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Mulatto ( , ) is a racial classification that refers to people of mixed African and European ancestry only. When speaking or writing about a singular woman in English, the word is mulatta (). The use of this term began in the United States shortly after the Atlantic slave trade began and its use was widespread, derogatory and disrespectful. After the post Civil Rights Era, the term is now considered to be both outdated and offensive in the United States. In other Anglophone countries (the English-speaking world) such as English and Dutch-speaking West Indian countries, the word mulatto is still used. “Is 'mulat' taboo?”. trouw.nlQuote: In English and among many African Americans, the term "mulatto" carries offensive connotations. In Spanish and Portuguese, however, and among U.S. Latinos/as and Latin Americans, the term mulato/a (so spelled) not only does not carry an offensive connotation but has become a sign of pride and identity. (in "Grace and Humanness: Theological Reflections Because of Culture'' by Orlando O. Esp, Orbis Books, 2007)
Countries with the highest percentages of persons who have equally high European and African ancestry — Mulatto — are the Dominican Republic (74%) and Cape Verde (71%). Mulattos in many Latin American countries, aside from predominately European and African ancestry, usually also have slight indigenous admixture. Race-mixing has been prevalent in Latin America for centuries, since the start of the European colonization of the Americas in many cases. Many Latin American multiracial families (including mulatto) have been mixed for several generations. In the 21st century, multiracials now frequently have unions and marriages with other multiracials. Other countries and territories with notable mulatto populations in percentage or total number include Cuba, Latin American Country Profiles latinostories.com Puerto Rico,
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Genographic Project DNA Results Reveal Details of Puerto Rican History nationalgeographic.org 25 July 2014 Venezuela, Nacional ine.gob.ve Panama, Colombia, South Africa,
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Stats and the United States.
Jack D. Forbes suggests it originated in the Arabic term muwallad, which means 'a person of mixed ancestry'. Muwallad literally means 'born, begotten, produced, generated; brought up', with the implication of being born of Arab and non-Arab parents. Muwallad is derived from the Semitic root WaLaD (Arabic: ولد, direct Arabic transliteration: waw , lam , dal) and colloquial Arabic pronunciation can vary greatly. Walad means 'descendant, offspring, scion; child; son; boy; young animal, young one'.
In al-Andalus, muwallad referred to the offspring from parents of Arab Muslim origin and non-Arab Muslim people who adopted the Islamic religion and manners. Specifically, the term was historically applied to the descendants of Arab or Berber Muslims and indigenous Christian Iberians who, after several generations of living among a Muslim majority, adopted their culture and religion.
In English, printed usage of mulatto dates to at least the 16th century. The 1595 work Drake's Voyages first used the term in the context of intimate unions producing biracial children. The Oxford English Dictionary defined mulatto as "one who is the offspring of a European and a Black". This earliest usage regarded "black" and "white" as discrete "species", with the "mulatto" constituting a third separate "species".
According to Julio Izquierdo Labrado, the 19th-century linguist Leopoldo Eguilaz y Yanguas, as well as some Arabic sources muwallad is the etymological origin of mulato . These sources specify that mulato would have been derived directly from muwallad independently of the related word muladí, a term that was applied to Mozarab who had converted to Islam during the Moors Al-Andalus in the Middle Ages.
The Real Academia Española (Spanish Royal Academy) casts doubt on the muwallad theory. 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 de Justicia de Ganaderos de Zaragoza , whereas muladí (from mullawadí) does not appear until the 18th century, according to [Joan Corominas]]".
Scholars such as Werner Sollors cast doubt on the mule etymology for mulatto. In the 18th and 19th centuries, racialists such as Edward Long and Josiah Nott began to assert that mulattoes were sterile like mules. They projected this belief back onto the etymology of the word mulatto. Sollors points out that this etymology is anachronistic: "The Mulatto sterility hypothesis that has much to do with the rejection of the term by some writers is only half as old as the word 'Mulatto'."Werner Sollors, Neither Black Nor White Yet Both, Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 129.
