Cracker, n, a poor "white" person in the American South, said by some dictionaries to be short for "corn-cracker."
Cracaire,n, a boaster, a jester, a talker. (Dineen, 255; Dwelly, 216, 217, 259.)
The Scots, Scots-Irish, and Irish of the rural south took pride in the name cracker (cracaire, a boaster, a jester), which soon became applied to any poor rural "white" person from the southern states. Many slang dictionaries derive the term cracker from the use of whips with a piece of buckskin at the end for cracking. It is interesting to note that the Gaelic cracaire means "a cracker of a whip," as well as a "jester" and "talker." (Chapman, American Slang, 1986, 85; Dwelly, 216, 259.)
"I should explain to your Lordship what is meant by crackers; a name they have got from being great boasters; they are a lawless set of rascalls on the frontiers of Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas and Georgia, who often change places of abode." (G. Cochrane, Letter, June 27, 1766.)
"A number of people called Crackers, who live above Augusta, in the province of Georgia, had gone in a hostile manner to...Okonee." (New York Mercury, Sept. 21 1767, cited in Mag. Amer. Hist. [1878];OED.)
from How the Irish Invented Slang: The Secret Language of the Crossroads by Daniel Cassidy
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