Creole peoples
Encyclopedia
The term Creole and its cognate
s in other languages — such as crioulo, criollo, créole, kriolu, criol, kreyol, kreol, kriulo, kriol, krio, etc. — have been applied to people in different countries and epochs, with rather different meanings. Those terms are almost always used in the general area of present or former colonies
in other continents, and originally referred to locally born people with foreign ancestry.
men with Aleut and Alutiiq
women in the late 19th century gave rise to a people who assumed a prominent position in the economy of Russian Alaska and the north Pacific rim.
, the word "Creole" refers to people of any race or mixture thereof who are descended from settlers in colonial French Louisiana
before it became part of the United States in 1803 with the Louisiana Purchase
. Some writers from other parts of the country have mistakenly assumed the term to refer only to people of mixed racial descent, but this is not the traditional Louisiana
usage. Originally it referred to people of French and then Spanish descent who were born in Louisiana, to distinguish them from immigrants. Later Creole was sometimes used as well to refer to people of African descent born in Louisiana. Later the terms were differentiated, by French Creole (European ancestry) and Louisiana Creole (meaning someone of mixed racial ancestry).
Contemporary usage has broadened the meaning of Louisiana Creoles
to describe a broad cultural group of people of all races who share a French or Spanish background. Louisianans who identify themselves as "Creole" are most commonly from historically Francophone
communities, with some ancestors who came to Louisiana either directly from France
or via the French colonies in the Caribbean
. Many Louisiana creole families arrived in Louisiana during the Colonial Period following the Slave Uprising led by Toussaint Breda (later called L'Overture) in 1791 in Ste. Dominique, later called Haiti. Protesting French Colonial rule - and winning the fight with the assistance, in part of the mosquito, as the French plantation owners most holding land grants from Louis XVI (farming primarily sugar) were succumbing to yellow fever. The slave army of L'Overture originally in alliance with the French to exile Spanish and English eventually helped evict them too creating a free Haiti. Though L'Overture wound up being imprisoned by Napoleon in a remote mountain jail dying of starvation and neglect while his army continued in liberating Sante Dominigue concurrently with Napoleon's Louisiana Purchase for his French King. With the French Revolution (1789) and Napoleon Bonaparte's deceiving L'Overture (despite his full cooperation with the French beginning with the Jacobian, Robespierre, and anti-slavery minded French a few years earlier) the French Colonist regime was then forced into exile with most being shipped first to Cuba. From Cuba the exiles finally arrived in the French governed and purchased Louisiana Colony where their descendents can be traced to date. New Orleans and the surrounding river parishes are the mainstays of Creole culture. The language however is a dying form. Spoken creole is dying with the dissolution of Creole families and continued 'Americanization' in the area. Most remaining creole lexemes have drifted into popular culture. Traditional French creole is spoken among those families determined to keep the language alive or in regions below New Orleans around St. James and St. John Parishes where German immigres originally settled (also known as 'the German Coast', or Les Cote Des Allemandes) and cultivated the land keeping the ill-equipped French Colonists from starvation during the Colonial Period and adopting commonly spoken French and Creole French (arriving with the exiles) as a language of trade.
Creoles are characterized as being largely Roman Catholic and influenced by traditional French culture left from the first Colonial Period officially beginning with the arrival of the Ursuline Nuns in 1721 (they were preceded by another order, the sisters of the Sacred Heart with whom they lived until their first convent could be built with monies from the French Crown. Both Orders still educate girls in 2010). The "fiery latin temperament" described by early scholars on New Orleans culture made sweeping generalizations to accommodate Creoles of Spanish heritage as well as the original French. The mulatto creoles, descendants of mixing of European colonists and slaves or sometimes 'Gens du Colour' (free men and women of colour) began during the colonial periods with the arrival of slave populations. Their collective cultures are known as "Creole" though many non-Louisianans often do not distinguish between the two groups, or do not recognize the distinctions held around the New Orleans area between the original white colonists that produced offspring who were the original first born in Louisiana and those creoles that were a mixture of European and slave populations or free men and women of color ancestry and whose skin was mulatto for lack of a better descriptor. Those 'criollos' the word of which comes from the Spanish language indicates "mixed" and was a term used in the post-French governance period to distinguish the two groups of New Orleans area and down river creoles. Both 'mulatto' (though specific amounts of blood from different ancestors is too lengthy a subject to interject here) and European creole groups share many of the same traditions, and language into this age but whose socio-economic roots differed in the original period of Louisiana history. The term is also often used to mean simply "pertaining to the New Orleans area".
