Nigger in the woodpile

"Nigger in the woodpile" or "nigger in the fence" is a figure of speech originating in the United States meaning "some fact of considerable importance that is not disclosed—something suspicious or wrong".

Commonly used in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, its usage has since drastically declined, owing to its use of the ethnic slur nigger, and use of the phrase by public figures has often been criticized because of the usage of the slur in the term.

Origin

The phrase means an unknown factor, something that causes things to turn out differently than would normally be assumed. Woodpiles used to be stacked loosely with spaces, to avoid rot (see illustration) and were presented by racists as natural hiding places for Black people, where they could either nap (fitting the stereotype of the lazy Black man) or spy on their White neighbors.

Another theory notes that the "fence" and "woodpile" variants developed about the same time in the period of 1840–1850, when the Underground Railroad was flourishing. The evidence is slight, but the theory presumes that they were derived from actual instances of the concealment of fugitive slaves in their flight north under piles of firewood or within hiding places in stone walls.

Another possible origin comes from the practice of transporting pulpwood on special railroad cars. In the era of slavery, the pulpwood cars were built with an outer frame with the wood being stacked inside in moderately neat rows and stacks. However, given the nature of the cars, it was possible to smuggle persons in the pile itself, possibly giving rise to the term.

An 1886 article in the San Antonio Light attributed origin of the "fence" variant to an 1840s horse race in Mississippi, during which a person was hidden in a fence next to the racetrack in order to scare a favorited horse during the race.