Ten Little Indians

In 1868, songwriter Septimus Winner adapted it as a song, then called "Ten Little Injuns",[1] for a minstrel show.

[2] Songwriter Septimus Winner created an elaborated version of the children's song, called "Ten Little Injuns", in 1868 for a minstrel show.

The Spanish and Russian titles of Christie's novel today are still Diez negritos and «Десять негритят», respectively,[5] and the German children's song, with a different melody, is called "Zehn kleine Negerlein".

[7] For example, it had been published in the Netherlands by 1913; in Denmark by 1922 (in Börnenes billedbog); in Iceland in 1922 (as "Negrastrákarnir"); and in Finland in the 1940s (in Kotoa ja kaukaa: valikoima runosatuja lapsille and Hupaisa laskukirja).

Because of changing sensibilities over the words used, modern versions for children often use "aeroplanes", "soldier boys" or "teddy bears" as the objects of the rhyme, among others.

[9] Icelandic publisher Skrudda's unaltered republication in 2007 of the 1922 Icelandic version of Ten Little Negroes caused considerable debate in that country, with a strong division between those who saw the book as racist and those who saw it as "a part of funny and silly stories created in the past".

As such, these public discourses seek to separate Icelandic identity from past issues of racism and prejudice.

Contextualising the publication of the nursery rhyme in 1922 within European and North American contexts shows, however, that the book fitted very well with European discourses of race, and the images show similarity to caricatures of black people in the United States.