Searching Vague British Pejoratives in American Periodicals

You will hear enough from me about Davidson today I am sure, so...

We all have gaps in our knowledge, and some appear more gaping than others.  Only a semester ago, I realized that I had mis-defined a term I had heard in my early life.  You may recall the chimney sweep scene in the Disney movie Mary Poppins?  In this scene, the children and Mary are one the roof with Burt who calls out to the other chimney sweeps in town.  They pop out of various and sundry chimneys for an exciting dance number.  In the scene, hundreds of chimney sweeps are singing and dancing on the roof, covered in soot.  The captain, known for firing his cannon twice a day precisely on time, notices the dancing men and exclaims "Its the Hottentots!" before firing several shots at the chimney sweeps.  As a child, I somehow determined that Hottentots were Germans.  It seemed logical to me since several other children's movies mentioned British wars with Germany and invasions.  I never associated the "black-face" costumes of the chimney sweeps as being significant markers of racial difference, or misleading to the Captain.  I simply picked a villain that made most sense to me in the cultural context of England between world wars.

I discovered in my feminist theories class that Hottentot was a term applied to Africans as we read British descriptions of the physical differences between the British and Africans.  I still think it sounds more like a term for Nazis or something.  Anyway, I decided to search for this term along with American terms like "negroes" and "slaves" to see what different articles would use this term.  I also searched for "Quakers" in conjunction with these terms.  I found several missionary accounts of African travels and conversions, but the one I settled on was the description of a meeting between Dutch speaking, converted  "Hottentots" and a young, African slave in the U.S.  The converted "Hottentots" were visiting a church, and a young African boy came in to observe them.  The women swooped down on him with warm embraced and a translator questioned him about his religion.  They were surprised that he was not religious, even though he has had the opportunities provided by living in this country.  This seems to be a statement on the missionary work which had been more successful abroad than at home, but it may also be an attempt to point out the value of religion to slaves and slave owners in the community. 

With these search terms, I also found a review of a book written about travels in Virginia.  While the review is negative overall, it copies letters which the author collected for his book, and these letters discuss slavery and racial and religious assumptions from different people in Virginia and surrounding areas.  Since I am interested in letters which appear in periodicals, these letters may appear in later blogs in more detail.  I also found a long (39 page) article discussing the reason Africans and Americans had different skin tones and the reasons for the variety of skin tones amongst Africans.  This article responds to another article which outlines the main reasons to be heat or climate, but also mentions religious or social beliefs and behavior as other causes of difference.  If you are interested in the body and othering through physical differences, this article could be helpful.  It is, of course, disturbing as well.