zip coon, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

zip coon n.

also zip

[song ‘Ole Zip Coon’; ult. coon n. (4); defined here as in Major, Juba to Jive: A Dict. of Afro-American Slang (1994), but note Tosches, Where Dead Voices Gather (2001): ‘The figure of the black dandy, the Northern zip coon’]

(US black) a subservient black person.

1834		Zip Coon A Favorite Comic Song n.p.: Old Zip Coon is a very larned scholar / He plays on the Banjo Cooney in de hollar.
1839		‘Uncle Sam’s Peculiarities’ in Bentley’s Misc. 269: Long-tailed blue, Caliban, and ZipCoon, (three niggers,) near the engine hatchway.
1848		Glasgow Herald 11 Dec. 1/1: These are composed of airs popularly called ‘Negro Melodies’; [...] ‘Zip Coon’.
1855		T. Haliburton Nature and Human Nature I 379: ‘Well done, Uncle Tom,’ sais they. ‘Well done Zip Coon.’.
1872		Schele De Vere Americanisms 153: [The song] Jim Crow [...] was quickly followed by several other songs of the same kind, such as Zip Coon, Longtailed Blue, Ole Virginny nebber tire, Settin’ on a Rail, etc.
1882		G.A. Sala in Living London (1883) Jan. 33: His name is enshrined in one of the very earliest of the so-called ‘nigger’ ditties – a song called Zip Coon, which is nearly contemporary with Jim Crow.
1929		T. Gordon Born to Be (1975) 76: Then all my nicknames came to me – Snowball, Zip and Blacky.
1990		S. Crouch Notes of a Hanging Judge cited in Major (1994).