Pickaninny
Encyclopedia
Pickaninny is a term in English
which refers to children of black
descent or a racial caricature thereof. It is a pidgin
word form, which may be derived from the Portuguese
pequenino (an affectionate term derived from pequeno, "little"). In the Creole English of Surinam the word for a child is pikin ningre (li. "small negro"). The term pickaninny has also been used in the past to describe aboriginal Australians.
Although the Oxford English Dictionary quotes an example from 1653 of the word "pickaninny" used for a child, it may also have been used in early black vernacular
to indicate anything small; not necessarily a child. In a column in The Times of 1788, allegedly reporting a legal case in Philadelphia, a slave is charged with dishonestly handling goods he knows to be stolen and which he describes as insignificant, "only a piccaninny cork-screw and piccaninny knife - one cost six-pence and tudda a shilling..." The anecdote goes on to make an anti-slavery moral however, when the black challenges the whites for dishonestly handling stolen goods too - namely slaves - so it is perhaps more likely to be an invention than factual. The deliberate use of the word in this context however suggests it already had black vernacular associations. In 1826 an Englishman named Thomas Young was tried at the Old Bailey
in London on a charge of enslaving and selling four Gabonese women known as "Nura, Piccaninni, Jumbo Jack and Prince Quarben".
In the Southern United States, pickaninny was long used to refer to the children of African slaves or (later) of black American citizens. While this use of the term was popularized in reference to the character of Topsy in the 1852 book Uncle Tom's Cabin
, the term was used as early as 1831 in an anti-slavery tract "The History of Mary Prince
, a West Indian Slave, related by herself" published in Edinburgh
, Scotland
. The term was still in some popular use in the US as late as the 1960s; while it has largely fallen out of use and is now considered offensive, the term is still part of the American
lexicon
.
's "A Good Man is Hard to Find
", the grandmother uses the term: "'In my time,' said the grandmother, folding her thin veined fingers, 'children were more respectful of their native states and their parents and everything else. People did right then. Oh, Look at the little pickaninny!' she said and pointed to a negro child standing in the door of a shack. 'wouldn't that make a picture.'"
In the 1936 Hal Roach
feature "General Spanky
" starring the Our Gang
children, Buckwheat gets his foot tangled in the cord that blows the whistle on the river boat. Buckwheat is untangled by the captain of the river boat who hands him over to his master and tells him to keep an eye on that little pickaninny.
Scott Joplin
wrote the music for a lyric by Henry Jackson called "I Am Thinking of My Pickanniny Days," written in 1902.
Throughout his 1935 travel book Journey Without Maps
, British author Graham Greene
uses "piccaninny" as a general term for African children. In Margaret Mitchell
's best-selling 1936 epic Gone with the Wind
, Melanie Wilkes
objects to her husband's intended move to New York
because it would mean that their children would be educated alongside Yankees and pickaninnies. Orson Scott Card's
historical fantasy series The Tales of Alvin Maker
uses the term, such as in Seventh Son: "Papooses learnt to hunt, pickaninnies learnt to tote...."
Also in 1935 the Shirley Temple film The Little Colonel
features the grandfather Colonel barking "piccaninny" at two young children.
In the 1936 film "Poor Little Rich Girl", Shirley Temple sings the song "Oh, My Goodness" to four ethnically stereotyped dolls. The fourth doll, representing a black woman or girl, is addressed as "pickaninny".
In the 1940 film Philadelphia Story, photographer Liz Imbrie (Ruth Hussey
) uses the term while inspecting the house of Tracy Lord (Katharine Hepburn
). In the 1987 movie Burglar
, Ray Kirschman (played by G.W. Bailey) confronts ex-con Bernice Rhodenbarr (Whoopi Goldberg
) in her bookstore by saying "now listen here pickaninny!"
In the 1940 film "His Girl Friday
", McCue, one of the press room reporters, jokes that "Mrs.Phoebe DeWolfe" gave birth to a pickaninny in a patrol wagon, concluding, "When the pickaninny was born the Rifle Squad examined him carefully to see if it was Earl Williams. Well they knew he was hiding somewhere."
