Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US black) the black race, also attrib Aunt Hagar, subservient, accepting of white stereotypes.

1891		M.N. Butler American Hand-book 108: ‘Aunt Hagar’s children’ have got curious and won't drive any more worth a cent!
1897		Guthrie Dly Leader (OK) 26 June 4/2: More plums have been falling. But none to Aunt Hagar’s children.
1903		Rising Sun (Kansas City, MO) 6 Feb. 1/3: Aunt Hagar’s children are playing in the dark.
1907		Guthrie Dly Leader 18 July 6/3: Judge Perkins says Aunt Hagar’s children are bad treated politically .
1913		Nashville Globe (TN) 2 May 7/2: The White Rose had a good house [for] the entertainment of Aunt Hagar’s children at St Peter.
1922		Washington Times (DC) 7 Feb. 8/1: [advert] Phonograph Records 49¢ [...] All the new ‘HITS’ [...] ‘Aunt Hagar’s Children’s Blues’.
1935		Z.N. Hurston Mules and Men (1995) 24: Negro imagination is so facile that there was little need for outside help. A’nt Hagar’s son, like Joseph, put on his many colored coat and paraded before his brethren and every man there was a Joseph. [Ibid.] 124: You fool wid Aunt Hagar’s chillun an they’ll sho distriminate you and put yo’ name in de streets.
1941		‘Digg Mee’ ‘Observation Post’ in N.Y. Age 12 Apr. 9/6: To do my best, I’m allus willin, just for you, ‘Aunt Hager’s’ chillun.
1942		Z.N. Hurston ‘Story in Harlem Sl.’ in Novels and Stories (1995) 1008: Aunt Hagar: Negro race (also Aunt Hagar’s children).
1943		D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam Star-News 9 Jan. 11: [generic for an African-American woman] Like chinaberry trees in A’nt Hagar’s backyard.
1946		D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam News 6 July 17: Big Sister and Little Sister, Booker T. and Elijah, Uncle Bud and Aunt Hagar.
1957		D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam News 3 Aug. 13: The new generation has completely eschewed the Uncle Tom and Aunt Hagar philosophy of their elders.
1980		J.L. Gwaltney Drylongso 90: A lot of these people from those foreign countries may not speak English, but you can look at them and see that they are Aun’ Hagi’s children.