Sambo

[James A. Landau <JJJRLandau@netscape.com>]

I found an 1861 usage of "Sambo" to mean a black man.

http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1861/december/george-opdyke.htm

Harper’s Weekly    December 21, 1861

<quote>
Some writers from Port Royal have stated that the negroes will not work, but that when work is offered them they will fly to the woods. This is indignantly denied by other writers, and by several officers of the expedition, who state that the contrabands work willingly and ably. It would not be surprising if poor Sambo, after a dozen generations of slavery, should want to celebrate his sudden emancipation by a brief holiday.
</quote>

OT: some semi-eggcorns (i.e. unlikely to be accepted by the Eggcorn Data Base)
encountered recently:

"[Yerkes Observatory] resembles a hay silo for Babe the Blue Ox (Paul Bunion's companion)"

typo in a Rodgers and Hammerstein script: "June is busing out all over" (presumably a song for civils rights activists)

a man who had composed a song meant to say "I had a pianist record it on CD" but didn't realize that "pianist" is pronounced with three syllables.

     - Jim Landau

and a happy FDR's birthday/March of Dimes day to y'all

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