The use of this word does not have the same negative associations found among English speakers. Among Latinos in both the US and Latin America, the word is used in every day speech and its meaning is a source of racial and ethnic pride. In four of the Latin-based languages, the default, masculine word ends with the letter "o" and is written as follows: Spanish and Portuguese – mulato; Italian – mulatto. The French equivalent is mulâtre. In English, the masculine plural is written as mulattoes while in Spanish and Portuguese it is mulatos. The masculine plural in Italian is mulatti and in French it is mulâtres. The feminine plurals are: English – mulattas; Spanish and Portuguese – mulatas; Italian – mulatte; French – mulâtresses.
In Angola and Mozambique, the mestiço constitute smaller but still important minorities; 2% in Angola and 0.2% in Mozambique.
Mulatto and mestiço are not terms commonly used in South Africa to refer to people of mixed ancestry. The persistence of some authors in using this term, anachronistically, reflects the old-school essentialist views of race as a de facto biological phenomenon, and the 'mixing' of race as legitimate grounds for the creation of a 'new race'. This disregards cultural, linguistic and ethnic diversity and/or differences between regions and globally among populations of mixed ancestry.
In Namibia, an ethnic group known as Baster, descend from historic liaisons between the Cape Colony Dutch and indigenous African women. The name Baster is derived from the Dutch word for 'bastard' (or 'crossbreed'). While some people consider this term demeaning, the Basters proudly use the term as an indication of their history. In the early 21st century, they number between 20,000 and 30,000 people. There are, of course, other people of mixed race in the country.
The intermixing of different races began in the Cape province of South Africa during the 17th and 18th centuries, the Dutch east India company brought enslaved people from Asian regions, including; Indonesians, Malaysians and Indian people these individuals were brought to the Cape Colony to work on farms, in households, as they were enslaved labourers . There is a significant genetic mixture of European, African and (Indian) Asian DNA in the modern ethnic group of Coloured people. Thus forced into their own communities and therefore created a generational mix of people and are to date an ethnic group.
In addition to African, European and Asian ancestry, Coloured people had some portion of Spanish or Portuguese ancestry. In the early 19th century some immigrants from Brazilians arrived in South Africa as sailors, traders or refugees, and some intermarried with local mixed race (Coloured) communities. Also the Canary Islands off the northwest coast of Africa, were a Spanish colony, and during the 17th and 18th centuries, the Dutch east India Company and other European powers brought enslaved people from the Canary Islands to South Africa, particularly to the Cape Colony (now known as South Africa). The Dutch East India Company's ship Het Gelderland, which arrived at the Cape in 1671 with 174 slaves from the Canary Islands and The Portuguese ship, "Sao Jose" which was captured by the Dutch in 1713 and brought to the Cape with slaves from the Canary Islands. These enslaved people were forced to work on farms, in households, and in other industries and many were subjected to harsh conditions and treatment. The intermixing among European men and Spanish and Portuguese women's descendants are part of the diverse Coloured communities in South Africa. Spanish and Portuguese ancestry is not a dominant feature amongst the Coloured identity in South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe. Individual family histories and ancestry may vary widely while the African, European and Asian ancestry is dominant amongst Coloured people from Africa.
Based on the Population Registration Act to classify people, the government passed laws prohibiting mixed marriages. Many people who classified as belonging to the "Asian" category could legally intermarry with "mixed-race" people because they shared the same nomenclature. The use of the term Coloured has changed over the course of history. For instance, in the first census after the South African war (1912), Indians were counted as 'Coloured'. Before and after this war, they were counted as 'Asiatic'. Zimbabwean Coloureds were descended from Shona people or Ndebele mixing with British and Afrikaner settlers and Arab slaves.
Griqua people, on the other hand, are descendants of Khoisan and Afrikaner trekboers. (2025). 9781869190170, Protea Book House. ISBN 9781869190170 The Griqua were subjected to an ambiguity of other creole people within Southern African social order. According to Nurse and Jenkins (1975), the leader of this "mixed" group, Adam Kok I, was a former slave of the Dutch governor. He was manumitted and provided land outside Cape Town in the eighteenth century. With territories beyond the Dutch East India Company administration, Kok provided refuge to deserting soldiers, refugee slaves, and remaining members of various Khoikhoi tribes.
