWIW, it seems to me that
>>
>>"This _Negre Sambo_"
>>
>>does make it possible to interpret "Sambo" as the slave's actual name: "This Negre[,] Sambo [by name,] ...". Unless, of course, there were, at the time, a set of individuals that were generally referred to as Sambos" and "Negre" specifies a member of the subset, "Negre Sambos." The nursery tale is no help, since "black Sambo" has the same structure as "Negre Sambo" or "ching-chong Chinaman" and such.
>
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