In the opening line of Robert Wise
's 1959 film Odds Against Tomorrow
which tackled issues of racism, Robert Ryan
's character picks up a young black girl after she bumps into him and says, "You little pickaninny, you're gonna kill yourself flying like that."
The word was used by Australian country music performer Slim Dusty
in the lyrics of his 1987 "nursery-rhyme
-style" song "Boomerang": "Every picaninny knows, that's where the roly-poly goes.". Within Australia, it is also a common name used for landscape features, including Piccaninny crater
and Picanniny point.
Many old lullabies have the word Pickaninny in them - used as an affectionate term for babies - often interchangeable with a child's name, i.e.: to personalize the song many families have substituted the children's name. "It's time for little Pickaninnies to go to sleep."
Pickaninny was used by Oakland Police officers in a denigrating fashion in the 1995 Mario Van Peebles
film Panther
to describe an African American
child who was killed in a car accident.
The original version of the sentimental 1896 song, "Kentucky Babe", sung from the viewpoint of an adult black man reminiscing about his childhood, contains several stereotyped lines, including "when I was a pickaninny on my Mammy's knee". Modern versions of the song substitute non-racial terms in the lyrics.
in his "Rivers of Blood"
speech on 20 April 1968. In 1987, Governor Evan Mecham
of Arizona
defended the use of the word, claiming: "As I was a boy growing up, blacks themselves referred to their children as pickaninnies. That was never intended to be an ethnic slur to anybody." Before becoming the Mayor of London
, Boris Johnson
apologized for any offence caused by an article in which he sarcastically suggested that "the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies."
s of the term appear in other languages and cultures, presumably also derived from the Portuguese word, and it is not controversial or derogatory in these contexts. It is in widespread use in Melanesia
n pidgin and creole language
s such as Tok Pisin
of Papua New Guinea
, as the word for "child" (or just young, as in the phrase pikinini pik, meaning pig
let). In certain dialects of Caribbean English
, the words pickney and pickney-negger are used to refer to children. Also in Nigerian Pidgin
, the word is used to mean a child. And in Sierra Leone Krio
the term pikin refers to child or children. In Chilapalapa, a pidgin language used in Southern Africa, the term used is pikanin. In Suriname
se Sranan Tongo
the term pikin may refer to children as well as to small or little. Some of these words may be more directly related to the Portuguese pequeno than to pequenino, the source of pickaninny.
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
which refers to children of black
Black people
The term black people is used in systems of racial classification for humans of a dark skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups.Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class, socio-economic status also plays a...
descent or a racial caricature thereof. It is a pidgin
Pidgin
A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common. It is most commonly employed in situations such as trade, or where both groups speak languages different from the language of the...
word form, which may be derived from the Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
pequenino (an affectionate term derived from pequeno, "little"). In the Creole English of Surinam the word for a child is pikin ningre (li. "small negro"). The term pickaninny has also been used in the past to describe aboriginal Australians.
Usage
African American Vernacular English
African American Vernacular English —also called African American English; less precisely Black English, Black Vernacular, Black English Vernacular , or Black Vernacular English —is an African American variety of American English...
to indicate anything small; not necessarily a child. In a column in The Times of 1788, allegedly reporting a legal case in Philadelphia, a slave is charged with dishonestly handling goods he knows to be stolen and which he describes as insignificant, "only a piccaninny cork-screw and piccaninny knife - one cost six-pence and tudda a shilling..." The anecdote goes on to make an anti-slavery moral however, when the black challenges the whites for dishonestly handling stolen goods too - namely slaves - so it is perhaps more likely to be an invention than factual. The deliberate use of the word in this context however suggests it already had black vernacular associations. In 1826 an Englishman named Thomas Young was tried at the Old Bailey
Old Bailey
The Central Criminal Court in England and Wales, commonly known as the Old Bailey from the street in which it stands, is a court building in central London, one of a number of buildings housing the Crown Court...
in London on a charge of enslaving and selling four Gabonese women known as "Nura, Piccaninni, Jumbo Jack and Prince Quarben".