Louisianans descended from the French Acadians of Canada are not creoles at all in the strictest sense but referred to as and identify as 'Cajuns' - a derivation of the word Acadian, indicating French Canadian settlers as ancestors. Though the land areas overlap around New Orleans and down river, Cajun culture and language extend westward all along the southern coast of Louisiana concentrating in areas southwest of New Orleans around Lafayette, Marksville, and as far as Crowley, Abbeville and into the rice belt of Louisiana nearer Lake Charles and the Texas border.
word creole derives from the French
créole, which in turn came from Portuguese
crioulo. This word, a derivative of the verb criar ("to raise"), was coined in the 15th century, in the trading and military outposts established by Portugal
in West Africa
and Cape Verde
. It originally referred to descendants of the Portuguese settlers who were born and "raised" locally. The word then spread to other languages, probably adopted from Portuguese slave traders who supplied most of the slaves to South America
through the 16th century.
While the Portuguese may have originally reserved the term crioulo for people of strictly European descent, the crioulo population came to be dominated by numerous people of mixed Portuguese and African ancestry. This mixing happened relatively quickly in most Portuguese colonies of the time. The growth of a mixed population was due to both the scarcity of Portuguese-born women in the settlements, and to the Portuguese Crown policy of encouraging mixed marriages in the colonies to create more stable populations.
The crioulos of mixed Portuguese and African descent eventually gave rise to several major ethnic groups in Africa, especially in Cape Verde
, Guinea-Bissau
, São Tomé e Príncipe, Ziguinchor
(Casamance
), Angola
, Mozambique
. Only a few of these groups have retained the name crioulo or variations of it:
, founded by the British
to serve as a colony for freed slaves, has a Creole
ethnic group whose ancestors migrated from Canada
, where many were Americans who had fought with the British and settled there after the American Revolutionary War
; the British West Indies
, and various parts of West Africa
. Their offspring (born in the Freetown
colony
) came to be known as Creoles or its cognate Krio
. Many of these Creoles or Krios were of mixed ancestry, carrying admixture from the African slave heritage of the Americas as well as ancestry from allied Afo-European ethnic clans such as the Sherbro people
.
Similarly, the United States established a colony for freed slaves in what became Liberia
. Descendants of African-American immigrants, or Americo-Liberians, were often called Creoles. Many of the African-American immigrants and their descendants were of mixed ancestry.
Creoles from these two nations emigrated to other African countries, such as Equatorial Guinea
, where they were known as Krios; or Nigeria
, where they were known as Saros. Some scholars report that a new wave of Krio immigrant descendants of freed slaves of Sierra Leone and Liberia are known as Fernandinos (see Fernando Po). The original Fernandinos of the region who existed on the islands of Bioko
and Sao Tome and Principe
, both discovered by explorer Fernão do Pó
, stemmed from indigenous, Spanish and/or Portuguese ancestry.
An additional sub-group of African descent from the Caribbean
and South America
on Bioko Island
were descendants of freed Cuban and Brazilian slaves brought to the islands during the 17th century and 19th century. People of this specific ancestry were part of the emancipado
population which included other distinct groups assimilated into the local colonial society.
African slaves were imported into the country from the 17th century until the first half of the 19th century. Due to their multiple ethnic roots and to the wide geographic expanse of the country, the slaves and their descendants did not constitute a cohesive ethnic group. On the other hand, as in the Portuguese colonies in Africa, people of mixed Portuguese and African ancestry soon came to constitute a large segment of the population. There were no sharp class divisions based on degrees of African heritage.
, the Spanish
word criollo (literally, "native," "local") historically referred to class in the colonial caste system
, comprising people born in the colonies with unmixed Spanish
descent. People with at most 1/8 of Amerindian ancestry, were also considered Criollos
; but this rule did not apply to black African
ancestry. The crown often passed over Criollos for the top military, administrative, and religious offices in the colonies in favor of the Spanish-born Peninsulares
(literally "born in the Iberian Peninsula
").
The word Criollo is a cognate of English "Creole", and often translated by it; even though many other Creole peoples never were historically connected to Spain or to the colonial system, and/or were never defined in terms of racial purity.
, since the 16th century. By the 19th century, this discrimination and the example of the American Revolution
and the ideals of the Enlightenment eventually led the Spanish American Criollo elite to rebel against the Spanish rule. With the support of the lower classes, they engaged Spain in the Spanish American wars of independence (1810–1826), which ended with the break-up of former Spanish Empire in America into a number of independent republics.
