Pickaninny

File:1902 - 1903 postcard depicting eight black children with a palm tree in Puerto Rico.jpg children, titled "Eight Little Pickaninnies Kneeling in a row.", published in 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, {{lang|pt|pequenino}}.{{cite journal |last1=Conor |first1=Liz |title=The 'Piccaninny': racialized childhood, disinheritance, acquisition and child beauty |journal=Postcolonial Studies |date=March 2012 |volume=15 |issue=1 |pages=45–68 |doi=10.1080/13688790.2012.658742}}{{cite encyclopedia |last=Room |first=Adrian |title=A Dictionary of True Etymologies |location=London |publisher=Routledge and Kegan Paul Inc. |year=1986 |page=130 |isbn=978-0-415-03060-1 |url=https://archive.org/details/dictionaryoftrue0000adri/page/130/mode/1up?view=theater |url-access=registration}} 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.{{cite OED |term=piccaninny |id=8795776999 |access-date=21 April 2025 |quote=A black child. (Now considered offensive when used by a white person of a black child.)}} It was apparently used by slaves in the West Indies to affectionately refer to a child of any race.{{cite book |last1=Herbst |first1=Philip |title=The Color of Words: An Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Ethnic Bias in the United States |date=1997 |publisher=Intercultural Press |location=Yarmouth, Maine |isbn=978-1-877864-42-1 |pages=178–179 |url=https://archive.org/details/colorofwordsency0000herb/page/178/mode/1up?view=theater |url-access=registration}} Pickaninny 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.{{cite book |first=Robin |last=Bernstein |title=Racial Innocence: Performing American Childhood from Slavery to Civil Rights |publisher=New York University Press |year=2011 |pages=34–35 |isbn=978-0-8147-8709-0 |doi=10.18574/nyu/9780814787090.003.0005 |chapter=Tender Angels, Insensate Pickaninnies: The Divergent Paths of Racial Innocence}} The term is now generally considered offensive.{{r|OED Online|Hughes 2015|Herbst 1997}}

The term piccanin, derived from the Portuguese {{lang|pt|pequenino}}, has along with several variants become widely used in pidgin languages, meaning 'small'.{{cite book |last1=Hughes |first1=Geoffrey |title=An Encyclopedia of Swearing: The Social History of Oaths, Profanity, Foul Language, and Ethnic Slurs in the English-speaking World |date=2015 |orig-year=first published 2006 |publisher=Routledge |location=London |page=345 |isbn=978-1-317-47678-8}} This term is common in the creole languages of the Caribbean, especially those which are English-based.{{cite web |title=Pickaninny |website=WordReference.com Dictionary of English |url=https://www.wordreference.com/definition/Pickaninny |access-date=31 December 2022}} In Jamaican Patois, the word is found as {{lang|jam|pickney}}, which is used to describe a child regardless of racial origin.{{cite web |title=Pickney {{!}} Patois Definition on Jamaican Patwah |url=https://jamaicanpatwah.com/term/Pickney/1063 |website=Jamaican Patwah |access-date=8 July 2023 |language=en}} The same word is used in Antiguan and Barbudan Creole to mean "children",{{cn|date=July 2023}} while in the English-based national creole language of Suriname, Sranang Tongo, {{lang|pt|pequeno}} has been borrowed as {{lang|srn|pikin}} for 'small' and 'child'.{{Cite book |url= |title=Surviving the Middle Passage: The West Africa–Surinam Sprachbund |last1=Muysken |first1=Pieter C. |last2=Smith |first2=Norval |publisher=Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co |year=2014 |isbn=978-3-11-034385-4 |pages=228}}

File:Children at Buk bilong Pikinini (books for children). Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. (10682223463).jpg, an independent not-for-profit organization.]]

The term {{lang|tpi|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);{{cite book |last1=Crowley |first1=Terry |author1-link=Terry Crowley (linguist) |title=A New Bislama Dictionary |date=2003 |publisher=Institute of Pacific Studies |location=Suva, Fiji |isbn=978-9-8202-0362-4 |page=205 |edition=2nd}} it may refer to children of any race.{{Citation needed|date=April 2023}} For example, Charles III used the term in a speech he gave in Tok Pisin during a formal event: he described himself as {{lang|tpi|nambawan pikinini bilong Misis Kwin}} (i.e. the first child of the Queen).{{cite news |author= |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/prince-charles/9654071/Prince-of-Wales-nambawan-pikinini-visits-Papua-New-Guinea.html |title=Prince of Wales, 'nambawan pikinini', visits Papua New Guinea |work=The Daily Telegraph |date=4 November 2012 |url-access=subscription}}