By the late 18th century, free Mulattoes and other people of mixed race began petitioning for legal rights. The Jamaican Assembly, recognizing their growing numbers and economic contributions, gradually relaxed restrictions on property ownership, education, and political participation for this group. However, full-blooded Black Jamaicans remained largely excluded from these privileges.
Figures like George Stiebel, Jamaica’s first recorded millionaire, exemplified the upward mobility of Mulatto Jamaicans. His Afro-European heritage allowed him to navigate both Black and white social circles, though racial hierarchies still shaped his experiences.
Despite these advancements, full-blooded Black Jamaicans remained largely excluded from these privileges. The colonial government maintained strict racial hierarchies, ensuring that the majority of Black Jamaicans had limited access to land, education, and political power. Even after Emancipation in 1834, economic and social barriers persisted, reinforcing class divisions that shaped Jamaican society well into the 20th century.
However, racial tensions persisted. The brown-skinned elite often distanced themselves from the Black working class, reinforcing colorism and class divisions. This dynamic was reflected in cultural attitudes, such as the preference for lighter-skinned women in social and romantic contexts—a phenomenon explored in historical studies on Jamaican beauty standards.
Today, Jamaica’s Mulatto class has largely integrated into the broader society, but colorism and class distinctions remain influential in social and economic structures.
The 1938 labor uprisings marked a turning point. Workers across sugar estates, docks, and factories staged strikes and protests, demanding better wages and working conditions. This movement led to the formation of trade unions, including the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU), founded by Alexander Bustamante, and the National Workers Union (NWU), associated with Norman Manley. These unions became political powerhouses, shaping Jamaica’s future governance.
Both parties had Mulatto leadership, but their approaches differed. The JLP, under Bustamante, maintained close ties with the business elite, while the PNP, under Manley, pushed for progressive policies that challenged colonial structures.
The 1970s and 1980s saw intense political rivalry, with garrison politics emerging—where political parties controlled urban communities through patronage and, at times, violence. The Mulatto class, once dominant, saw its influence wane as Black nationalism reshaped Jamaica’s political identity.
While the Mulatto elite may not function as a formally distinct political class today, they remain overrepresented in Jamaican politics, particularly within the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP). This is a continuation of historical patterns where lighter-skinned individuals, often from wealthier backgrounds, have maintained political and economic influence.
Jamaica’s color-class pyramid, which historically placed white elites at the top, Mulattoes in the middle, and Black Jamaicans at the bottom, has evolved but still shapes political representation. Studies on race and legitimacy in Jamaican politics highlight how racial identity continues to influence leadership dynamics, with Mulatto politicians often occupying key positions in government and business.
The JLP, founded by Alexander Bustamante, himself of mixed ancestry, has historically had strong ties to the business elite, which includes many lighter-skinned Jamaicans. This trend persists today, with several high-ranking officials in the JLP fitting this profile. While the People’s National Party (PNP) has also had Mulatto leaders, it has traditionally positioned itself as more aligned with Black nationalist movements, particularly under figures like Michael Manley.
There was considerable malleability and manipulation of racial labeling, including the seemingly stable category of mulatto. In a case that came before the Mexican Inquisition, a woman publicly identified as a mulatta was described by a Spanish priest, Diego Xaimes Ricardo Villavicencio, as "a white italic=no with curly hair, because she is the daughter of a dark-skinned italic=no and a Spaniard, and for her manner of dress she has flannel petticoats and a native blouse ( huipil), sometimes silken, sometimes woolen. She wears shoes, and her natural and common language is not Spanish, but Chocho language an, as she was brought up among Indians with her mother, from which she contracted the vice of drunkenness, to which she often succumbs, as Indians do, and from them she has also received the crime of idolatry." Community members were interrogated as to their understanding of her racial standing. Her mode of dress, very wavy hair and light skin confirmed for one witness that she was a mulatta. Ultimately though, her rootedness in the indigenous community persuaded the Inquisition that she was an India, and therefore outside of their jurisdiction.Tavárez, David. "Legally Indian: Inquistorial Readings of Indigenous Identity in New Spain” in Imperial Subjects: Race and Identity in Colonial Latin America. Eds. Andrew B. Fisher and Matthew D. O’Hara. Durham: Duke University Press 2009, (quoting AGN Mexico, Inquisition 669, no, 10m 481r-v) pp. 91-93. Even though the accused had physical features of a mulatta, her cultural category was more important. In colonial Latin America, mulato could also refer to an individual of mixed African and Native American ancestry, but the term zambo was more consistently used for that racial mixture.
