Mulatto

Mulatto

Fucking idiot Barack Obama • Halle Berry
Total population
Official population numbers are unknown.
Regions with significant populations
Latin America, United States, South Africa
Languages
Portuguese, Spanish, English, French, and Afrikaans
Religion
Christianity (Predominantly Roman Catholic; large Protestant minority); other religions
Related ethnic groups
Europeans (mostly Portuguese, Spanish, English, French, and Dutch) and African people

A mulatto is a person with one white parent and one black parent, or, more generally, a person of mixed black and white ancestry. It derives from Spanish (and likely from Portuguese, also) mulato (small mule, person of mixed race, mulatto; from mulo, mule; from Old Spanish; from Latin mūlus), by analogy with the mule, which is the hybrid offspring of a horse and a donkey.

United States

"Mulatto" was an official census category until 1930. In the south of the country, mulattos inherited slave status if their mothers were slaves. As for free mulattos, in Spanish and French-influenced areas of the South prior to the Civil War (particularly New Orleans, Louisiana), a number of mulattos were free and slave-owning. Although it is commonly used to describe individuals of mixed European and African descent, it originally referred to anyone with mixed ethnicities; in fact, in the United States, "mulatto" was also used as a term for those of mixed white and Native American ancestry during the early census years. Mulatto was also used interchangeably with terms like "turk", leading to further ambiguity when referring to many North Africans and Middle Easterners.

Latin America and the Caribbean

Mulattos represent a significant portion of various countries' populations in Latin America: Dominican Republic (73%), Cuba (51%), Brazil (38.5%), Puerto Rico (up to 11%), Belize (25%), Colombia (14%), Haiti (up to 5%).

The roughly 200,000 Africans brought to Mexico were for the most part absorbed by the mestizo populations of mixed European and Amerindian descent. The state of Guerrero once had a large population of African slaves. Other Mexican states inhabited by people with some African ancestry, along with other ancestries, include Oaxaca, Veracruz, and Yucatán.

In one recent genetic study of 800 Puerto Ricans, 61% had mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from an Amerindian female ancestor, 27% inherited mitochondrial DNA from a female African ancestor and 12% had mitochondrial DNA from a female European ancestor. Conversely, patrilineal input as indicated by the Y chromosome showed that 70% of Puerto Rican males in the sample have Y chromosome DNA from a male European ancestor, 20% inherited Y chromosome DNA from a male African ancestor and less than 10% inherited Y chromosome DNA from male Amerindian ancestor. As these tests measure only the DNA along the matrilineal and patrilineal lines of inheritance, they cannot tell with certainty what percentage of Puerto Ricans have recent African ancestry.

Brazil

According to the IBGE 2000 census, 38.4% of Brazilians identified themselves as pardo, i.e. of mixed ancestry. This figure not only includes mulatto people but also includes other multiracial people such as people who have European and Amerindian ancestry (called caboclos). According to the IBGE census 2005 even 43.2% of the Brazilians have identified themselves as pardo.

The term mulatto (mulato in Portuguese) is not commonly used anymore in Brazilian society. Instead, other terms widely used are moreno, light-moreno and dark-moreno. These terms are not considered offensive, and focus more on the skin color than on the ethnicity (it is close to other human characteristics like tall and short). Those terms are also used for other multiracial people in Brazil, and they are the popular terms for the pardo skin color used on the 2000 official census.

May 13th is Mulatto Day in Brazil. The date is a reference to all that participated in the struggles for abolition of slavery in the country, as José do Patrocínio, Luis Gama and André Rebouças and recalls the signing of Lei Áurea, on May 13, 1888, which abolished slavery in Brazil.

Haiti

In Haiti (formerly Saint-Domingue), mulattos represented a smaller proportion of the population than in many other Latin American countries. Today they constitute about 5% of the population. In the 18th century, they made up a class of their own, the gens de couleur. Often they were highly educated and wealthy. Many Haitian mulattos were also slaveholders and as such actively participated in the suppression of the black majority. However, some also actively fought for the abolition of slavery. Distinguished mulattos such as Nicolas Suard and others were prime examples of mulattoes who devoted their time, energy and financial means to this cause. Some were also members of the Les Amis des Noirs in Paris, an association that fought for the abolition of slavery. Nevertheless, many mulattos were slaughtered by Black Haitians during the wars of independence in order to secure Black political power over the island. Earlier some Black volunteers had already aligned themselves with the French against the mulattos during the first and second mulatto rebellion. In Haiti, mulattos initially possessed legal equality with the white French population. This provided them with many benefits, including inheritance. In the 18th century, however, Europeans fearful of slave revolts had restricted their rights, but they were successfully reclaimed in 1791.

Africa

In Portuguese-speaking Africa, the term mestiço is used to describe people of mixed European and African ancestry.

