backra, adj. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

backra adj.

also buckra(h)

1. (also baccra, bakra, bockra, buccra) racially, white, pertaining to a white person.

1775		implied in backra-man
a.1790		C. Dibdin ‘Negro and his Banjer’ in Collection of Songs II 88: One Negro, wi my banjer, / Me from Jenny come, / Wid cunning yiei / Me savez spy / De buckra world one hum. [Ibid.] 89: And so though Negro black for true, / He black in buckra country too.
1816		M. Lewis Journal of a West India Proprietor (1845) 20 Jan. 63: Peter was a black boy; / Peter, him pull foot one day: / Buckra girl, him Peter’s joy; / Lilly white girl entice him away [...] Well, boy, for this once I forgive you! – but mind! / With the buckra girls you no more go away!
1828		Marly; Planter’s Life in Jamaica 91: They knew they would be attended to when sick, and that they would have the benefit of a buckra doctor and buckra medicines.
1833		M. Scott Tom Cringle’s Log (1862) 49: Toby!—buccra gentlemen arrive.
1834		Mrs. Carmichael Domestic manners and social condition of . . . the West Indies I 311: Which country you like best? Buckra country very good, plenty for yam (food), plenty for bamboo (clothing). Buckra man book larn.
1873		W.S. Gilbert ‘King of Canoodle-Dum’ More Bab Ballads 91: That monarch addressed him gaily, / ‘Hum! Golly de do to-day? / Hum! Lily-white Buckra Sailee’.
1916		J.G. Cruickshank Black Talk 4: He wanted to talk after the Bakra. He was in Bakra country now.
1929		M. Beckwith Jamaica Proverbs (1970) 29: Cow say, ‘Bockra work never done’.
1939		A. Durie One Jamaica Gal 10: To be sure Icilda knew nothing of ‘baccra’ cooking.
1959		A. Salkey Quality of Violence (1978) 193: You trying out backra-Englishman tricks on we.
1964		A. Bennett God the Stonebreaker 139: You must treat me just the same as if you was working for ‘backra people’.
1983		T. White Catch a Fire 57: She had been seduced by that old ‘bockra’ (white-skinned) ‘busha’ (overseer).

2. white as a colour, e.g. backra yam, a white yam.

1872		Schele De Vere Americanisms 151: Its meaning is occasionally transferred to white objects, and negroes thus speak of buckra yam, with the understanding, however, that it is not only white, but peculiarly good also.
1927		E.C.L. Adams Congaree Sketches 3: Dem white angels come up dere an’ suade him to go back wey de Lord and his Son was an’ ’fore det git dere dem buckra angel done plan atonement.

In compounds

backra fire (n.)

(W.I.) electricity.

1996

Allsopp Dict. Carib. Eng. Usage.

backra johnny (n.) [johnny n.¹ (2a) = generic for man] (W.I.)

1. (also backra johnnie, buckra johnny) a poor white.

1909		G.H. McLellan Phases of Barbados Life 13: A poor white creole [...] could hardly stalk abroad in Georgetown but cruel cries greeted his appearance in the open of ‘Backra Johnnie bite a pepper; swear to Gawd he bite a nigger’.
1926		E. Walrond Tropic Death (1972) 20: The driver, a buckra johnny – English white – sat on the waste box.

2. a light-skinned black person.

1970

F. Collymore Notes for Gloss. of Barbadian Dial. 13: The form backra is used locally, and then usually contemptuously, poor backra, backra johnny.

backra-man (n.) (also buccara man, buchra-man, buckrah man)

(W.I.) a white man; by ext. a master, a boss.

1775		J. Shaw Journal Lady of Quality 108: Every Negro infant can tell you that he owes this happiness to the good Buccara God, that he be no hard Master, but loves a good black man as well as a Buccara man [DA].
1793		W. Macready Irishman in London II i: Me name Cubba, me only so many year old (holding up her fingers) when cross Bochro man catch me—me going walk one day, did take me from all my friend.
1799		‘Buddy Quow’ in Lalla & D’Costa Lang. in Exile (1990) 110: Dat Backrow Man go wrong you, Buddy Quow.
1800		W.H. Murray Obi; or, Three-Fingered Jack I i: Right, Quashee; and there’s a buckra man coming.
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant n.p.: buchra-man black man, an African [sic].
1834		Mrs Carmichael Domestic manners and social condition of . . . the West Indies I 311: Which country you like best? Buckra country very good, plenty for yam (food), plenty for bamboo (clothing). Buckra man book larn. Buckra man rise early—he like a cold morning; nigger no like cold.
1862		Capt. Clutterbuck’s Champagne 151: De buckrah man pretend for do it, and he no do it.
2003		N. Hopkinson Salt Roads 3: She’d best watch herself. Slightest thing she did that mispleased the backra man, he’d pack her off.

backra nigger (n.) [nigger n.¹ (1)]

(W.I.) a light-skinned person and, as such, one who is despised.

1996

Allsopp Dict. Carib. Eng. Usage.

backra pickney (n.) [W.I. pron. of piccaninny n.] (W.I.)

1. (also buckra pickney) a white child.

1894

T. Banbury Jamaica Superstitions 12: He then laughed and said, ‘Buckra pickney dem too trick’.

2. a light-skinned mixed-race child.

1981

N. Farki Countryman Karl Black 20: It is only them who have the big brains [...] and the backra pickney that don’t have it hard.

buckra-lady (n.) (also buccra lady)

a white woman.

1827		Hamel, Obeah Man II 314: They are innocent: they would have saved this buckra lady.
1833		M. Scott Tom Cringle’s Log (1862) 243: Brown girl for cook – for wife – for nurse, / Buccra lady – poo – no wort a curse.
1927		H. Thomas West Indian Policeman 26: A totally different sort from the ‘buckra ladies’ to whom they were accustomed. [...] Those used invariably to speak of their uninvited guests as ‘de poor buckra’.