Dominican Order friar Thomas Gage spent over a decade in the New Spain in the early 17th century; he converted to Anglicanism and later wrote of his travels, often disparaging Spanish colonial society and culture. In Mexico City, he observed in considerable detail the opulence of dress of women, writing that "The attire of this baser sort of people of blackamoors and mulattoes (which are of a mixed nature, of Spaniards and blackamoors) is so light, and their carriage so enticing, that many Spaniards even of the better sort (who are too too sic prone to venery) disdain their wives for them... Most of these are or have been slaves, though love have set them loose, at liberty to enslave souls to sin and Satan."
In the late 18th century, some mixed-race persons sought legal "certificates of whiteness" (cédulas de gracias al sacar), in order to rise socially and practice professions. American-born Spaniards ( criollos) sought to prevent the approval of such petitions, since the "purity" of their own whiteness would be in jeopardy. They asserted their "purity of blood" ( limpieza de sangre) as white persons who had "always been known, held and commonly reputed to be white persons, Old Christians of the nobility, clean of all bad blood and without any mixture of commoner, Jew, Moor, Mulatto, or converso in any degree, no matter how remote."Ann Twinam. "Purchasing Whiteness: Conversations on the Essence of Pardo-ness and Mulatto-ness at the End of Empire" in Imperial Subjects, p. 146. Spaniards both American- and Iberian-born discriminated against pardos and mulattoes because of their "bad blood." One Cuban sought the grant of his petition in order to practice as a surgeon, a profession from which he was barred because of his mulatto designation. Royal laws and decrees prevented pardos and mulattoes from serving as a public notary, lawyer, pharmacist, ordination to the priesthood, or graduation from university. Mulattas declared white could marry a Spaniard.Twinam, "Purchasing Whiteness" p. 147.
Many Haitian mulattoes were slaveholders and often actively participated in the oppression of the black majority. Some Dominican mulattoes were also slave owners.
The Haitian Revolution was started by mulattoes. The subsequent struggle within Haiti between the mulattoes led by André Rigaud and the black Haitians led by Toussaint Louverture devolved into the War of Knives.Smucker, Glenn R. "Toussaint Louverture". A Country Study: Haiti (Richard A. Haggerty, editor). Library of Congress Federal Research Division (December 1989). With secret aid from the United States, Toussaint eventually won the conflict and made himself ruler of the entire island of Hispaniola. Napoleon ordered for Charles Leclerc and a substantial army to put down the rebellion; Leclerc seized Toussaint in 1802 and deported him to France, where he died in prison a year later. Leclerc was succeeded by General Rochambeau. With reinforcements from France and Poland, Rochambeau began a bloody campaign against the mulattoes and intensified operations against the blacks, importing bloodhounds to track and kill them. Thousands of black POW and suspects were chained to cannonballs and tossed into the sea. (2025). 9780786474707, McFarland. ISBN 9780786474707 Historians of the Haitian Revolution credit Rochambeau's brutal tactics for uniting black and mulatto soldiers against the French.