In the Southern United States, pickaninny was long used to refer to the children of African slaves or (later) of black American citizens. While this use of the term was popularized in reference to the character of Topsy in the 1852 book Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War", according to Will Kaufman....
, the term was used as early as 1831 in an anti-slavery tract "The History of Mary Prince
Mary Prince
Mary Prince was a Bermudian woman, born into slavery in Brackish Pond, now known as Devonshire Marsh, in Devonshire Parish, Bermuda. Her autobiography, 'The History of Mary Prince', was the first account of the life of a black woman to be published in the United Kingdom...
, a West Indian Slave, related by herself" published in Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. The term was still in some popular use in the US as late as the 1960s; while it has largely fallen out of use and is now considered offensive, the term is still part of the American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
lexicon
Lexicon
In linguistics, the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. A lexicon is also a synonym of the word thesaurus. More formally, it is a language's inventory of lexemes. Coined in English 1603, the word "lexicon" derives from the Greek "λεξικόν" , neut...
.
In literature, films, and music
In Flannery O'ConnorFlannery O'Connor
Mary Flannery O'Connor was an American novelist, short-story writer and essayist. An important voice in American literature, O'Connor wrote two novels and 32 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries...
's "A Good Man is Hard to Find
A Good Man is Hard to Find (short story)
"A Good Man Is Hard to Find" is a short story written by Flannery O'Connor in 1953. The story appears in the collection of short stories of the same name, A Good Man Is Hard to Find. The interpretive work of scholars often focuses on the controversial final scene.-Background:The short story was...
", the grandmother uses the term: "'In my time,' said the grandmother, folding her thin veined fingers, 'children were more respectful of their native states and their parents and everything else. People did right then. Oh, Look at the little pickaninny!' she said and pointed to a negro child standing in the door of a shack. 'wouldn't that make a picture.'"
In the 1936 Hal Roach
Hal Roach
Harold Eugene "Hal" Roach, Sr. was an American film and television producer and director, and from the 1910s to the 1990s.- Early life and career :Hal Roach was born in Elmira, New York...
feature "General Spanky
General Spanky
General Spanky is a 1936 American comedy film produced by Hal Roach. A spin-off of Roach's popular Our Gang short subjects, the film stars George "Spanky" McFarland, Phillips Holmes, Rosina Lawrence, Billie "Buckwheat" Thomas, and Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer...
" starring the Our Gang
Our Gang
Our Gang, also known as The Little Rascals or Hal Roach's Rascals, was a series of American comedy short films about a group of poor neighborhood children and the adventures they had together. Created by comedy producer Hal Roach, the series is noted for showing children behaving in a relatively...
children, Buckwheat gets his foot tangled in the cord that blows the whistle on the river boat. Buckwheat is untangled by the captain of the river boat who hands him over to his master and tells him to keep an eye on that little pickaninny.
Scott Joplin
Scott Joplin
Scott Joplin was an American composer and pianist. Joplin achieved fame for his ragtime compositions, and was later dubbed "The King of Ragtime". During his brief career, Joplin wrote 44 original ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas...
wrote the music for a lyric by Henry Jackson called "I Am Thinking of My Pickanniny Days," written in 1902.
Throughout his 1935 travel book Journey Without Maps
Journey Without Maps
Journey Without Maps is a travel account by Graham Greene, about a 350-mile, 4-week walk through the interior of Liberia in 1935. It was Greene's first trip outside of Europe. He hoped to leave civilization and find the "heart of darkness" in Africa...
, British author Graham Greene
Graham Greene
Henry Graham Greene, OM, CH was an English author, playwright and literary critic. His works explore the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world...
uses "piccaninny" as a general term for African children. In Margaret Mitchell
Margaret Mitchell
Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell was an American author and journalist. Mitchell won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1937 for her epic American Civil War era novel, Gone with the Wind, which was the only novel by Mitchell published during her lifetime.-Family:Margaret Mitchell was born in Atlanta,...
