, the first. Tituba, the Barbadian slave who became famous at the Salem witch trial and who may have been part Carib Indian as well as African, must have spoken an Afro-American English variety. Justices also figure in another source earlier than Mather. In Sarah Kemble Knight's journal, a senior justice tells an Indian "It's a grandy wicked thing to steal." However, in this particular trial, it was pointed out to the justice that he was speaking "Negro" to an Indian and should have spoken Pidgin Indian to him (Dillard 80).
Black character had apparently found their way into show business by 1771. In the farcical Trial of Atticus Before Justice Beau, for a Rape, set in Massachusetts, one of the blacks portrayed in the show had two brief speeches in Pidgin English. In these two brief passages, the pidgin/creole characteristic of non-differentiation of pronoun genders (he, 'em, and him, all referring to a Mrs. Chuckle) is clearly indicated.
By the early 1800s, representations of Black English in print were commonplace. Edgar Allan Poe used his version o
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