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Mulatto

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Representation of Mulattos during the Latin American colonial period.

Mulatto (also mulato) is a term of Spanish or Portuguese origin usually describing a person with significant amounts of both European and African ancestry. A considerable number of Hispanic Americans identify themselves as mulatto.


Etymology

It is important to be aware that etymological origin and actual meaning are NOT identical. The etymological origin of a term is therfore irrelevant. This means for example that many words of common usage can be traced to a 'negative' etymological origin. Among those are words like berber, slavic (which is thought to be related to the word slave), Hapa, hysterical (sexist origin) or even the innocent "kid" (which at its roots meant young goat) . However neither of these words are used in any way shape or form to mean what their roots mean, and neither is mulatto. It's also important to note that the term "black" referring to people was once a derrogatory term. The word mulato together with mestizo can be found for the first time in a document dated from 1549 -1603. Mulatos, the plural form occurs for the first time in a document dated 1560 by Francisco Cervantes de Salazar also alongside mestizos. The etymological origin of the term as given by many dictionaries is from the Spanish word mulo. However dictionaries who mention mulo as etymology for mulato also express doubt about the suffix -ato whose origin is obscure to them.

According to the Real Academia Espagnola mulo has two meanings in Spanish. The first meaning is "mule" from Latin mulus. There is no proof of whether the term has once been a generic designation name for any hybrid species, but this is why it may be considered offensive by some English-speakers who might prefer terms like "biracial" instead. The second meaning of mulo in spanish according to the Real Academia Espagnola is "a person characterized by strength and vigour".

Another etymology which can also be found in some dictionaries and scholarly works traces its 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 spelling: 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 [1] as well as Leopoldo Eguilaz y Yanguas and others as well as different arabian sources [2] muwallad is the etymological origin of mulato. In this context mulato would have been derived DIRECTLY from muwallad and NOT through muladi, a term which applied to Spanish christians who had converted to islam during the arab domination of Spain. Rather do the two words share the analogous etymology of muwallad. The arab origin of mulatto would not be surprising given the importance of Arabic at a time when Latin was rejected in favour of Arabic. Arabic is the seventh on the list of languages that has contributed to the the English vocabulary. Islamic Moors also traveled over to the New World with the Spaniards.


Muwalladins

"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 focus is on Hadramis who return to Hadramawt although their birth was some place else." [3]

"We tend to know about the success stories, but migration also produced large numbers of dislocated and disoriented people. Often, they were muwalladin, a term used for people from the coast, but also for children of mixed parentage. While the muwalladin often had the cultural capital to function in more than one society - which might well explain the adaptability and eventual success of so many of them - they also risked being regarded as outsiders; this was to become particularly relevant in the second half of the 20th century with the rise of nationalism." [4]

"Thus, the pure Arab immigrants or ulaytis took local wives. Their children became muwallads through their Indonesian mothers." [5]

Hispanic America and Brazil

In Latin America, mulattos officially made up the majority of the population in the Dominican Republic1 (73%2) and Cuba (51%).

In other American countries where mulattos do not constitute a majority, they can represent a significant portion of their populations; Brazil (aprox. 38%), Colombia (14%), Venezuela, Panama (14%) and Puerto Rico


Although when Africans were first brought to Mexico and Honduras they represeneted a sizable portion of the population, there was never more than 200,000 Africans in Mexico (and a similar number in Honduras). Also, they were absorbed there for the most part by the mestizo populations of mixed European and Amerindian descent. Furthermore, when slavery was abolished, the African and Mulatto populations decreased due to continued immigration from Spain and other European countries; Native Americans in Mexico, in modern times, have the highest birth rates in the nation. Thus the African and mulatto population is not as significant there as in other American nations. Some Mexicans of African ancestry identify themselves as "afro-mestizo" or "tropical". The latter designation is popular in the state of Guerrero, a region which formerly had a large population of African slaves. Other Mexican states which have a substantial number of people of African descent include Oaxaca, Veracruz, and Yucatan.