's best-selling 1936 epic Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind
The slaves depicted in Gone with the Wind are primarily loyal house servants, such as Mammy, Pork and Uncle Peter, and these slaves stay on with their masters even after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 sets them free...
, Melanie Wilkes
Melanie Wilkes
Melanie Hamilton Wilkes is a fictional character first appearing in the novel Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. In the 1939 film she was portrayed by Olivia de Havilland...
objects to her husband's intended move to New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
because it would mean that their children would be educated alongside Yankees and pickaninnies. Orson Scott Card's
Orson Scott Card
Orson Scott Card is an American author, critic, public speaker, essayist, columnist, and political activist. He writes in several genres, but is primarily known for his science fiction. His novel Ender's Game and its sequel Speaker for the Dead both won Hugo and Nebula Awards, making Card the...
historical fantasy series The Tales of Alvin Maker
The Tales of Alvin Maker
The Tales of Alvin Maker is a series of novels by Orson Scott Card that revolve around the experiences of a young man, Alvin Miller, who discovers he has incredible powers for creating and shaping things around him...
uses the term, such as in Seventh Son: "Papooses learnt to hunt, pickaninnies learnt to tote...."
Also in 1935 the Shirley Temple film The Little Colonel
The Little Colonel
The Little Colonel is a 1935 American comedy drama film directed by David Butler. The screenplay by William M. Conselman was adapted from a novel of the same name by Annie Fellows Johnston, and focuses on the reconciliation of an estranged father and daughter in the years following the American...
features the grandfather Colonel barking "piccaninny" at two young children.
In the 1936 film "Poor Little Rich Girl", Shirley Temple sings the song "Oh, My Goodness" to four ethnically stereotyped dolls. The fourth doll, representing a black woman or girl, is addressed as "pickaninny".
In the 1940 film Philadelphia Story, photographer Liz Imbrie (Ruth Hussey
Ruth Hussey
Ruth Carol Hussey was an American actress best known for her Academy Award-nominated role as photographer Elizabeth Imbrie in The Philadelphia Story.-Early life:...
) uses the term while inspecting the house of Tracy Lord (Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...
). In the 1987 movie Burglar
Burglar (film)
Burglar is a 1987 American comedy film directed by Hugh Wilson and distributed by Warner Bros. The film stars Whoopi Goldberg and Bobcat Goldthwait.-Plot:...
, Ray Kirschman (played by G.W. Bailey) confronts ex-con Bernice Rhodenbarr (Whoopi Goldberg
Whoopi Goldberg
Whoopi Goldberg is an American comedian, actress, singer-songwriter, political activist, author and talk show host.Goldberg made her film debut in The Color Purple playing Celie, a mistreated black woman in the Deep South. She received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress and won...
) in her bookstore by saying "now listen here pickaninny!"
In the 1940 film "His Girl Friday
His Girl Friday
His Girl Friday is a 1940 American screwball comedy film directed by Howard Hawks, an adaptation by Charles Lederer, Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur of the play The Front Page by Hecht and MacArthur...
", McCue, one of the press room reporters, jokes that "Mrs.Phoebe DeWolfe" gave birth to a pickaninny in a patrol wagon, concluding, "When the pickaninny was born the Rifle Squad examined him carefully to see if it was Earl Williams. Well they knew he was hiding somewhere."
In the opening line of Robert Wise
Robert Wise
Robert Earl Wise was an American sound effects editor, film editor, film producer and director...
's 1959 film Odds Against Tomorrow
Odds Against Tomorrow
Odds Against Tomorrow is a 1959 film noir produced and directed by Robert Wise for HarBel Productions, a company founded by the film's star, Harry Belafonte. Belafonte selected Abraham Polonsky to write the script, which is based on a novel by William P. McGivern. As a blacklisted writer Polonsky...
which tackled issues of racism, Robert Ryan
Robert Ryan
Robert Bushnell Ryan was an American actor who often played hardened cops and ruthless villains.-Early life and career:...
