Black Skin in Early English Literature

Ieremiah, in The Bible and Holy Scriptures, i.e. the Geneva Bible, trans. William Whittingham, Anthony Gilby, Thomas Sampson (Geneva, 1560):

Can the blacke More change his skin? or the leopard his spottes? (then) maieye also do good, that are accustomed to do euil. (13.23)

Thomas Elyot, Bibliotheca Eliotae (London: Thomae Bertheleti, 1542):

Aethiopem lauas, thou washest a Moren, or Moore, A prouerbe applied to hym that praiseth a thyng that is nought, or teacheth a naturall foole wysedom. This prouerb grew of one that bought a Mooren, and thynkynge that the blackenesse of his saynne happened by the neglygence of his fyrste mayster, he ceassed not to wasshe the Mooren contynually with suche thinges, as he thought wold make hym whyte, by the whiche labour and washynge he so vexed the poore slaue, that he brought him into a great sycknes, his skynne remainynge styll as blacke as it was before.

Misogonus (Kettheringe: Laurentius Bariwna, 1577): 

  [Cac.]  I am, by my country and birth, a true Egyptian;
I have seen the black Moors and the men of Cyne.
My father was also a natural Ethiopian.
I must needs be very cunning, I have it by kind. (3.3) 

Duarte Lopes, A Report of the Kingdome of Congo (London: John Wolfe, 1597):

The inhabitantes of this coast, which dwell betweene these two points, are of colour blacke, although the Pole Antarctike in that place be in the eleuation of thirtie and fiue degrees, which is a very strange thing: yea the rude people that liue among the most colde mountains of the Moone  are blacke also. This I write of purpose, to aduise and moue the Philosophers  and such as search the effectes of nature, that they would fall into their deepe contemplation and speculation, & therevpon teach vs, whether this blacke colour be occasioned by the Sunne, or by any other secrete and vnknowne cause: Which question I for this time doe meane to leaue vndecided. (188)

Richard Barckley, The Felicitie of Man (London: R. Young, 1631):

Black is no deformitie among the Moores. (28)