, the term "Creolean" is used to refer to a French-speaking person of primarily European ethnicity born in the Caribbean islands.
The term Creole is sometimes used to describe anyone, regardless of race or ethnicity, who was born and raised in the region. In Guadeloupe
and Martinique
, 'creole' is used to refer to people of mixed race accepted as white, and people classified as black/mulatto who are mixed of European, African and both native and east Indian. In the French West Indies, people of African and East Indian ancestry are called "Bata-Indians," which is not considered a pejorative term.
Creole, 'Kreyol' or 'Kweyol' also refers to the creole languages in the Caribbean, including Antillean Creole
, Haitian Creole, and Jamaican Creole
, among others.
and the Seychelles
, the term 'creole' includes people born there of all ethnic groups. In Mauritius
, on the other hand, the term excludes people of primarily European descent. In all three, 'creole' also refers to languages derived from French.
Cognate
In linguistics, cognates are words that have a common etymological origin. This learned term derives from the Latin cognatus . Cognates within the same language are called doublets. Strictly speaking, loanwords from another language are usually not meant by the term, e.g...
s in other languages — such as crioulo, criollo, créole, kriolu, criol, kreyol, kreol, kriulo, kriol, krio, etc. — have been applied to people in different countries and epochs, with rather different meanings. Those terms are almost always used in the general area of present or former colonies
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
in other continents, and originally referred to locally born people with foreign ancestry.
Alaska
People of mixed Alaska Native American and Russian ancestry. The intermingling of PromyshlennikiPromyshlenniki
The Promyshlenniki were a group of Russian and native Siberian contract workers drawn largely from the State serf and townsman class engaged primarily in the fur trade in Siberia and Alaska in the 1790s...
men with Aleut and Alutiiq
Alutiiq
The Alutiiq , also called Pacific Yupik or Sugpiaq, are a southern coastal people of the Native peoples of Alaska. Their language is called Sugstun, and it is one of Eskimo languages, belonging to the Yup’ik branch of these languages. They are not to be confused with the Aleuts, who live further...
women in the late 19th century gave rise to a people who assumed a prominent position in the economy of Russian Alaska and the north Pacific rim.
Chesapeake Colonies
During the early settlement of the colonies, children born of immigrants in the colonies were often referred to as creole. This is found more often in the Chesapeake ColoniesLouisiana
In the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, the word "Creole" refers to people of any race or mixture thereof who are descended from settlers in colonial French Louisiana
Louisiana (New France)
Louisiana or French Louisiana was an administrative district of New France. Under French control from 1682–1763 and 1800–03, the area was named in honor of Louis XIV, by French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle...
before it became part of the United States in 1803 with the Louisiana Purchase
Louisiana Purchase
The Louisiana Purchase was the acquisition by the United States of America of of France's claim to the territory of Louisiana in 1803. The U.S...
. Some writers from other parts of the country have mistakenly assumed the term to refer only to people of mixed racial descent, but this is not the traditional Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
usage. Originally it referred to people of French and then Spanish descent who were born in Louisiana, to distinguish them from immigrants. Later Creole was sometimes used as well to refer to people of African descent born in Louisiana. Later the terms were differentiated, by French Creole (European ancestry) and Louisiana Creole (meaning someone of mixed racial ancestry).
Contemporary usage has broadened the meaning of Louisiana Creoles
Louisiana Creole people
Louisiana Creole people refers to those who are descended from the colonial settlers in Louisiana, especially those of French and Spanish descent. The term was first used during colonial times by the settlers to refer to those who were born in the colony, as opposed to those born in the Old World...
