What does mamsey mean?

Answer 1

In Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck is trying to convince Jim that the Duke and Dauphin are not as bad as a king, "Henry," he knows about. In Huck's history lesson his King Henry wants to cause some trouble in a country and surprises them with the Boston Tea Party and The Declaration of Independence. He challenges Jim with a rhetorical question that asks if Henry warns them ahead of time of this attack. " What did he do? Ask him to show up?" Huck/Twain offers an an expression, I believe, to the rhetorical questions, "No-- drownded him in a butt of mamsey, like a cat." (which could mean, the answer is as clear as killing a cat if a large woman sits on it). Some of my research has indicated that mamsey could be a reference to a slave nursemaid....Interestingly enough Jean Ingelow, a nineteenth century English poet and writer, wrote a novel Sarah De Berenger in 1879. It appears in a compilation called, In Littell's Living Age. On page 406 she wrote, " American children with a black nurse...They called her Mamsey...." This was also at the time Twain was writing Huckleberry Finn...Maybe Twain read Ingelow's work and was reminded of the expression... Isn't the internet great? Yes-- drownded him in a butt of mamsey, like a cat.

Answer 2

George Plantagenet (1449-1478), Duke of Clarence, was executed, allegedly (according to Wm. Shakespeare) by drowning in a butt (vat) of malmsey (a variety of Madeira) wine. The entire paragraph from which "butt of mamsey" is taken amounts to an hilariously historically confused soliloquy by Huck.