Pickaninny

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Postcard titled "Six Little Pickaninnies" (Detroit Publishing, 1902) Six Little Pickaninnies postcard 1902 Detroit Pub Co via NYPL Digital Collections.jpg
Postcard titled "Six Little Pickaninnies" (Detroit Publishing, 1902)

Pickaninny (also picaninny, piccaninny or pickininnie) is a racial slur for black children and a pejorative term for aboriginal children of the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand. The origins of the term are disputed. Along with several words for children in pidgin and creole languages, such as piccanin and pikinini, it may derive from the Portuguese pequenino ('boy, child, very small, tiny'). [1]

Contents

In the United States, the pickaninny is a derogatory caricature of a dark-skinned African-American child, often depicted with unkempt hair, bulging eyes, and large red lips. [2] Such characters were a popular feature of minstrel shows into the twentieth century. [3]

Origins and usage

Postcard from Puerto Rico titled "Eight Little Pickaninnies Kneeling in a Row", 1902 or 1903 1902 - 1903 postcard depicting eight black children with a palm tree in Puerto Rico.jpg
Postcard from Puerto Rico titled "Eight Little Pickaninnies Kneeling in a Row", 1902 or 1903

The origins of the word pickaninny (and its alternative spellings picaninny and piccaninny) are disputed; it may derive from the Portuguese term for a small child, pequenino. [4] [5] According to the Oxford English Dictionary , the term evidently spread through trade networks using Portuguese-based pidgins during the 17th century, especially the Atlantic slave trade. [1] Other spellings include piccanini, pickoninnie, pick-ny, piccanin, and picannin. [6]

Pickaninny was apparently used by slaves in the West Indies to affectionately refer to a child of any race. [3] The term acquired a pejorative connotation by the nineteenth century as a term for black children in the United States, as well as aboriginal children of the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand. [7] It is now generally considered offensive. [1] [8] [3]

Similar terms in Pidgin and Creole languages

The term piccanin, derived from the Portuguese pequenino, has along with several variants become widely used in pidgin languages, meaning 'small'. [8] This term is common in the creole languages of the Caribbean, especially those which are English-based. [9] In Jamaican Patois, the word is found as pickney, which is used to describe a child regardless of racial origin. [10] The same word is used in Antiguan and Barbudan Creole to mean "children",[ citation needed ] while in the English-based national creole language of Suriname, Sranang Tongo, pequeno has been borrowed as pikin for 'small' and 'child'. [11]

Local children at Buk bilong Pikinini ('Books for Children'), a nonprofit organization in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, 2013 Children at Buk bilong Pikinini (books for children). Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. (10682223463).jpg
Local children at Buk bilong Pikinini ('Books for Children'), a nonprofit organization in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, 2013

The term pikinini is found in Melanesian pidgin and creole languages such as Tok Pisin of Papua New Guinea or Bislama of Vanuatu, as the usual word for 'child' (of a person or animal); [12] it may refer to children of any race.[ citation needed ] For example, Charles III used the term in a speech he gave in Tok Pisin during a formal event: he described himself as nambawan pikinini bilong Misis Kwin (i.e. the first child of the Queen). [13]

In Nigerian as well as Cameroonian Pidgin English, the word pikin is used to mean a child. [14] It can be heard in songs by African popular musicians such as Fela Kuti's Afrobeat song "Teacher Don't Teach Me Nonsense" and Prince Nico Mbarga's highlife song "Sweet Mother"; [15] [ non-primary source needed ] both are from Nigeria. In Sierra Leone Krio [16] the term pikin refers to 'child' or 'children', while in Liberian English pekin does likewise. In Chilapalapa, a pidgin language used in Southern Africa, the term used is pikanin. In Sranan Tongo and Ndyuka of Suriname, 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.[ citation needed ]

United States

Reproduction of a 1922 advertisement for the frozen treat Picaninny Freeze, later used in the 2000 film Bamboozled Picaninny Freeze.jpg
Reproduction of a 1922 advertisement for the frozen treat Picaninny Freeze, later used in the 2000 film Bamboozled