In 1806, Haiti divided into a black-controlled north and a mulatto-ruled south. Haitian President Jean-Pierre Boyer, the son of a Frenchman and a former African slave, managed to unify a divided Haiti but excluded blacks from power. In 1847, a black military officer named Faustin Soulouque was made president, with the mulattoes supporting him; but, instead of proving a tool in the hands of the senators, he showed a strong will, and, although by his antecedents belonging to the mulatto party, he began to attach the blacks to his interest. The mulattoes retaliated by conspiring; but Soulouque began to decimate his enemies by confiscation, proscriptions, and executions. The black soldiers began a general massacre in Port-au-Prince, which ceased only after the French consul, Charles Reybaud, threatened to order the landing of marines from the men-of-war in the harbor.
The Haitians were unable to ward off a series of Dominican navy reprisal raids along Haiti's south coast, launched by Dominican president Buenaventura Báez. Despite the failure of the Dominican campaign, Soulouque caused himself to be proclaimed emperor on 26 August 1849, under the name of Faustin I. He was called a rey de farsa (clown emperor) by the Dominicans. Toward the close of 1855, he invaded the Dominican Republic again at the head of an army of 30,000 men, but was again defeated by Santana, and barely escaped being captured. His treasure and crown fell into the hands of the enemy. Soulouque was ousted in a military coup led by mulatto General Fabre Geffrard in 1858–59.
In the eastern two-thirds of Hispaniola, the mulattoes were an ever-growing majority group, and in essence they took over the entire Dominican Republic, with no organized black opposition. Many of its rulers and famous figures were mulattoes, such as Gregorio Luperón, Ulises Heureaux, José Joaquín Puello, Matías Ramón Mella, Buenaventura Báez, and Rafael Trujillo. The Dominican Republic has been described as the only true mulatto country in the world. Pervasive Dominican racism, based on rejection of African ancestry, has led to many assaults against the large Haitian immigrant community, the most lethal of which was the 1937 parsley massacre. Approximately 5,000–67,000 men, women, children, babies and elderly, who were selected by their skin color, were massacred with machetes, or were thrown to sharks.
The Dominican Republic was the site of the first European settlement in the Americas, the Captaincy General of Santo Domingo founded in 1493. After the arrival of Europeans and the founding of the colony, Black people people were imported to the island. The fusion of European, native Taino, and African influences contributed to the development of present-day Dominican culture. From the start of the colonial period in the 1500s, Miscegenation ( Mestizaje), intermixing of races particularly Spanish settlers, native Tainos, and imported Africans (free or enslaved), was very strong. Race beyond the Plantation: Slavery and Freedom in Colonial Santo Domingo yale.edu In fact, colonial Santo Domingo had higher amount of mixing and lesser racial tensions in comparison to other colonies, even other Spanish colonies, this was due to the fact that for most of its colonial period, Santo Domingo was a poorer colony where even the majority of the white Spanish settlers were poor, which helped foster a relatively peaceful racial atmosphere, allowing for growth in its mixed race population and racial fluidity. Santo Domingo as a colony was used a military base and had an economy based on Cattle ranching, which was a far less labor-intensive than the more common plantation slavery at the time. By the 1700s, the majority of the population was mixed race, forming the basis of the Dominican ethnicity as a distinct people well before independence was achieved. During colonial times, mixed-race/mulatto Dominicans had a lot of influence, they were instrumental in the independence period and the founding of the nation. Many Dominican presidents were mulatto, and mulatto Dominicans have had influence in every aspect of Dominican culture and society.
According to recent genealogical DNA studies of the Dominican population, the genetic makeup is predominantly European and Sub-Saharan African, with a lesser degree of Native American ancestry. The average Dominican DNA of the founder population is estimated to be 73% European, 10% Native, and 17% African. After the Haitian and Afro-Caribbean migrations the overall percentage changed to 57% European, 8% Native and 35% African. Due to mixed race Dominicans (and most Dominicans in general) being a mix of mainly European and African, with lesser amounts of indigenous Taino, they can accurately be described as "Mulatto" or "Tri-racial". Dominican Republic have several informal terms to loosely describe a person's degree of racial admixture, Mestizo means any type of mixed ancestry unlike in other Latin American countries it describes specifically a European/native mix, Indio describes mixed race people whose skin color is between white and black.