United States and Puerto Rico

In the United States, the term was in the beginning also used as a term for those of mixed white and Native American ancestry. Mulatto was an official census category until 1930. It was the racism of the American eugenist movement of the early 20th century which led to the establishment of what is known as the One Drop Rule. The One Drop Rule was made law in 1924 by the Eugenist Walter Plecker. It said that a single drop of black blood would from there on make a person fully black and was based on the false assumption that blacks where genetically inferior to whites. The one-drop-rule became illegal in 1964 but only since the 1980s is it increasingly under attack.

One criticism of the term is that it is said to ignore the high rate of racial intermixing in North America. However most black Americans are still predominantly black (average of 17% European ancestry according to geneticist Marc Shriver). This makes them quite different in ancestry from mulattoes which in the US are often even more than 50% European in ancestry. 30% of European Americans also have black ancestry.

This criticism is also fails to take into account that in the United States the historic Anglo-American tradition of the One-Drop Rule (the custom of deeming all people with any amount of African blood to be black) prevented mulattos from remaining an independent ethnic entity through the past 70 years, with members seeing themselves as such. The existing mulatto communities in Charlston, Richmond, New Orleans and elsewhere were torn apart by the one-drop-rule. Yet remnants of those communities still exist to this day despite the official black label.

Mulattos might also constitute a significant portion of the population of Puerto Rico, a commonwealth territory in association with the USA. However, recent genetic research indicates that, in relation to matrilineal ancestry as revealed by mtDNA, 61% have inherited mitochondrial DNA from an Amerind female ancestor, 27% have inherited mitochondrial DNA from a female African ancestor and 12% showed to have inherited mitochondrial DNA from a female European ancestor. Conversely, patrilineal input as indicated by the Y chromosome, showed that 70% of all Puerto Rican males have inherited Y chromosome DNA from a male European ancestor, 20% have inherited Y chromosome DNA from a male African ancestor and less than 10% have inherited Y chromosome DNA from male Amerindian ancestor. Because these test measure only the DNA along the matrilineal line and patrilinel lines of inheritance, each test only measures the one individual out of thousands, perhaps millions of ancestors; they cannot tell us exactly what percentage of Puerto Ricans have African Ancestry.

Nevertheless, independent of their actual numbers, the history of the population of Puerto Rican mulattos is independent from those of the US. Prior to the Spanish-American War, when Puerto Rico became a commonwealth of the United States, Puerto Rico was an integral part of the Spanish Empire, and it still constitutes a cultural-geographic segment of Latin America. Thus, the history of Puerto Rico is a shared one with Latin America.

Haiti

In Haiti (formerly Saint-Domingue), a non-Hispanic country of the Caribbean, mulattos represented a smaller proportion of the population than in many Latin American countries. Today they constitute about 5% of the population.

Historically, Haitian mulattos have been looked down upon by both blacks and whites alike, and used by both when best suited. African Hatians regarded them as no better or worse than their unmixed French progenitors. Mulattos made up a class of their own. They were free and usually had a preference for French rather than African culture. Often they were highly educated and wealthy. This is much in contrast to US mulattos where mulattos inherited slave status if the mother was a slave, although in French-influenced areas of the South prior to the Civil War (particularly New Orleans, Louisiana) a number of mulattos were also free and slave-owning.

Being part of their time, many Haitian mulattos were also slaveholders and as such actively participated in the oppression of the black majority. However, many 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 African Haitians during the wars of independence in order to secure African political power over the island. Earlier some African 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 unmixed 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

The traditionnal mulatto communities and mulatto ethnicities in Africa include the South African coloreds as well as the Rehobother Basters of Namibia.

Europe

There is an emerging mulatto communitiy in modern Europe. These mulattos are mainly the direct descendents of recent African immigrants as well as earlier West-Indian immigrants and European residents.

Famous Mulattoes

Footnotes

  1. In the Dominican Republic, the mulatto population has also absorbed the small number of 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

  • Julio Izquierdo Labrado (1993): La esclavitud en Huelva y Palos (1570-1587) [6]
  • Leopoldo Eguilaz y Yanguas (1886): Glosario de las palabras españolas (castellanas, catalanas, gallegas, mallorquinas, protugueses, valencianas y bascongadas), de orígen oriental (árabe, hebreo, malayo, persa y turco). Granada, La Lealtad, 1886.
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