The first famous depiction of a pickaninny was the character of Topsy in Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin , presented as a neglected girl, poorly dressed and behaved, untamable and corrupted by slavery. [17] The pickaninny became the dominant racial caricature of black children in the United States, and typically depicted untamed, genderless children with unkempt hair, bulging eyes, large mouths, and red lips, often stuffing their mouths with watermelon or fried chicken. [2] [17]

These characters were a popular feature of minstrel shows into the twentieth century. [3] Black children were often depicted as being threatened or attacked by animals, and resistant or immune to pain. [7] They were often seen on postcards and other ephemera being chased or eaten by alligators. [17]

Scholar of African-American literature Rebecca Wanzo argues that the pickaninny caricature portrays black children as a "binary other" to romanticized depictions of white children, specifically angelic white girls. [18] According to David Pilgrim of the Jim Crow Museum at Ferris State University, the pickaninny stereotype often depicted African-American children nude and with exaggerated buttocks, normalizing their sexual objectification; they were also typically portrayed as impoverished, clothed in rags and needing to steal chickens and watermelon in order to fend for themselves like wild animals. [17]

Commonwealth countries

Piccaninny is considered an offensive term for an Aboriginal Australian child. [19] It was used in colonial Australia and is still in use in some Indigenous Kriol languages. [20] [21] Piccaninny (sometimes spelled picanninnie) is found in numerous Australian place names, such as Piccaninnie Ponds and Piccaninny Lake [22] in South Australia, Piccaninny crater and Picaninny Creek in Western Australia and Picaninny Point in Tasmania. [23] [ original research? ]

The term was used in 1831 in an anti-slavery tract "The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave, related by herself" published in Edinburgh, Scotland. [24] 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". [25] [ non-primary source needed ]The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English says that in the United Kingdom today, piccaninny is considered highly offensive and derogatory, or negative and judgemental when used by other black people. [19] It was controversially used ("wide-grinning picaninnies") in a letter quoted by the British Conservative politician Enoch Powell in his 1968 "Rivers of Blood" speech.[ citation needed ] In a 2002 column for The Daily Telegraph, Boris Johnson wrote, "It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies." [26] [27] [28]

"Shake Yo' Dusters, or, Piccaninny Rag", sheet music of an 1898 song by William Krell. Piccaninny Rag 1898.jpg
"Shake Yo' Dusters, or, Piccaninny Rag", sheet music of an 1898 song by William Krell.
Advertisement for the comedy short film The Pickaninny (1921) with Ernie Morrison aka "Sunshine Sammy." "Hal Roach presents Sunshine Sammy in The Pickaninny" (1921).jpg
Advertisement for the comedy short film The Pickaninny (1921) with Ernie Morrison aka "Sunshine Sammy."