Of São Tomé and Príncipe's 193,413 inhabitants, the largest segment is defined as mestiço, and 71% of the population of Cape Verde is also classified as such. The great majority of their current populations descend from the mixing of the Portuguese that initially settled the islands from the 15th century onwards and the black Africans brought from the African mainland to work as slaves.

In Angola and Mozambique, they constitute smaller but still important minorities; 2% in Angola and 0.2% in Mozambique.

In South Africa, Namibia, Zambia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, the term Coloured (also known as Bruinmense, Kleurlinge or Bruin Afrikaners in Afrikaans) refers to individuals who possess some degree of sub-Saharan ancestry, but not enough to be considered Black under South African law. In addition to European ancestry, they may also possess ancestry from Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Maldives, Nepal, and St. Helena. Besides the extensive combining of these diverse heritages in the Western Cape, in other parts of southern Africa, their development has usually been the result of the meeting of two distinct groups. Thus, in KwaZulu-Natal, most coloureds come from British and Zulu heritage, while Zimbabwean coloureds come from Shona or Ndebele mixing with British and Afrikaner settlers. Griqua, on the other hand, are descendants of Khoisan and Afrikaner trekboers. Despite these major differences, the fact that they draw parentage from more than one "naturalised" racial group means that they are "coloured" in the southern African context. This is not to say that they necessarily identify themselves as such – with some preferring to call themselves "black" or "Khoisan" or just "South African."

Etymology

The term is thought to be derived from the Portuguese and Spanish word mulato (a small mule), which itself is derived from mulo or mula (mule). It was once a generic designation name for any hybrid. This is believed to be the reason it is considered offensive by some English-speakers, although it is not so considered by Portuguese-speakers, Spanish-speakers or French-speakers (with the translation mulâtre).

Another etymology which can be found in some dictionaries and scholarly works attempts to correlate the word's origins to the Arabic term muwallad, which means "a person of mixed ancestry". Muwallad literally means, "born, begotten, produced, generated; brought up, raised; born and raised among Arabs (but not of pure Arab blood). Muwallad is derived from the root word WaLaD (Arabic: ولد direct Arabic transliteration: waw, lam, dal). Walad means, "descendant, offspring, scion; child; son; boy; young animal, young one." Muwallad referred to the offspring of Arab men and foreign, non-Arab women. The term muwalladin is used in Arabic up to this day to describe the children between Arab fathers and foreign mothers. According to Julio Izquierdo Labrado as well as Leopoldo Eguilaz y Yanguas as well as some Arabian sources, muwallad is the etymological origin of mulato. In this context mulato would have been derived directly from muwallad rather than through muladí, a term which was applied to Spanish Christians who had converted to Islam during the Arab domination of Spain. Rather, the two words may share a common etymological muwallad base.

The Muwallad theory encounters certain problems when compared to a timeline of usage and definition. The term mulato is documented in the data bank of the Real Academia Española (Spanish Royal Academy) for the first time in 1472. It states "The term mulata is documented in our diachronic data bank in 1472 and is used in reference to livestock mules in "Documentacion medieval de la Corte del Justicia de Ganaderos de Zaragoza", whereas muladí (from mullawadí) does not appear until the XVIII century, according to Corominas". Another problem with the Muwallad theory of origin is that Muwallad is not phonetically similar to Mulato. The theory of Muladí was based on some similarity with Mulato. Even there, Muladí has a stress on the last vocal, while Mulato doesn't.

See also

• Quadroon
• Octoroon
• Quintroon
• Hexadecaroon
• Multiracial

Footnotes

1. In the Dominican Republic, the mulatto population has also absorbed the Taíno Amerindians once present in that country.
2. Based on a 1960 census that included colour categories such as white, Black, yellow, and mulatto. Since then, any racial components have been dropped from the Dominican census.

Sources

• Leopoldo Eguilaz y Yanguas (1886): Glosario de las palabras españolas (castellanas, catalanas, gallegas, mallorquinas, portugueses, valencianas y bascongadas), de orígen oriental (árabe, hebreo, malayo, persa y Turco). Granada, La Lealtad, 1886.
• Yemen Reviews Hadhrami Traders, Scholars and Statesmen in the Indian Ocean, 1750s-1960s. Social, Economic and Political Studies of the Middle East and Asia, vol. 57. Leiden: Brill, 1997. x, 392 pp. ISBN 90-04 10771 1 LC# JV8750.5.H33 1997 Engseng Ho, an anthropologist, discusses the role of the muwallad in the region. The term muwallad, used primarily in reference to those of 'mixed blood,' is analyzed through ethnographic and textual information.
• The British-Yemeni Society, Hadhrami migration in the 19th and 20th centuries
• Yemen Articles Interview: Hamid Al-Gadri

External links

• An article on the mulatto depictions in fiction
• At Race Relations, in depth research on Mulattos
• Encarta's breakdown of Mulatto people