Editing Nigger (section)

===18th- and 19th-century United States===
[[File:Run, nigger, run, or the M. P. 'll catch you.jpg|left|thumb|Lyrics for the song "[[Run, Nigger, Run]]", about a [[Fugitive slaves in the United States|fugitive]] slave escaping from a [[slave patrol]], printed in 1851]]
During the late 18th and early 19th century, the word "nigger" also described an actual labor category, which African American laborers adopted for themselves as a social identity, and thus white people used the descriptor word as a distancing or derogatory epithet, as if "quoting black people" and their non-standard language.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Stordeur Pryor |first1=Elizabeth |title=The Etymology of Nigger: Resistance, Language, and the Politics of Freedom in the Antebellum North |journal=Journal of the Early Republic |date=Summer 2016 |volume=36 |issue=2 |pages=203–245 |doi=10.1353/jer.2016.0028 |s2cid=148122937 |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/620987 |access-date=February 26, 2021 |archive-date=April 15, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230415191429/https://muse.jhu.edu/article/620987 |url-status=live }} = {{cite journal |last1=Stordeur Pryor |first1=Elizabeth |title=The Etymology of Nigger: Resistance, Language, and the Politics of Freedom in the Antebellum North |journal=Smith ScholarWorks |date=Summer 2016 |publisher=Smith College |location=Northampton, Massachusetts |pages=203–245, especially 206 f |url=https://scholarworks.smith.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=hst_facpubs |access-date=February 26, 2021 |archive-date=March 14, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230314030732/https://scholarworks.smith.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=hst_facpubs |url-status=live }}</ref> During the early 1800s to the late 1840s [[North American fur trade#Fur trade in the western United States|fur trade in the Western United States]], the word was spelled "niggur", and is often recorded in the literature of the time. [[George Ruxton]] used it in his "[[mountain man]]" lexicon, without pejorative [[connotation]]. "Niggur" was evidently similar to the modern use of "[[dude]]" or "guy". This passage from Ruxton's ''Life in the Far West'' illustrates the word in spoken form—the speaker here referring to himself: "Travler, marm, this niggur's no travler; I ar' a trapper, marm, a mountain-man, wagh!"<ref>{{cite book |last=Ruxton |first=George Frederick |title=Life In the Far West |year=1846 |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |isbn=978-0-8061-1534-4}}</ref> It was not used as a term exclusively for blacks among mountain men during this period, as Indians, Mexicans, and Frenchmen and Anglos alike could be a "niggur".<ref>{{cite web |title=Language of the Rendezvous |url=http://www.coon-n-crockett.org/cnc~glos.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121119031856/http://www.coon-n-crockett.org/cnc~glos.htm |archive-date=November 19, 2012 |access-date=September 6, 2012 }}</ref> "The noun slipped back and forth from derogatory to endearing."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Coleman |first1=Jon |title=Here Lies Hugh Glass: A Mountain Man, a Bear, and the Rise of the American Nation |url=http://us.macmillan.com/herelieshughglass/jontcoleman |date=2012 |publisher=Macmillan |page=272 |access-date=November 21, 2016 }}{{Dead link|date=April 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>

By 1859, the term was clearly used to offend, in an attack on [[John Brown (abolitionist)|abolitionist John Brown]].<ref>{{cite news
|title=A new version of an old song. Illustrating the growth of Public Sentiment [Old John Brown, he had a little nigger]
|newspaper=[[The National Era]] (Washington, D.C.)|date=November 10, 1859|page=3|via=[[newspapers.com]]|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/97344558/old-john-brown-he-had-a-little-nigger/|access-date=March 11, 2022
|archive-date=January 1, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230101220431/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/97344558/old-john-brown-he-had-a-little-nigger/|url-status=live}}</ref>

The term "[[colored]]" or "negro" became a respectful alternative. In 1851, the [[Boston Vigilance Committee]], an [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolitionist organization]], posted warnings to the ''Colored People of Boston and vicinity''. Writing in 1904, journalist [[Clifton Johnson (author)|Clifton Johnson]] documented the "opprobrious" character of the word ''nigger'', emphasizing that it was chosen in the South precisely because it was more offensive than "colored" or "negro".<ref>{{cite news |last=Johnson |first=Clifton |date=October 14, 1904 |title=They Are Only "Niggers" in the South |url=http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84025811/1904-10-14/ed-1/seq-5/ |newspaper=The Seattle Republican |location=Seattle, Wash. |publisher=Republican Pub. Co. |access-date=January 23, 2011 |archive-date=July 21, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110721044934/http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84025811/1904-10-14/ed-1/seq-5/ |url-status=live }}</ref> By the turn of the century, "colored" had become sufficiently mainstream that it was chosen as the racial self-identifier for the [[National Association for the Advancement of Colored People]] (NAACP). In 2008 Carla Sims, its communications director, said "the term 'colored' is not derogatory, [the NAACP] chose the word 'colored' because it was the most positive description commonly used [in 1909, when the association was founded]. It's outdated and antiquated but not offensive."<ref>{{cite news |url=http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2008/11/12/lohan-calls-obama-colored-naacp-says-no-big-deal#ftnb |title=Lohan calls Obama 'colored', NAACP says no big deal |newspaper=Mercury News |date=November 12, 2008 |access-date=May 12, 2016 |archive-date=January 10, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180110133214/http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2008/11/12/lohan-calls-obama-colored-naacp-says-no-big-deal/#ftnb |url-status=live }}</ref>

[[Mark Twain]], in the autobiographic book ''[[Life on the Mississippi]]'' (1883), used the term within quotes, indicating [[reported speech]], but used the term "negro" when writing in his own [[Comic persona|narrative persona]].<ref>{{cite journal |last=Twain |first=Mark |title=Life on the Mississippi |journal=Academic Medicine: Journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges |publisher=James R. Osgood & Co., Boston (U.S. edition) |year=1883 |volume=75 |issue=10 |page=11,13,127,139,219 |doi=10.1097/00001888-200010000-00016 |pmid=11031147 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nBWbSj-r4U4C&pg=PA11 |isbn=978-0-486-41426-3}}</ref> [[Joseph Conrad]] published a novella in Britain with the title ''[[The Nigger of the "Narcissus"]]'' (1897); in the United States, it was released as ''The Children of the Sea: A Tale of the Forecastle''; the original had been called "the ugliest conceivable title" in a British review<ref>{{Cite journal|last=GOONETILLEKE|first=D.C.R.A.|date=2011|title=Racism and "The Nigger of the "Narcissus""|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24669418|journal=Conradiana|volume=43|issue=2/3|pages=51–66|jstor=24669418|issn=0010-6356|access-date=February 6, 2022|archive-date=February 6, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220206024508/https://www.jstor.org/stable/24669418|url-status=live}}</ref> and American reviewers understood the change as reflecting American "refinement" and "prudery."<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=RUDE|first1=DONALD W.|last2=DAVIS|first2=KENNETH W.|title=The Critical Reception of the First American Edition of "The Nigger of the 'Narcissus'"|date=1992|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20874005|journal=The Conradian|volume=16|issue=2|pages=46–56|jstor=20874005|issn=0951-2314|access-date=February 6, 2022|archive-date=February 6, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220206024508/https://www.jstor.org/stable/20874005|url-status=live}}</ref>
[[File:TheChildrenOfTheSea.jpg|thumb|The US edition of Joseph Conrad's ''[[The Nigger of the "Narcissus"]]'' was called ''The Children of the Sea''.]]