Literature

Television

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 "piccaninny" . Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/OED/8795776999 . Retrieved 21 April 2025. A black child. (Now considered offensive when used by a white person of a black child.)(Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
  2. 1 2 Olson, Debbie (2017). "African American Girls in Hollywood Cinema". Black Children in Hollywood Cinema. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 83. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-48273-6_3. ISBN   978-3-319-48273-6.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Herbst, Philip (1997). The Color of Words: An Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Ethnic Bias in the United States . Yarmouth, Maine: Intercultural Press. pp. 178–179. ISBN   978-1-877864-42-1.
  4. ↑ Conor, Liz (March 2012). "The 'Piccaninny': racialized childhood, disinheritance, acquisition and child beauty". Postcolonial Studies. 15 (1): 45–68. doi:10.1080/13688790.2012.658742.
  5. ↑ Room, Adrian (1986). A Dictionary of True Etymologies . London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Inc. p. 130. ISBN   978-0-415-03060-1.
  6. ↑ Mencken, Henry Louis (1960) [originally published 1945]. Supplement One: The American Language: An Inquiry Into the Development of English in the United States . New York: Alfred A. Knopf. p. 635. ISBN   978-0-394-40076-1.{{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
  7. 1 2 Bernstein, Robin (2011). "Tender Angels, Insensate Pickaninnies: The Divergent Paths of Racial Innocence". Racial Innocence: Performing American Childhood from Slavery to Civil Rights. New York University Press. pp. 34–35. doi:10.18574/nyu/9780814787090.003.0005. ISBN   978-0-8147-8709-0.
  8. 1 2 Hughes, Geoffrey (2015) [first published 2006]. An Encyclopedia of Swearing: The Social History of Oaths, Profanity, Foul Language, and Ethnic Slurs in the English-speaking World. London: Routledge. p. 345. ISBN   978-1-317-47678-8.
  9. ↑ "Pickaninny". WordReference.com Dictionary of English. Retrieved 31 December 2022.
  10. ↑ "Pickney | Patois Definition on Jamaican Patwah". Jamaican Patwah. Retrieved 8 July 2023.
  11. ↑ Muysken, Pieter C.; Smith, Norval (2014). Surviving the Middle Passage: The West Africa–Surinam Sprachbund. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. p. 228. ISBN   978-3-11-034385-4.
  12. ↑ Crowley, Terry (2003). A New Bislama Dictionary (2nd ed.). Suva, Fiji: Institute of Pacific Studies. p. 205. ISBN   978-9-8202-0362-4.
  13. ↑ "Prince of Wales, 'nambawan pikinini', visits Papua New Guinea" . The Daily Telegraph. 4 November 2012.
  14. ↑ Faraclas, Nicholas G. (1996). Nigerian Pidgin. Routledge. p. 45. ISBN   0-415-02291-6.
  15. ↑ Mbarga, Prince Nico & Rocafil Jazz (1976) Sweet Mother (lp) Rounder Records #5007 (38194)
  16. ↑ Cassidy, Frederic Gomes; Le Page, Robert Brock, eds. (2002). Dictionary of Jamaican English (2nd ed.). Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press. p. 502. ISBN   976-640-127-6.
  17. 1 2 3 4 Pilgrim, David (October 2000). "The Picaninny Caricature". Big Rapids, Mich.: Jim Crow Museum; Ferris State University. Retrieved 11 September 2025.
  18. ↑ Wanzo, Rebecca (2020). The Content of Our Caricature: African American Comic Art and Political Belonging. New York University Press. p. 139. ISBN   978-1-4798-2219-5.
  19. 1 2 Partridge, Eric (2006). Dalzell, Tom; Victor, Terry (eds.). The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, Volume II: J–Z . London: Routledge. p. 1473. ISBN   978-0-415-25938-5.
  20. ↑ "Last of the Tribe". National Museum of Australia.
  21. ↑ Meakens, Felicity (2014). "Language contact varieties". In Harold Koch & Rachel Nordlinger (Eds.), the Languages and Linguistics of Australia: A Comprehensive Guide. Berlin: Mouton. Pp. 365-416: 367. Retrieved 28 March 2016.
  22. ↑ "Piccaninny Lagoon, Lake". Location SA Map Viewer. Government of South Australia. Retrieved 17 January 2019.
  23. ↑ Maiden, Siobhan (23 June 2009). "The Picaninny Point Debacle". ABC Australia. Retrieved 24 December 2022.
  24. ↑ Documenting the American South
  25. ↑ The Times, 25 October 1826; Issue 13100; p. 3; col A, Admiralty Sessions, Old Bailey, 24 October.
  26. ↑ Brown, Alexander (2021). "Stonewalling". An Ethics of Political Communication. Routledge. pp. 92–131. doi:10.4324/9781003207832-3. ISBN   978-1-0004-4122-2. S2CID   242520414.
  27. ↑ Bowcott, Owen; Jones, Sam (23 January 2008). "Johnson's 'piccaninnies' apology". The Guardian.
  28. ↑ Johnson, Boris (10 January 2002). "If Blair's so good at running the Congo, let him stay there". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 20 June 2008.
  29. ↑ Laskow, Sarah (2 December 2014). "The Racist History of Peter Pan's Indian Tribe". Smithsonian. Retrieved 20 December 2022.
  30. ↑ "Gone with the Wind". Gutenberg.net.au. Project Gutenberg. Retrieved 22 March 2020.
  31. ↑ Hill, Nicole (7 October 2020). "How Lovecraft Country Uses Topsy and Bopsy to Address Racist Caricatures". Den of Geek.
  32. ↑ Smail, Gretchen (4 October 2020). "The Real History Behind The Terrifying Girls Haunting Dee On 'Lovecraft Country'". Bustle.

Further reading

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