In Dominican Republic and some other Latin American countries, it can sometimes be difficult to determine the exact number of racial groups, because the lines between whites and lighter multiracials are very blurry, which is also true between blacks and darker multiracials. As race in Dominican Republic acts as a continuum of white—mulatto—black and not as clear cut as in places like the United States. And many times in the same family, there can be people of different colors and racial phenotypes who are blood related, this is due to the large amounts of interracial mixing for hundreds of years in Dominican Republic and the Spanish Caribbean in general, allowing for high amounts of genetic diversity. The majority of the Dominican population is tri-racial, with nearly all Dominicans having Taíno Native American ancestry along with European and African ancestry. European ancestry in the mixed population typically ranges between 50% and 60% on average, while African ancestry ranges between 30% and 40%, and the Native ancestry usually ranges between 5% and 10%. European and Native ancestry tends to be strongest in cities and towns of the north-central Cibao region, and generally in the mountainous interior of the country. African ancestry is strongest in coastal areas, the southeast plain, and the border regions.
Studies have shown that the racial ancestry mixture of the average Puerto Rican (regardless of racial self-identity) is about 64% European, 21% African, and 15% Native Taino, with European ancestry strongest on the west side of the island and West African ancestry strongest on the east side, and the levels of Taino ancestry (which, according to some research, ranges from about 5%-35%) generally highest in the southwest of the island.
A study of a sample of 96 healthy self-identified White Puerto Ricans and self-identified Black Puerto Ricans in the U.S. showed that, although all carried a contribution from all 3 ancestral populations (European, African, and Amerindian), the proportions showed significant variation. Depending on individuals, although often correlating with their self-identified race, African ancestry ranged from less than 10% to over 50%, while European ancestry ranged from under 20% to over 80%. Amerindian ancestry showed less fluctuation, generally hovering between 5% and 20% irrespective of self-identified race.
Many Spaniard men took indigenous Taino and West African wives and in the first centuries of the Spanish colonial period the island was overwhelmingly racially mixed. Under Spanish rule, mass immigration shifted the ethnic make-up of the island, as a result of the Royal Decree of Graces of 1815. Puerto Rico went from being two-thirds black and mulatto in the beginning of the 19th century, to being nearly 80% white by the middle of the 20th century. This was compounded by more flexible attitudes to race under Spanish rule, as epitomized by the Regla del Sacar. CIA World Factbook Retrieved June 8, 2009. 2010.census.gov Puerto Rico's Historical Demographics Retrieved November 10, 2011. Under Spanish rule, Puerto Rico had laws such as Regla del Sacar or Gracias al Sacar, which allowed persons of mixed ancestry to pay a fee to be classified as white, which was the opposite of "one-drop rule" in US society after the American Civil War.
Prior to the 20th century, majority of the Cuban population was of mixed race descent to varying degrees, with pure Spaniards or Criollo people being a significant minority. Between 1902 and 1933, some 750,000 Spaniards migrated to Cuba from Europe, which changed the racial demographics of the region rapidly. Many of the newly arrived Spanish migrants did not intermix with the native Cuban population, unlike the earlier colonial settlers and who intermixed with Tainos and Afro-Cubans at large scale rates. Self identified “white” Cubans with colonial roots on the island usually have Amerindian and or African admixture to varying degrees, as well as self identified “black” Cubans with colonial roots having varying degrees of European and or Amerindian admixture.
Paul Heinegg has documented that most of the free people of color listed in the 1790–1810 censuses in the Upper South were descended from unions and marriages during the colonial period in Virginia between white women, who were free or indentured servants, and African or African American men, servant, slave or free. In the early colonial years, such working-class people lived and worked closely together, and slavery was not as much of a racial caste. Slave law had established that children in the colony took the status of their mothers. This meant that multi-racial children born to white women were born free. The colony required them to serve lengthy indentures if the woman was not married, but nonetheless, numerous individuals with African ancestry were born free, and formed more free families. Over the decades, many of these free people of color became leaders in the African-American community; others married increasingly into the white community. Paul Heinegg, Free African Americans of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Delaware, 1995–2005, Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Co, 1995-2005Dorothy Schneider, Carl J. Schneider, Slavery in America, Infobase Publishing, 2007, pp. 86–87. His findings have been supported by DNA studies and other contemporary researchers as well.Felicia R Lee, "Family Tree’s Startling Roots", New York Times. Accessed November 3, 2013.
