blackamoor

plural blackamoors · alternative blackamore · alternative blackemore · alternative blackemoor · alternative Scotland blackymore · alternative obsolete blackmoor

1. archaicoffensivegovernmentA person with dark black skin, especially one from north Africa.

   Argent, three blackamoors’ heads couped sable, capped or, fretty gules.

   5 more examples

   `Well, Job,' I said, `perhaps it would be as well. There are lots of blankets there, only be careful to keep out of the moon, or it may turn your head or blind you.' `Lord, sir! I don't think it would much matter if it did; it is that turned already with the sight of these blackamoors and their filthy, thieving ways.'

   1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC

   Go venture shipwreck on the sullen coasts Where blackamoors make captive Christian men ...

   1935, T.S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral, Part II

   "What!" exclaimed the Prince, "the music is by the blackamoor (a black Moor). Well, my fine blackamoor, henceforth thou art in my service."

   2003, Dr. Kwaku Person-Lynn, Beethoven: Revealing His True Identity

   What had Pringle done to merit such a severe penalty? He had said to Adusei during a criminal trial, "How's the blackamoor?". The Tribunal found that this was offensive, which clearly it was, and constituted an act of racial discrimination.

   2002, Barbara Hewson, An English Bar Disciplinary Tribunal went over the top when dealing with a racial harassment case.

   Gage noted the clothing of the slaves of the Spanish nobles, and silk was common to them. "The gentlemen have their train of blackamoor slaves, some a dozen, some half a dozen, waiting on them, in brave and gallant liveries, heavy with gold and silver lace, with silk stockings on their black legs, and roses on their feet, and swords by their sides."

   1958, Maurice W. Connell, The Prophet Said Silk (http://www.shields-research.org/Scriptures/BoM/SILK02.html), citing Thomas Gage's Travels in the New World, J. Eric S. Thompson (editor), page 73

2. offensiveA black slave or servant, and hence any slave, servant, inferior, or child.

   She seems to have been a serious girl, but she remembered her father's characterization of her as his "Little blackamoor."

   1999, Doug Davis, Lost Girl, archived from the original on 04 Feb 2005

   1 more example

   1893, Annotation to The Diary of Samuel Pepys by "Mary", http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1660/08/10/index.php citing Restoration London, Liza Picard, pages 178-179. In 1596 Elizabeth I had already decreed that all "blackamoors" should be sent back to Spain or Portugal as they were disturbing local labour markets. It became very fashionable for the wealthy to have "blackamoor" page boys and personal servants, as their complexions set off the pale-skinned beauty of the women of the family.

1. A village in Blackburn with Darwen borough, Lancashire, England (OS grid ref SD6925).

plural Blackamoors

1. archaicobsoleteoffensiveAlternative letter-case form of blackamoor.

   […] Mrs. Milford broke the thread of his soliloquy by desiring he would not talk about nasty Blackamoors any more, for she should dream of them at her bed-side.

   1810, [anonymous] […], chapter XXVI, in Splendid Follies. A Novel, […]. Founded on Facts., volume III, London: […] J[ames] F[letcher] Hughes, […], →OCLC, page 87

   2 more examples

   highly discontented to understand the great numbers of negars and Blackamoors which (as she is informed) are crept into this realm... who are fostered and relieved [i.e. fed] her to the great annoyance of her own liege people, that want the relief [i.e. food], which those people consume, as also for that the most of them are infidels, having no understanding of Christ or his Gospel.

   1601, pronouncement of Queen Elizabeth I in 1601, Staying Power: the History of Black People in Britain, Peter Fryer

   "Although, as we now realize, no Blackamoor at any 18th century European court was merely decorative, in Ibrahim's case, Peter's expectations for him were as loaded with responsibility as those he would have had for his own son."

   1995, The Blurred Racial Lines of Famous Families: Pushkin Genealogy