cullud pusson

English

Etymology

Most likely an intentional mispronunciation of "colored person", perhaps to mock how African American people pronounced the term.

Noun

cullud pusson (plural cullud pussons or cullud people)

1. (US, obsolete, ethnic slur) A colored person (one with black skin).
   • 1862, James Roberts Gilmore, Among the Pines: Or, South in Secession-time, page 57:

     […] not a long time before, had charmed the last dollar from my waistcoat pocket by exhibiting, à la Barnum, a remarkably ugly "cullud pusson" on his pulpit stairs, and by picturing the awful doom which awaited her […]

   • 1885, W. W. Breese, The Cornucopia: Or, Horn of Plenty, page 407:

     De niggers prayed, but it didn't do no good, as de Yankees only frowed de more shells, and de Lord seemed deaf to de petitions of the cullud pussons.

   • 1888, Frederick Albion Ober, A Boy's Adventures in the West Indies, page 49:

     Well, the cullud pusson I knew was swallowed by an alligator, because he told a lie.

   • 1891, Alice Elinor Bartlett, A New Aristocracy, page 78:

     "Meg," said Elsie, as Margaret came wearily into the house at the noon hour, "what have you been trying to do with those good-for-nothing 'cullud pussons' out there?"
     "Teach them a little responsibility, that is all."