Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a North American Indian.

1848		G.F. Ruxton Life in the Far West (1849) 10: Hyars brown-skin acomin’. [Ibid.] 19: Yep, old gal! and keep your nose open; thar’s brown skin about, I’m thinking, and maybe you’ll get roped.
1863		T. Winthrop Canoe and Saddle 247: So, then, big Brownskin on a fiery black mustang, inferior chief with shirt and leggins of buckskin reddened with clay.
1883		G.M. Fern Commodore Junk 188: ‘Look here old brownskin. Light? sun?’ ‘Light — sun’ cried the Indian.

2. (US black) a dark-skinned black person.

1892		in J.F. Dobie Rainbow in Morning (1965) 168: When you see me leaving [...] brownskins, Hang down yo’ heads and cry.
1906		‘Alabama Boun’’ in J.F. Dobie Rainbow in Morning (1965) 177: Ef they meddle with that brown-skin o’, mine, I’ll come a-sneakin’ back.
1918		‘Minnie May’ in J.J. Niles Singing Soldiers (1927) 34: Now dis brown skin’s name wuz Minnie May.
1926		Van Vechten Nigger Heaven 267: You’re not going back to that cheap brown-skin again, are you?
1937		C. Himes ‘The Night’s for Crying‘ in Coll. Stories (1990) 132: A passing brownskin answered to the call of ‘Babe’.
1949		L. Hughes Tambourines to Glory Prologue: I am not the me you see here – tall, handsome, brownskin.
1965		(con. 1940s) Malcolm X Autobiog. (1968) 143: Black girls, brownskins, high yellows, even a couple of the white girls there.
1983		I.L. Allen Lang. of Ethnic Conflict 46: Color Allusions, Other than ‘Black’ and ‘Negro’: brownskin; brownskin-baby [fem.].
2001		(con. 1981) A. Wheatle East of Acre Lane 81: She’s brown-skin an’ got Jamaican parents.