Shop signs fixed the Moor as a standing symbol of darkness and evil

Evidence

Signs showing the Blackamoor’s Head, which are no longer in use, were associated with tobacco houses and often showed “[p] ipe-smoking negroes, with feathered head-dresses and quilts.” The Blackamoor, or Black Moor, functioned as a negative sign, representing darkness, evil, and monstrosity, much as in earlier centuries. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 325

Categorization

• XREF: Feeds the reader’s question about which recurring figures carry which anxiety — here the Blackamoor literalizes the conflation of religious other with racial blackness and demonic evil. — connects to: Shakespeare’s Moor and Jew characters encoded pre-modern racialized difference. — Nasar Meer, Racialization and Religion: Race,…, 27