A darkey.
1797. The class which, by a strange abuse of language, is called people of colour, originates from an intermixture of the whites and the blacks.—B. Edwards, ‘St. Domingo,’ p. 1. (N.E.D.) (Italics in the original.)
1801. People of colour. This new-fangled name for the black race, which has … crept into the vocabulary of the U.S., seems to have been borrowed from that fruitful source of innovations, the philosophical school of Paris.—“Z” in the Portfolio, i. 163 (Phila.).
1806. The women [of New Orleans], who in point of manners and character have a very marked superiority over the men, are divided into two ranks—the white and the brown. They have two separate ball-rooms in the city. At the white ball-room no lady of colour is admitted.—Thomas Ashe, ‘Travels in America,’ iii. 266. (Lond., 1808.)
1815. [Died] in Grafton, Sarah, a woman of colour, aged cxiii.—Mass. Spy, Nov. 29.
1825. We all read Massa Quarterly—he loves us people of colour so much.—J. K. Paulding, ‘John Bull in America,’ p. 59 (N.Y.).
1831. She was the mother of three generations of blacks—I beg pardon—of people of colour—who all appertained to the establishment.—The same, ‘The Dutchman’s Fireside,’ i. 72.
1833. “Well, as I was saying, Spoon, the nigger——” “I tink he might call um gemman of choler,” muttered blackey.—The same, ‘The Banks of the Ohio,’ i. 213 (Lond.).
