Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also baccararo, baccra, backearay, bakra, buckruh) a white man.

1688		Behn Oroonoko (1886) 67: As Oroonoko afterwards said, he had little reason to credit the words of a Backearay.
1740		The Importance of Jamaica etc. 20: Scots Bacceros (which they call all white Men) all know one another, but English Bacceros no know one another.
a.1790		C. Dibdin Jr. ‘Kickaraboo’ in Universal Songster (1825) I 29/1: When Massa Death kick him into the grave, / He no spare negro, buckra, nor massa, nor slave.
1793		J.B. Moreton West India Customs and Manners 78: Their black husbands, or poor bockra partners, being neglected.
1801		C. Dibdin Yngr Song Smith 48: ‘Ah , massa,’ replied a black who had been some time a spectator, ‘Buckra steal black heathen man to make him good Christian.’.
1816		M. Lewis 28 Apr. in Journal of a West India Proprietor (1834) 308: O ki! [...] me know now what makes the buckras all so white!
1828		High Life in London 23 Mar. 3/1: This caused the negroes [...] to say, ‘Dat damn cunning buckra, for him one eye sleeps, while toder keeps spell’ .
1830		Memoirs of the Late Capt. Hugh Crow 9: Three bit more for ’em da; I have ’em negra buy buckra now.
1840		T. Haliburton Letter-bag of the Great Western (1873) 16: One buccra says, Steward, I can’t drink dis wine, it is werry poor stuff; what de debil do you mean by giving me such trash as dis, he no fit to drink at all?
1841		Hants Advertiser 7 Aug. 4/5: ‘You see, Massa Buccra, mass gib Quashie ten-penny-bit’.
1848		Bartlett Dict. Americanisms.
1855		W.G. Simms Forayers 107: You see, he’s a gentleman what don’t blieb berry much in de rights ob poor buckrah.
1862		Capt. Clutterbuck’s Champagne 51: Who you call ugly? My king! de hansummest young sojer buckra in de harmy – he, he ugly!! chaw!
1872		Schele De Vere Americanisms 151: Buckcra, which, on the African coast, is universally applied to white men, meaning originally ‘a spirit, a powerful being,’ and is used in that application throughout the Southern States.
1880		in F. Ober Ornithological Eye in Hulme & Whitehead (1992) 247: One time, six Carib kill um white gen’lemn, but dey not see he serbant hide in de bush. When serbant get ’way he tell soldier, ‘Carib kill one buckra, my massa’.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 2: Buckra - A white man originally a ‘flogging man,’ and the application of it to the whites by the negroes is therefore interesting. They probably first learned it from a missionary.
1887		C. Chesnutt ‘Goophered Grapevine’ in Conjure Woman (1899) 14: Den dey wuz a settlement er free niggers en po’ buckrahs down by de Wim’l’ton Road.
1902		J. Speirs Proverbs of British Guiana 11: Baccra no boy, niggah no fool. Baccra no talk, niggah no sabby.
1909		G.H. McLellan Phases of Barbados Life 123: He kept chanting with every movement of the bow, ‘Good enough music for poor backra’.
1910		Anderson & Cundall in Jamaica Proverbs and Sayings vi: Hi! wha dis Bockra get all dem old time saying!
1912		C. McKay in Constab Ballads n.p.: [song title] Quashie to Buccra.
1913		H. De Lisser Jane’s Career (1971) 138: Y’u better off than poor buckra.
1916		J.G. Cruickshank Black Talk 4: He wanted to talk after the Bakra. He was in Bakra country now. [Ibid.] 6: Ba-kara came to the West Indies very early. In an old book on Barbadoos – ‘Great Newes from the Barbadoes’ (1676) – a Negro is reported as saying he would have no hand in killing ‘the Baccararoes or White Folks’.
1922		(con. late 19C) A. Gonzales Black Border 20: Wunnuh haffuh wu’k ’cause wunnuh blan blonx to po’ buckruh.
1925		Du Bose Heyward Porgy (1945) 41: ‘De buckra sho gots nigger figgered out tuh a cent!’ said Peter philosophically.
1927		Nat. Geog. Mag. Jan. 26/2: When blackman tief, him tief half a bit; When bockra tief, him tief whole plantation.
1931		Shelby & Stoney Po’ Buckra 15: Roun’ here dey is four kinds o’ people. Two kind o’ white folks; quality-buckra, and po’ buckra – da’s crackers; all kind o’ colored folks – dem is all niggers.
1947		S. Lewis Kingsblood Royal (2001) 31: I keep telling these colored agitators [...] that they do more harm to my race than any mean buckra.
1956		N. Algren Walk on the Wild Side 7: Whites called them ‘white trash’ and Negroes ‘po’ buckra’.
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS.
1972		D. Dalby ‘The African Element in Amer. Eng.’ in Kochman Rappin’ and Stylin’ Out 178: buckra – ‘white man’.
1980		J.L. Gwaltney Drylongso 221: Now, bless Gawd! a lotta blackfolks try to do every fool thing they see these buckras do!
1996		Eble Sl. and Sociability 80: Etymologically, only 6 of the 435 have definite or plausible origins in African languages: buckra ‘white man’.
2021		T. Pluck Boy from County Hell 72: ‘All I get in here are [...] buckra who done fucked up so bad their own won’t give ’em bond’.