A daughter born to a South Asian father and Irish Americans mother in Maryland in 1680, both of whom probably came to the colony as indentured servants, was classified as a "mulatto" and sold into slavery.
Historian F. James Davis says,
Historically in the American South, the term mulatto was also applied at times to persons with mixed Native American and African American ancestry. For example, a 1705 Virginia statute reads as follows:
Certain Native American tribes of the Inocoplo family in Texas referred to themselves as "mulatto". At one time, Florida's laws declared that a person from any number of mixed ancestries would be legally defined as a mulatto, including White/Hispanic, Black/Native American, and just about any other mix as well.
In the United States, due to the influence and laws making slavery a racial caste, and later practices of hypodescent, white colonists and settlers tended to classify persons of mixed African and Native American ancestry as black, regardless of how they identified themselves, or sometimes as Black Indians. But many tribes had matrilineal kinship systems and practices of absorbing other peoples into their cultures. Multiracial children born to Native American mothers were customarily raised in her family and specific tribal culture. Federally recognized Native American tribes have insisted that identity and membership is related to culture rather than race, and that individuals brought up within tribal culture are fully members, regardless of whether they also have some European or African ancestry. Many tribes have had mixed-race members who identify primarily as members of the tribes.
If the multiracial children were born to slave women (generally of at least partial African descent), they were classified under slave law as slaves. This was to the advantage of slaveowners, as Indian slavery had been abolished. If mixed-race children were born to Native American mothers, they should be considered free, but sometimes slaveholders kept them in slavery anyway. Multiracial children born to slave mothers were generally raised within the African-American community and considered "black".
A 1916 history called The Mulatto in the United States reported two other archaic race-classification systems:
Since 2000, persons responding to the census have been allowed to identify as having more than one type of ethnic ancestry.
Mulatto ( Biracial in the U.S.) populations come from various sources. Firstly, the average ancestral DNA of African Americans is about 90% African, 9% European, and 1% indigenous. Lighter skinned (African descendant Americans) are usually "more mixed" than the average African American, with the white ancestors sometimes being several generations back, which gives them a multiracial phenotype. Some of these lighter African Americans have abandoned the black identity and started to identify as multiracial. Many small isolate mixed race groups, such as for example Louisiana Creole people, got absorbed into the overall African American population. There also growing numbers of black/white interracial couples and multiracial people of recent origins– parents being of different races. Tables census.gov Many immigrants who are racially Mulattos, have come to the United States from countries like Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, being most prevalent in cities like New York and Miami.
Dominican Republic
Mixed Dominicans, also referred to as mulatto, mestizo or historically quadroon, are Dominicans who are of mixed racial ancestry. Dominican Republic has many racial terms and some are used differently than in other countries, for example Mestizo signifies any racial mix and not solely a European/indigenous mix like in other Latin American countries, while Indio describes people of skin tones between white and black and has nothing to do with native peoples. Representing 73.9% of the Dominican Republic's population, they are by far the single largest racial grouping of the country. Mixed Dominicans are the descendants from the racial integration between the Europeans, Native Americans, and later the Africans. They have a total population of approximately 8 million.Esteva Fabregat, Claudio « La hispanización del mestizaje cultural en América» Revista Complutense de Historia de América, Universidad Complutense de Madrid. p. 133 (1981)
Puerto Rico
Although the average Puerto Rican is of mixed-race, few actually identified as multiracial ("two or more races") in the 2010 census; only 3.3% did so. 2010 Census Data - 2010 Census: 2010 Census Results, Puerto Rico. U.S. Department of Commerce. Bureau of the Census. Retrieved July 1, 2013. They more often identified with their predominant heritage or phenotype. However, in the 2020 census, the amount of Puerto Ricans identifying as multiracial went up to 49.8% and an additional 25.5% identified as "some other race", showing a marked change in the way Puerto Ricans view themselves. This may show that Puerto Ricans are now more open to embracing all sides of their mixed-race heritage and do not view themselves as part of the standard race dynamic in the United States hence the high number of people identifying as "some other race", a similar phenomenon went on in the mainland United States with the overall US Hispanic/Latino population.
