Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a soldier’s derog. nickname for a Sudanese warrior; also attrib; cite 1892 (2) used the term as a generic.

1892		Kipling ‘Fuzzy-Wuzzy’ in Barrack-Room Ballads (1893) 151: An ’appy day with Fuzzy on the rush / Will last an ’ealthy Tommy for a year. [...] So ’ere’s to you fuzzy-wuzzy / And your ’ome in the Soudan, you’re a pore benighted ’eathen but a first-class fighting man; / And ’ere’s to you fuzzy-wuzzy with your ’ay-rick ’ead of ’air, / You big, black bouncing beggar, for you bruk a British square.
1892		Manawatu Herald 3 Sept. 2/7: [from London Truth] A singular difficulty arose in connection with the performances of the troops of Zulus who have been appearing at the Royal Aquarium [...] ‘Fuzzy-Wuzzy’ and Mrs ‘Fuzzy-Wuzzy’ were ashamed to appear in native costume [...] before a trousered and petticoated audeince.
1896		Pall Mall Gaz. 15 May 2/3: This is all to the good, as Fuzzy-Wuzzy will live to discover.
1902		‘Banjo’ Paterson ‘Johnny Boer’ in Rio Grande’s Last Race (1904) 164: They reckon Fuzzy-wuzzy is the hottest fighter out.
1913		New Ulm Rev. (Brown Cty, MN) 26 Nov. 4/2: When England invaded and occupied Egypt [...] Fuzzy Wuzzy resisted [...] The fighting men of England took off their hats in admiring recognition of Fuzzy Wuzzy’s valor.
1926		Morn. Bulletin (Rockhampton, Qld) 19 Apr. 9/8: before the arrival of the Romans the Fuzzy-Wuzzies [...] appear to have been a powerful tribe who occupied the whole of the Nile country above Egypt.
1934		T. Wood Cobbers 97: Their spears poked out of the scrub like fuzzy-wuzzies lying in wait.
1941		G. Kersh They Die with Their Boots Clean 101: You were like a lousy crowd of wild, undisciplined Soudanese bloody fuzzy-wuzzies trained by illegitimate Wog corporals in [...] Tel Aviv in 1890.
1958		C. Lee diary 5 Mar. in Eight Bells & Top Masts (2001) 73: Port Sudan. The Fourth [Mate] says the locals here are called fuzzy-wuzzies [...] It’s because of their hair. It looks like a wig. Really big and loads of tight curls.
1962		H. Livings Nil Carborundum (1963) Act III: Two hundred howling fuzzie wuzzies just went for Bert here.
1975		(con. 1939) J. Rosenthal Evacuees Scene 20: It’s worse than being buried up to your neck by Fuzzy-Wuzzies in the desert so the ants get you.
1987		B. Chatwin Songlines 17: I went to Africa, to the Sudan. [...] This was nomad country – the nomads being the Beja: Kipling’s ‘fuzzy-wuzzies’.
1997		P. Theroux Kowloon Tong 69: Not too far from cape Verde [...] One of the fuzzy-wuzzy countries.

2. ‘a coloured native of other countries, such as Fiji and New Guinea’ (OED); also attrib.

1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 8 Sept. 14/4: It was thrown open for amateur theatrical kickings of the swagger kind, with bunches of Maddens, Clarkes, and military fuzzywuzzies in the bill.
1920		Marvel 28 Aug. 5: But, see here, old fuzzy-wuzzy, I don’t want to be killed.
1930		Register News-Pictorial (Adelaide) 21 June 12/4: Fuzziy Wuzzies dashed outside / And scattered everywhere.
1940		N. Mitford Pigeon Pie 41: There are Chinks and Japs and Fuzzy Wuzzies and Ice Creamers and Dagos, and so on.
1946		Courier Mail (Brisbane) 9 Dec. : More than a million of New Guinea’s ‘Fuzzy-Wuzzy Angels’ [...] are being given a chance to spread their wings.
1952		E. Brown Trespass 88: Like in the French Legion movies with all them old fuzzy-wuzzies raising sand.
1954		(con. 1940s) E. Lambert Veterans 175: They were born by the men we called Fuzzies, the black men in whose abandoned huts we sometimes found the Japs.
1963		(con. 1944) L. Glassop Rats in New Guinea 49: I had a heard a New Guinea native — ‘boongs’ or ‘Fuzzy Wuzzies’ we called them — in Moresby say ‘Japon man’.
1968		P. Barnes Ruling Class Prologue: Beri-beri. Picked it up of some scruffy fuzzy-wuzzy in a dressing-gown, shouldn’t wonder.
1974		D. Ireland Burn 59: I bet what he did up in the islands wouldn’ bear repeating. What were the little fuzzy-wuzzy girls like, eh?
1983		I.L. Allen Lang. of Ethnic Conflict 47: Allusions to Other Physical Difference: fuzzy.
1987		S. King Misery (1988) 155: ‘Learned it from the fuzzy-wuzzies in Capetown,’ he said. ‘Griquas. Wonderful chaps.’.
1995		A. Higgins Donkey’s Years 28: ‘We were only being Fuzziwuzzies,’ I said lamely.
2011		S. Kelman Pigeon English 42: She don’t want no fuzzy-wuzzy just got off the boat.

3. (US black) an African American.

1941		D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam Star-News 29 Mar. 13: Chick means broad and broad means [illeg.] and saw means fuzzy-wuzzy.
1942		‘Marienne’ ‘Solid Meddlin’ in People’s Voice (NY) 7 Mar. 33/1: [D]ug Oscar Hammerstein with a fine fuzzy wuzzy about 5 in the bright.