2. (also bochro, bockro, buckera, bukkra) a master, a boss.

c.1790		‘Creoles of Jamaica’ in Holloway & Black II (1979) 172: The Negro Wench cries, / Massa Buckra will you buy any fish with one eye.
1793		W. Macready Irishman in London I ii: Bockro read great big book, tell him how he can be good [...] Poor black no understand read.
1809		A.B. Lindsley Yankee Notions 12: Me no like dis white country, no like the buckrah.
1812		Montgomery; or, The West Indian Adventurer II 91: ‘Him no mind that, sometime,’ said Quaco; ‘him cann’t fum buckera, but he will fum me, if we tand too long in a pass.’.
1822		S.A. Mathews ‘Dialogue between Uncoo Cudjoe & Buddy Quow’ in Willshire Squeeze 80: Dis yaw time no tan lek biffo – bockra wok muse bruck ee haut.
1828		Marly; Planter’s Life in Jamaica 47: The house-boy was dispatched to the negro houses to tell Sammy, and [...] Cudjoe, and Scipio, to come to the Buckra house.
1833		T. Foulks Eighteen Months in Jamaica 88: Some negroes at the commencement of the insurrection went to a Maroon station, and asked if on the event of ‘nigger fighting Buckra, Maroon would take dem part?’.
1840		T. Haliburton Letter-bag of the Great Western (1873) 14: De captain he man-o’-war buckra, and dey is all cussed stiff, and most too big men for dere breeches.
1853		W.G. Simms Sword and the Distaff 511: You only guine to wussen yourse’f, buckrah,—ef you is a buckrah.
1858		Trinidad Sentinel 8 Apr. n.p.: Lek backra da tek fou he da Ice House wid Soda.
1860		T. Haliburton Season Ticket 250: Now, Pompey, dere is one natur ob nigger, and one natur of Massa Buckra.
1873		C. Rampini Letters from Jamaica 43: By am bye buckra (gentleman’s) dog catch billy-goat by him ear.
1888		Soldiers’ Stories and Sailors’ Yarns 340: My, how him hansom, dat buccrah!
1890		‘Cad McBallastir’ Society as I Have Foundered It 43: Interjuce me to yo’ big bukkra Nobs!
1909		‘Tom Redcam’ One Brown Gal 29/2: I know how de Gubbernor, say to him [...] ‘Jam and blarst yuh, sah; blarst and jam your eyes’ [...] for a so dem biggest Backra is habituate to swear.
1925		Du Bose Heyward Porgy (1945) 52: Ain’t yuh hear de Boss laugh? When nigger mek de buckra laugh, den he know he done won.
1935		Z.N. Hurston Mules and Men (1995) 76: We better hurry on to work befo’ de buckra get in behind us.
1950		U. Marson ‘Stone Breakers’ in Bennett et al. Anancy Stories and Dialect Verse 98: De big backra car dem / A lick up de dus’ in a we face.
1966		(con. 1940s) L. Bennett ‘Tan a Yuh Yard’ in Jamaica Labrish 94: Ef backra even pos’ ticket / Come gi yuh, bwoy refuse it!
1973		A. Salkey ‘Caribbean Petchary’ Jamaica (1983) 92: Through Quashie’s Grievances, / Baptist’s Pleadings, / Bogle’s squashing Backra’s Rulings.
1981		N. Farki Countryman Karl Black 65: Profit-making reserve for the white ‘backra’.

3. (US black) one who, while black, moves in white society and sees themselves as the white man’s equal.

1926

Van Vechten Nigger Heaven 208: Are you white or coloured tonight? Buckra, of course.