Most have significant ancestry from two or more of the founding source populations of Spaniards, Africans, and Tainos, although Spanish ancestry is predominant in a majority of the population. Similar to many other Latin American ethnic groups, Puerto Ricans are multi-generationally mixed race, though most are European dominant in ancestry, Puerto Ricans who are "evenly mixed" can accurately be described " Mulatto", " Quadroon", or Tri-racial very similar to mixed populations in Cuba and Dominican Republic. Overall, Puerto Ricans are European-dominant Tri-racials, however there are many with near even European and African ancestry. According to the National Geographic Genographic Project, "the average Puerto Rican individual carries 12% Native American, 65% West Eurasian (Mediterranean, Northern European and/or Middle Eastern) and 20% Sub-Saharan African DNA."
Cuba
In the 2012 Census of Cuba, 26.6% (2.97 million) of the Cubans self-identified as mulatto or mestizo. But the percentage multiracial/mulatto make up varies widely, from as low as 26% to as high as 51%. Unlike, the two other Spanish Caribbean islands (Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico) where nearly everyone even most self-proclaimed whites and blacks are mixed to varying degrees, in Cuba there are significant pure or nearly pure European and African populations. Multi-racials/Mulattos are widespread throughout Cuba. The DNA average for the Cuban population is 72% European, 23% African, and 5% indigenous, though among mulatto Cubans the European and African ancestry is more even.
United States
Colonial and Antebellum eras
Historians have documented sexual abuse of enslaved women during the colonial and post-revolutionary slavery times by white men in power: planters, their sons before marriage, overseers, etc., which resulted in many multiracial children born into slavery. Starting with Virginia in 1662, colonies adopted the principle of partus sequitur ventrem in slave law, which said that children born in the colony were born into the status of their mother. Thus, children born to slave mothers were born into slavery, regardless of who their fathers were and whether they were baptized as Christians. Children born to white mothers were free, even if they were mixed-race. Children born to free mixed-race mothers were also free.
"And for clearing all manner of doubts which hereafter may happen to arise upon the construction of this act, or any other act, who shall be accounted a mulatto, Be it enacted and declared, and it is hereby enacted and declared, That the child of an Indian and the child, grand child, or great grand child, of a negro shall be deemed, accounted, held and taken to be a mulatto."
However, southern colonies began to prohibit Indian slavery in the eighteenth century, so, according to their own laws, even mixed-race children born to Native American women should be considered free. The societies did not always observe this distinction.
California
The first pioneers of Alta California were of mulatto ancestry.
Louisiana
The American Guide to Louisiana, published by the Federal Writers Project in 1941, included a breakdown of traditional race classifications in that region, stating "The following elaborate terminology, now no longer in use because of the lack of genealogical records upon which to base finely drawn blood distinctions, was once employed to differentiate between types according to diminution of Negro blood." (Original orthography preserved.)
87.5 75 62.5 50 50 37.5 25 12.5 + From Frederick Law Olmsted's A Journey to the Seaboard Slave States (1854) griffe and negress Negro and mulatto mulatto and griffe white and Negro white and mulatto white and Quadroon white and metif white and meamelouc white and quarteron + From Charles Davenport's Heredity of Skin Color in Negro-White Crosses (1910) Negro and white mulatto and white quadroon and white mulatto and mulatto mulatto and Negro sambo and Negro octoroon and white mustifee and white
Contemporary era
Mulatto was used as an official census racial category in the United States, to acknowledge multiracial persons, until 1930. (In the early 20th century, several southern states had adopted the one-drop rule as law, and southern Congressmen pressed the US Census Bureau to drop the mulatto category: they wanted all persons to be classified as "black" or "white".)
Colonial references
See also
Further reading
External links
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