Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) whisky.

1846

‘McAlpin’s Trip to Charleston’ in W.T. Porter (ed.) Quarter Race in Kentucky : Provided well with bread, meat, and a bottle of pale-face, which were stowed away in a pair of leather saddle bags .

2. (orig. US black) a white person.

[1823		G.A. McCall Letter from Frontiers (1868) 72: An Indian chief [...] thus accosted him,—‘Ah, Paleface! what brings you here? you seem to take pleasure in saying rude impertinencies’].
1847		J. Palmer Journal of Travels over the Rocky Mountains 16: One poor fellow [...] manifested great alarm upon seeing so many ‘pale faces’.
1858		M. Reid Osceola 186: False young mico! false pale-face! Why did I save him?
[1866		R.B. Marcy Thirty Years of Army Life 59: He had formed the opinion that the ‘Big Captain’ of the pale-faces held them in but little estimation].
1869		F. Whymper Travel and Adventure in Alaska 36: It is very rare to find those who are the better for intercourse with the ‘pale faces’.
1872		Schele De Vere Americanisms 32: The word Pale-face, a great favorite with [...] poets, which probably never was seriously used by an Indian in his own tongue.
1882		Dly Globe (St Paul, MN) 7 Nov. 4/3: ‘Pale-face Charley’ and scoundrel Gordon had better tie down their hair to-day to save their scalps.
1897		Salt Lake Herald (UT) 5 Dec. 9/1: The Ute soon learned to love the pale face for his whisky.
1914		Bulletin (Sydney) 27 Aug. 24/3: By half-time the pale-faces were all out, but the darkies kept the pace going.
1923		Kipling ‘Prophet and the Country’ in Debits and Credits (1926) 189: The Red Indians who [...] sold ’emselves and their heritage for the Firewater of the Paleface.
1948		Chicago Daily News 18 Mar. 20/7: Income tax is a devilish invention of the paleface, brothers [DA].
1965		Guild Dict. Homosexual Terms 34: paleface (n., adj.): White homosexual; used by Negroes (in the U.S.A.) as another word for white, or Anglo-Saxon, homosexuals. As: ‘She likes paleface.’.
1977		New Musical Express 27 Aug. 26: Arnett too has come in for plenty of brickbats from the palefaces, who called it R&B.
1980		E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 60: The single most descriptive attribute young blacks focus on in their labeling of whites is color-or the lack of it – such as [...] pale face, rabbit, and red neck.
2022		J. Hannaham Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit 138: An these palefaces lookin damn comfortable too!