's character picks up a young black girl after she bumps into him and says, "You little pickaninny, you're gonna kill yourself flying like that."
The word was used by Australian country music performer Slim Dusty
Slim Dusty
David Gordon "Slim Dusty " Kirkpatrick AO, MBE was an Australian country music singer-songwriter and producer, with a career spanning nearly eight decades. He was known to record songs in the legacy of Australian poets Henry Lawson and Banjo Patterson that represented the Australian Bush...
in the lyrics of his 1987 "nursery-rhyme
Nursery rhyme
The term nursery rhyme is used for "traditional" poems for young children in Britain and many other countries, but usage only dates from the 19th century and in North America the older ‘Mother Goose Rhymes’ is still often used.-Lullabies:...
-style" song "Boomerang": "Every picaninny knows, that's where the roly-poly goes.". Within Australia, it is also a common name used for landscape features, including Piccaninny crater
Piccaninny crater
Piccaninny "crater" refers to an impact structure, the eroded remnant of a former impact crater, situated in northern Western Australia. It was named after Piccaninny Creek and lies within the Purnululu National Park....
and Picanniny point.
Many old lullabies have the word Pickaninny in them - used as an affectionate term for babies - often interchangeable with a child's name, i.e.: to personalize the song many families have substituted the children's name. "It's time for little Pickaninnies to go to sleep."
Pickaninny was used by Oakland Police officers in a denigrating fashion in the 1995 Mario Van Peebles
Mario Van Peebles
Mario "Chip" Cain Van Peebles is an American director and actor who has appeared in numerous Hollywood films. He is son of filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles.-Life and career:...
film Panther
Panther (film)
Panther is a 1995 film directed by Mario Van Peebles, from a screenplay adapted by his father, Melvin Van Peebles, based on his book. The film dramatizes the story of The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense...
to describe an African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
child who was killed in a car accident.
The original version of the sentimental 1896 song, "Kentucky Babe", sung from the viewpoint of an adult black man reminiscing about his childhood, contains several stereotyped lines, including "when I was a pickaninny on my Mammy's knee". Modern versions of the song substitute non-racial terms in the lyrics.
Controversial usage
The term was controversially used ("wide-grinning picaninnies") by the British Conservative politician Enoch PowellEnoch Powell
John Enoch Powell, MBE was a British politician, classical scholar, poet, writer, and soldier. He served as a Conservative Party MP and Minister of Health . He attained most prominence in 1968, when he made the controversial Rivers of Blood speech in opposition to mass immigration from...
in his "Rivers of Blood"
Rivers of Blood speech
The "Rivers of Blood" speech was a speech criticising Commonwealth immigration, as well as proposed anti-discrimination legislation in the United Kingdom made on 20 April 1968 by Enoch Powell , the Conservative Member of Parliament for Wolverhampton South West...
speech on 20 April 1968. In 1987, Governor Evan Mecham
Evan Mecham
Evan Mecham was the 17th Governor of Arizona. A decorated veteran of World War II, Mecham earned his living as an automotive dealership owner and occasional newspaper publisher...
of Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
defended the use of the word, claiming: "As I was a boy growing up, blacks themselves referred to their children as pickaninnies. That was never intended to be an ethnic slur to anybody." Before becoming the Mayor of London
Mayor of London
The Mayor of London is an elected politician who, along with the London Assembly of 25 members, is accountable for the strategic government of Greater London. Conservative Boris Johnson has held the position since 4 May 2008...
, Boris Johnson
Boris Johnson
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is a British journalist and Conservative Party politician, who has been the elected Mayor of London since 2008...
apologized for any offence caused by an article in which he sarcastically suggested that "the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies."
