"Antedating" "American African"

[Joel S. Berson]

David Daniel's message led me down another path
-- what did *American African* mean in the early
1800s?  (It's not in the OED, either as an entry or in quotations.)

Spoiler alert -- "Americans of African
descent".  And, in some contexts, "the American <something> in Africa."

A.  Noun.

1a)  1830 Jan. 18 --

The Greek [slave, I assume] might have fought his
way to freedom ­ the American African was
hopeless of assistance, unless from the free will
of those who held him in bondage;

The Thirteenth Annual Report of the American
Society for Colonizing the Free People of Colour
of the United States (Washington: James C. Dunn,
1830.  Page xi; page [iii] dates the meeting.

[This seems an unequivocal reference to
people.  Although I suppose it could be called
"merely" a collocation, or "merely" the adjective
"American" applied to "Africans".]

1b)  1830 Feb. [a reprint of the above address to the meeting, I assume] --

The Greek [slave, I assume] might have fought his
way to freedom ­ the American African was
hopeless of assistance, unless from the free will
of those who held him in bondage;

The African Repository, vol. 5, page 369.  Date
confirmed from running page header.


B.  Adjective.

1)  1827 July/Aug. --

[From the Raleigh (N. C.) Star]
The American African Colony.---The most authentic
accounts represent the Colony at Liberia ... It
is well known that 5 or 6 years ago, when a small
handful of emigrants were planted as a colony on
a few square miles on Montserado ... .

The Christian Visitant[; or Religious Miscellany
... ], Vol. 1, No. 4 (July and August, 1827),
Boston: Simpkins and Co., 1827, page 197.

[I note that for "American African", just as for
"African American", the adjectival use may
precede the noun.  This instance perhaps is
ambiguous; I concede that the following have a
different meaning.  But surely the phrase can have two meanings!]

[My only access to the Raleigh Star does not include 1827 or 1826.]

2)  1845 May 31 --

AMERICAN AFRICAN SQUADRON. The US ship Jamestown,
Commander Cunningham, arrived at Monrovia on the
1st of March, from Port Praya.

Niles' Weekly Register, From March, 1845, to
September, 1845---Volume LXVIII---or, Vol. XVIII,
Fifth Series, page 195, col. 2.

[This presumably means "the American squadron
to/at Africa."  And Port[o] Praya is in Cape Verde, not Liberia.]

3)  1826 Nov. 10 --

A letter from Monrovin, (American African
Settlement,) dated August 12th, states that
negotiations had been entered into with the
Chiefs of Cape Mount, which promised the American
Colony a "strong hold upon that important point of the African coast"

Daily National Journal (Washington, DC) Friday,
November 10, 1826; Issue 697; col B

[This is perhaps ambiguous -- more likely "the
American colony in Africa" (viz. "the American
Colony" later in the text), but perhaps "the colony of American Africans".]

4)  A quote from 1840, in A Geographical Survey
of Africa ..., refers to "the American African
Repository'; this must mean "the American-held
repository of [geography of] Africa".
-----

The above gleaned from an exhaustive search of
GBooks results before Dec. 31, 1849, plus 19th Century U.S. Papers.

Joel

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