In Nigerian as well as Cameroonian Pidgin English, the word {{lang|wes|pikin}} is used to mean a child.{{cite book |last=Faraclas |first=Nicholas G. |title=Nigerian Pidgin |page=45 |publisher=Routledge |year=1996 |isbn=0-415-02291-6 |url=}} 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";Mbarga, Prince Nico & Rocafil Jazz (1976) Sweet Mother (lp) Rounder Records #5007 (38194){{Primary source inline|date=March 2023}} both are from Nigeria. In Sierra Leone Krio{{cite book |editor-last1=Cassidy |editor-first1=Frederic Gomes |editor2=Le Page, Robert Brock |title=Dictionary of Jamaican English |page=502 |edition=2nd |location=Kingston, Jamaica |publisher=University of the West Indies Press |year=2002 |isbn=976-640-127-6 |url=https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofjama0000cass/page/502/mode/1up?view=theater |url-access=registration}} the term {{lang|kri|pikin}} refers to 'child' or 'children', while in Liberian English the term pekin does likewise. In Chilapalapa, a pidgin language used in Southern Africa, the term used is {{lang|fng|pikanin}}. In Sranan Tongo and Ndyuka of Suriname the term {{lang|djk|pikin}} may refer to 'children' as well as to 'small' or 'little'. Some of these words may be more directly related to the Portuguese {{lang|pt|pequeno}} than to {{lang|pt|pequenino}}.{{citation needed|date=December 2019}}

File:Picaninny Freeze.jpg

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.{{cite book |last1=Olson |first1=Debbie |title=Black Children in Hollywood Cinema |date=2017 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |location=Cham |isbn=978-3-319-48273-6 |page=83 |doi=10.1007/978-3-319-48273-6_3 |chapter=African American Girls in Hollywood Cinema}}{{cite web |title=The Picaninny Caricature |last=Pilgrim |first=David |date=October 2000 |publisher=Jim Crow Museum; Ferris State University |location=Big Rapids, Mich. |url=https://jimcrowmuseum.ferris.edu/antiblack/picaninny/homepage.htm |access-date=20 April 2025}} The child was often depicted as being threatened or attacked by animals, and resistant or immune to pain.{{r|Bernstein p34}} 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 poorly dressed and behaved, neglected girl, untamable and corrupted by slavery. These characters were a popular feature of minstrel shows into the twentieth century.{{r|Herbst 1997}}

Journalist H. L. Mencken (born 1880) wrote that "in the Baltimore of my youth, pickaninny was not used invidiously, but rather affectionately."{{cite book |last1=Mencken |first1=Henry Louis |title=The American Language: An Inquiry Into the Development of English in the United States |date=1945 |publisher=Alfred A. Knopf |location=New York |isbn=978-0-394-40076-1 |page=635}}{{Primary source inline|date=April 2025|reason=Mencken is a primary source for his own recollections of life in Baltimore}}

Piccaninny is considered an offensive term for an Aboriginal Australian child.{{cite book |last=Partridge |first=Eric |editor1=Dalzell, Tom |editor2=Victor, Terry |year=2006 |title=The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, Volume II: J–Z |publisher=Routledge |location=London |isbn=978-0-415-25938-5 |page=1473 |url=https://archive.org/details/newpartridgedict00tomd/page/1473/mode/1up?view=theater |url-access=registration}} It was used in colonial Australia and is still in use in some Indigenous Kriol languages.{{cite web |url=http://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/aboriginal_breastplates/honours_for_the_last_of_the_tribe/ |title=Last of the Tribe |publisher=National Museum of Australia}}{{cite journal |last1=Meakens |first1=Felicity |title=Language contact varieties |journal=In Harold Koch & Rachel Nordlinger (Eds.), the Languages and Linguistics of Australia: A Comprehensive Guide. Berlin: Mouton. Pp. 365-416 |date=2014 |page=367 |url=https://www.academia.edu/5496549 |access-date=28 March 2016}}

Piccaninny (sometimes spelled picanninnie) is found in numerous Australian place names, such as Piccaninnie Ponds and Piccaninny Lake{{cite web |title=Piccaninny Lagoon, Lake |url=http://location.sa.gov.au/viewer/?map=roads&x=140.75728&y=-34.16201&z=16&uids=19,105&pinx=140.757280&piny=-34.162010&pinTitle=Location&pinText=Piccaninny+Lagoon,+Lake |website=Location SA Map Viewer |publisher=Government of South Australia |access-date=17 January 2019}} in South Australia, Piccaninny crater and Picaninny Creek in Western Australia and Picaninny Point in Tasmania.{{cite news |url=http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2009/06/23/2606068.htm |title=The Picaninny Point Debacle |last=Maiden |first=Siobhan |access-date=24 December 2022 |publisher=ABC Australia |date=23 June 2009}}{{Original research inline|date=December 2022|reason=source does not mention origin or use of term itself}}