Chess term
The term is in current use as a technical term in Chess Problems, for a particular set of moves by a black pawn.Related terms
CognateCognate
In linguistics, cognates are words that have a common etymological origin. This learned term derives from the Latin cognatus . Cognates within the same language are called doublets. Strictly speaking, loanwords from another language are usually not meant by the term, e.g...
s of the term appear in other languages and cultures, presumably also derived from the Portuguese word, and it is not controversial or derogatory in these contexts. It is in widespread use in Melanesia
Melanesia
Melanesia is a subregion of Oceania extending from the western end of the Pacific Ocean to the Arafura Sea, and eastward to Fiji. The region comprises most of the islands immediately north and northeast of Australia...
n pidgin and creole language
Creole language
A creole language, or simply a creole, is a stable natural language developed from the mixing of parent languages; creoles differ from pidgins in that they have been nativized by children as their primary language, making them have features of natural languages that are normally missing from...
s such as Tok Pisin
Tok Pisin
Tok Pisin is a creole spoken throughout Papua New Guinea. It is an official language of Papua New Guinea and the most widely used language in that country...
of Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...
, as the word for "child" (or just young, as in the phrase pikinini pik, meaning pig
Pig
A pig is any of the animals in the genus Sus, within the Suidae family of even-toed ungulates. Pigs include the domestic pig, its ancestor the wild boar, and several other wild relatives...
let). In certain dialects of Caribbean English
Caribbean English
Caribbean English is a broad term for the dialects of the English language spoken in the Caribbean, most countries on the Caribbean coast of Central America, and Guyana. Caribbean English is influenced by the English-based Creole varieties spoken in the region, but they are not the same. In the...
, the words pickney and pickney-negger are used to refer to children. Also in Nigerian Pidgin
Nigerian Pidgin
Nigerian Pidgin is an English-based pidgin and a creole language spoken as a lingua franca across Nigeria. The language is commonly referred to as "Pidgin" or "Brokin". It is often not considered a creole language since most speakers are not native speakers, although many children do learn it early...
, the word is used to mean a child. And in Sierra Leone Krio
Krio language
Sierra Leone Krio is the lingua franca and the de facto national language spoken throughout the West African nation of Sierra Leone. Krio is spoken by 97% of Sierra Leone's population and unites the different ethnic groups in the country, especially in their trade and social interaction with each...
the term pikin refers to child or children. In Chilapalapa, a pidgin language used in Southern Africa, the term used is pikanin. In Suriname
Suriname
Suriname , officially the Republic of Suriname , is a country in northern South America. It borders French Guiana to the east, Guyana to the west, Brazil to the south, and on the north by the Atlantic Ocean. Suriname was a former colony of the British and of the Dutch, and was previously known as...
se Sranan Tongo
Sranan Tongo
Sranan is a creole language spoken as a lingua franca by approximately 300,000 people in Suriname...
the term pikin may refer to children as well as to small or little. Some of these words may be more directly related to the Portuguese pequeno than to pequenino, the source of pickaninny.
See also
- BlackfaceBlackfaceBlackface is a form of theatrical makeup used in minstrel shows, and later vaudeville, in which performers create a stereotyped caricature of a black person. The practice gained popularity during the 19th century and contributed to the proliferation of stereotypes such as the "happy-go-lucky darky...
- Golliwog
- NiggerNiggerNigger is a noun in the English language, most notable for its usage in a pejorative context to refer to black people , and also as an informal slang term, among other contexts. It is a common ethnic slur...
- PygmyPygmyPygmy is a term used for various ethnic groups worldwide whose average height is unusually short; anthropologists define pygmy as any group whose adult men grow to less than 150 cm in average height. A member of a slightly taller group is termed "pygmoid." The best known pygmies are the Aka,...
- Sambo (racial term)
- Uncle Tom's CabinUncle Tom's CabinUncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War", according to Will Kaufman....
- Zwarte PietZwarte PietIn the folklore and legends of the Netherlands and Belgium, Zwarte Piet is a companion of Saint Nicholas whose yearly feast in the Netherlands is usually celebrated on the evening of 5 December In the folklore and legends of the Netherlands and Belgium, Zwarte Piet (meaning Black Pete) is a...
(Black Pete)