"fellow" = "A black man"

[Joel S. Berson]

At 4/5/2011 01:46 PM, Dan Goncharoff wrote:
>Might your analysis of advertisements merely reflect the fact that black men
>were being advertised for sale, and white men weren't?

A valid question, although a good number of white indentured servants
were also offered for sale or ran away.  In the one mid-18th-century
year I have studied thoroughly, whites were referred to as "men" and
"women" (servants), "boys" or "lads" or (Irish) "lasses", but not as
"fellows or "wenches" (for "wench" as Negro, see OED senses 3a. and
b.).  While in that year Negroes for sale were also generally
referred to as "men", "women", "boys", girls:", or "children", they
were also referred to as "fellows" or "wenches", terms not used for
white servants.  [There are many sources transcribing large numbers
of advertisements of slaves or indentured servants for sale or as
run-aways in the colonial period; I can provide three or four if asked.]

So, *excluding advertisements* -- EAN gives the following counts for
all articles  in its total period  of 140 years --

    "Negro fellow" --   812
    "Mulatto fellow" -- 116
    "Black fellow" --    462
    "white fellow" --       14 or fewer (I exclude instances where
"fellow" is an adjective, such as "white fellow citizens")

The 14 instances of "white fellow" are all from articles where they
are involved in criminal activity or in racial violence with Negroes
(and thus in some cases are being distinguished from the Negro
participants).  These are instances of "fellow", sense 10.c,
"contemptuously. A person of no esteem or worth."

Again *excluding advertisements*, with EAN --

    "British fellow"  --  1  (excluding 1 adjectival use; this unique
instance  is ":fine British fellow"!)
    "English fellow" --   0  (eliminating 9 adjectival uses or false positives)
    "Irish fellow"     --   5  (eliminating the 17 adjectival uses
and false positives.  More frequent is "Irishman" -- 9,403 hits.  All
of the "Irish fellow" quotations are about criminals, ruffians, or
confidence men, except one which half-praises the Irish soldier,
accustomed to little and poor food -- but cheerful.

Joel

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