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.[https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/prince/prince.html Documenting the American South] 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".The Times, 25 October 1826; Issue 13100; p. 3; col A, [https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-times-admiralty-sessions-old-bailey/170871865/ Admiralty Sessions, Old Bailey, 24 October].{{Primary source inline|date=December 2022}} 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.{{r|Partridge 2006}} 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|date=December 2022}} 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."{{cite book |last1=Brown |first1=Alexander |title=An Ethics of Political Communication |date=2021 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-0004-4122-2 |doi=10.4324/9781003207832-3 |chapter=Stonewalling |pages=92–131 |s2cid=242520414}}{{cite news |last1=Bowcott |first1=Owen |last2=Jones |first2=Sam |title=Johnson's 'piccaninnies' apology |url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2008/jan/23/london.race |work=The Guardian |date=23 January 2008}}{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2002/01/10/do1002.xml |newspaper=The Daily Telegraph |author=Johnson, Boris |date=10 January 2002 |url-status=unfit |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080620103008/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2002/01/10/do1002.xml |archive-date=20 June 2008 |title=If Blair's so good at running the Congo, let him stay there}}

{{In popular culture|section|date=December 2022}}

File:Piccaninny Rag 1898.jpg, or, Piccaninny Rag", sheet music of an 1898 song by William Krell.]]

File:"Hal Roach presents Sunshine Sammy in The Pickaninny" (1921).jpg aka "Sunshine Sammy."]]

• 1911{{dash}}In the novel Peter and Wendy by J. M. Barrie, the Indians of Neverland are members of the Piccaninny tribe. Writer Sarah Laskow describes them as "a blanket stand-in for 'others' of all stripes, from Aboriginal populations in Australia to descendants of slaves in the United States" who generally communicate in pidgin with lines such as "Ugh, ugh, wah!".{{cite web |last1=Laskow |first1=Sarah |date=December 2, 2014 |title=The Racist History of Peter Pan's Indian Tribe |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/racist-history-peter-pan-indian-tribe-180953500/ |website=Smithsonian |access-date=20 December 2022 |language=en}}
• 1936{{dash}}In Margaret Mitchell's best-selling epic Gone with the Wind, the character Melanie Wilkes objects to her husband's intended move to New York City because it would mean that their son Beau would be educated alongside "Yankees" and "pickaninnies".{{cite web |title=Gone with the Wind |url=http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200161.txt |website=Gutenberg.net.au |publisher=Project Gutenberg |access-date=22 March 2020}}

• 2015{{dash}}Season 1 Episode 14 of Shark Tank Australia featured Piccaninny Tiny Tots which has since changed its name to Kakadu Tiny Tots.{{Citation needed|date=December 2022}}
• 2020{{dash}}Episode 8 (Jig-A-Bobo) of the HBO television series Lovecraft Country features a character chased by Topsy and Bopsy, two ghoulish monsters depicted as "pickaninny" caricatures.{{Cite web |last=Hill |first=Nicole |url=https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/lovecraft-country-topsy-bopsy-uncle-toms-cabin-racist-caricatures/ |title=How Lovecraft Country Uses Topsy and Bopsy to Address Racist Caricatures |date=7 October 2020 |website=Den of Geek}}{{Cite web |last=Smail |first=Gretchen |date=October 4, 2020 |url=https://www.bustle.com/entertainment/lovecraft-country-episode-8-twins-girls-history-explained |title=The Real History Behind The Terrifying Girls Haunting Dee On 'Lovecraft Country' |website=Bustle}}

• {{anl|Alligator bait}}
• {{anl|Golliwog}}
• {{anl|Hottentot (racial term)}}
• {{anl|Nadir of American race relations}}
• {{anl|The Story of Little Black Sambo|The Story of Little Black Sambo}}
• {{anl|Tar-Baby}}

{{Reflist}}

• {{Cite EB1911 |wstitle=Piccaninny |short=x}}

• {{wiktionary-inline}}
• {{Commons category inline}}
• [https://ds-omeka.haverford.edu/materiality-and-spectacle-2015/exhibits/show/trade_cards_and_race/racism Online exhibit of stereotypical portrayals of African Americans], Haverford College

{{Ethnic slurs}}

{{African American caricatures and stereotypes}}

Category:Anti-African and anti-black slurs

Category:Fictional African-American people

Category:Portuguese words and phrases

Category:Black people in art

Category:Stereotypes of African Americans

Category:History of childhood