"Never meant to be derogatory"? Really? then what was it meant to be?
Merely descriptive? then why are none of the white people characterized by
their race?  To be sure even black characters like Roxy refers to other
blacks by the term, but note that it's usually if not always a derogatory
reference such as when she rebuffs Jasper's flirting or puts Tom in his
place by noting that his cowardice is the product of his "nigger blood."  In
these statements, she shows that she has absorbed the hierarchical
assumptions that had long been conveyed by the practice of racially
identifying blacks as those in white culture do.

And by the way, the name "Nigger Jim" was broadcast rather influentially by
Hemingway in his well-intended but egregious misreading of AHF.  I suspect
that the frequency of references to Jim with the racial designation included
spiked after Hemingway formalized the practice in _The Green Hills of
Africa_ (p. 22).

--Larry Howe