coloured folk

[Laurence Horn]

On Jul 15, 2011, at 2:21 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:

> When I did some research on the occurrences of
> "black", "Negro", "nigger", "niger", etc., I did
> not think to look for "colo[u]red" [folk, people,
> men, women, ???].  Perhaps not very interesting
> to the OED, which seems to treat these as just instances of "coloured" 2.b.
>
> But for "colored folk" -- In 18th Century
> Newspapers (aka EAN), the earliest I see are two
> instances of "colored folk" in 1831, both from
> the Rhode-Island Republican {Newport] and both in
> speech purported to be the dialect of the
> "colored folk".  I find no instances of "coloured
> folk" that are not "coloured silk".
>
> "The colored people" and "the colored race" start in the late 1780s.
>
> Joel


“person(s)/people of colo(u)r” also goes back a lot farther than I’d once thought, as I realized when I saw the term in a letter related to the Amistad trial (1840).  The OED has a cite from 1797, but in a context making it clear it’s used for those of mixed race, not in the “colored folk” sense.

LH

>
> At 7/15/2011 01:35 PM, George Thompson wrote:
>
>> It's true that the OED's entry on "colored", adjective, was written when Jim
>> Murray was little more than an infant; still, whether or not the files today
>> have instances from the U. S. before 1825 of coloured in the racial sense
>> [OED = 2b:], the following has interest.
>>
>> [From a report of a suit in New Paltz, N. Y. in 1825 by Phillis Schoonmaker
>> against Cuff Hodgeboom, for Breach of the Promise of Marriage.]
>>
>> The parties as their names indicate, are black, or, as philanthropists would
>> say coloured folks.
>>
>>
>>
>> This is taken from the New-York Spectator, of April 29, 1825, but citing
>> "Noah's Advocate", aka the New-York National Advocate (which is not the same
>> as the National Advocate, which was being published in NYC at the same time.
>> Don't ask how's come -- I might tell you).
>>
>> The story went viral, and a search of Readex's America's Historical
>> Newspapers turns up 11 versions of it, all citing Noah's Advocate.
>>
>>
>>
>> The OED:
>>
>> [2b]  Having a skin other than ‘white’;
>> *esp.* wholly or partly of black or
>> ‘coloured’ descent. In *S. Afr.* Of mixed
>> black or brown and white descent;
>> also (with capital initial), of or belonging to the population group of such
>> mixed descent. *Cape Coloured* *adj.* and *n.* at cape *n.**3*
>> Compounds 2<http://ezproxy.library.nyu.edu:31797/view/Entry/27381#eid10129675>
>> .
>>
>> 1612    J. Speed *Theatre of Empire of Great
>> Brit.*<http://ezproxy.library.nyu.edu:31797/view/Entry/36607?rskey=zAcJoG&result=6&isAdvanced=true>
>> i. xxv.
>> 49/1   Their‥coloured countenances, and curled haire.
>>
>> 1760 72    J. Adams tr. A. de Ulloa *Voy.
>>
>> S.-Amer.*<http://ezproxy.library.nyu.edu:31797/view/Entry/36607?rskey=zAcJoG&result=6&isAdvanced=true>
>> I. iii. iii.
>> 121   The‥Negro women, or the coloured women as they are called here.
>>
>> 1832    F. Marryat *Newton
>> Forster*<http://ezproxy.library.nyu.edu:31797/view/Entry/36607?rskey=zAcJoG&result=6&isAdvanced=true>
>> II.
>> iii. 32   ‘Au cachôt!’ cried all the coloured girls.
>>
>> 1838    W. B. Boyce *Notes S. Afr.
>> Affairs*<http://ezproxy.library.nyu.edu:31797/view/Entry/36607?rskey=zAcJoG&result=6&isAdvanced=true>
>> 134
>> The coloured population are‥demoralized in large towns in the neighbourhood
>> of canteens.
>>
>> 1844    Gilchrist *Cape of Good
>> Hope*<http://ezproxy.library.nyu.edu:31797/view/Entry/36607?rskey=zAcJoG&result=6&isAdvanced=true>
>> ii.
>> 20   The native population of the colony is generally called Hottentot, or
>> bastard Hottentot, most of the coloured people approaching pretty nearly to
>> the Hottentot formation, and some presenting a greater or smaller mixture of
>> other, principally European, blood.
>>
>> 1850    H. B. Stowe *Uncle Tom's
>> Cabin*<http://ezproxy.library.nyu.edu:31797/view/Entry/36607?rskey=zAcJoG&result=6&isAdvanced=true>
>> xviii.
>> 182   Among the coloured circles of New Orleans.
>>
>> [and more]
>> --
>> George A. Thompson
>> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ.
>> Pr., 1998, but nothing much since then.
>>
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>
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