A “clay-eater.”
1841. He was a little, dried up, withered atomy—a jaundiced “sand-lapper,” or “clay-eater,” from the Wassamasaw country, whose insignificant size and mean appearance did very inadequate justice to his resolute, fierce, and implacable character.—W. G. Simms, ‘The Kinsmen,’ i. 167 (Phila.).
1848. The thing is whimpered even among the sand-hillers of South Carolina.—Mr. Palfrey of Mass., House of Repr., Jan. 26: Cong. Globe, p. 136, App.
1854. The piebald caricature he calls a State—a thing of lean and famished “sand-hillers” and “poor white folks,”—slaves and slave-holders.—Mr. Wade of Ohio, the same, May 17: id., p. 664, App.
1855. Fry was leading off with the fattest and yellowest sandlapper of a woman I ever saw.—W. G. Simms, ‘The Forayers,’ p. 391 (N.Y.).
1856. They [the sand-hillers] are small, gaunt, and cadaverous, and their skin is just the color of the sand-hills they live on.—Olmsted, ‘Slave States,’ p. 506 (Bartlett).
1901. See CLAY-EATER.