to describe a broad cultural group of people of all races who share a French or Spanish background. Louisianans who identify themselves as "Creole" are most commonly from historically Francophone
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
communities, with some ancestors who came to Louisiana either directly from France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
or via the French colonies in the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
. Many Louisiana creole families arrived in Louisiana during the Colonial Period following the Slave Uprising led by Toussaint Breda (later called L'Overture) in 1791 in Ste. Dominique, later called Haiti. Protesting French Colonial rule - and winning the fight with the assistance, in part of the mosquito, as the French plantation owners most holding land grants from Louis XVI (farming primarily sugar) were succumbing to yellow fever. The slave army of L'Overture originally in alliance with the French to exile Spanish and English eventually helped evict them too creating a free Haiti. Though L'Overture wound up being imprisoned by Napoleon in a remote mountain jail dying of starvation and neglect while his army continued in liberating Sante Dominigue concurrently with Napoleon's Louisiana Purchase for his French King. With the French Revolution (1789) and Napoleon Bonaparte's deceiving L'Overture (despite his full cooperation with the French beginning with the Jacobian, Robespierre, and anti-slavery minded French a few years earlier) the French Colonist regime was then forced into exile with most being shipped first to Cuba. From Cuba the exiles finally arrived in the French governed and purchased Louisiana Colony where their descendents can be traced to date. New Orleans and the surrounding river parishes are the mainstays of Creole culture. The language however is a dying form. Spoken creole is dying with the dissolution of Creole families and continued 'Americanization' in the area. Most remaining creole lexemes have drifted into popular culture. Traditional French creole is spoken among those families determined to keep the language alive or in regions below New Orleans around St. James and St. John Parishes where German immigres originally settled (also known as 'the German Coast', or Les Cote Des Allemandes) and cultivated the land keeping the ill-equipped French Colonists from starvation during the Colonial Period and adopting commonly spoken French and Creole French (arriving with the exiles) as a language of trade.
Creoles are characterized as being largely Roman Catholic and influenced by traditional French culture left from the first Colonial Period officially beginning with the arrival of the Ursuline Nuns in 1721 (they were preceded by another order, the sisters of the Sacred Heart with whom they lived until their first convent could be built with monies from the French Crown. Both Orders still educate girls in 2010). The "fiery latin temperament" described by early scholars on New Orleans culture made sweeping generalizations to accommodate Creoles of Spanish heritage as well as the original French. The mulatto creoles, descendants of mixing of European colonists and slaves or sometimes 'Gens du Colour' (free men and women of colour) began during the colonial periods with the arrival of slave populations. Their collective cultures are known as "Creole" though many non-Louisianans often do not distinguish between the two groups, or do not recognize the distinctions held around the New Orleans area between the original white colonists that produced offspring who were the original first born in Louisiana and those creoles that were a mixture of European and slave populations or free men and women of color ancestry and whose skin was mulatto for lack of a better descriptor. Those 'criollos' the word of which comes from the Spanish language indicates "mixed" and was a term used in the post-French governance period to distinguish the two groups of New Orleans area and down river creoles. Both 'mulatto' (though specific amounts of blood from different ancestors is too lengthy a subject to interject here) and European creole groups share many of the same traditions, and language into this age but whose socio-economic roots differed in the original period of Louisiana history. The term is also often used to mean simply "pertaining to the New Orleans area".
Louisianans descended from the French Acadians of Canada are not creoles at all in the strictest sense but referred to as and identify as 'Cajuns' - a derivation of the word Acadian, indicating French Canadian settlers as ancestors. Though the land areas overlap around New Orleans and down river, Cajun culture and language extend westward all along the southern coast of Louisiana concentrating in areas southwest of New Orleans around Lafayette, Marksville, and as far as Crowley, Abbeville and into the rice belt of Louisiana nearer Lake Charles and the Texas border.
Portuguese Africa
The EnglishEnglish language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
word creole derives from the French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
créole, which in turn came from Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
crioulo. This word, a derivative of the verb criar ("to raise"), was coined in the 15th century, in the trading and military outposts established by Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
in West Africa
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...
and Cape Verde
Cape Verde
The Republic of Cape Verde is an island country, spanning an archipelago of 10 islands located in the central Atlantic Ocean, 570 kilometres off the coast of Western Africa...
. It originally referred to descendants of the Portuguese settlers who were born and "raised" locally. The word then spread to other languages, probably adopted from Portuguese slave traders who supplied most of the slaves to South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
through the 16th century.
While the Portuguese may have originally reserved the term crioulo for people of strictly European descent, the crioulo population came to be dominated by numerous people of mixed Portuguese and African ancestry. This mixing happened relatively quickly in most Portuguese colonies of the time. The growth of a mixed population was due to both the scarcity of Portuguese-born women in the settlements, and to the Portuguese Crown policy of encouraging mixed marriages in the colonies to create more stable populations.
The crioulos of mixed Portuguese and African descent eventually gave rise to several major ethnic groups in Africa, especially in Cape Verde
Cape Verde
The Republic of Cape Verde is an island country, spanning an archipelago of 10 islands located in the central Atlantic Ocean, 570 kilometres off the coast of Western Africa...
, Guinea-Bissau
Guinea-Bissau
The Republic of Guinea-Bissau is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Senegal to the north, and Guinea to the south and east, with the Atlantic Ocean to its west....
, São Tomé e Príncipe, Ziguinchor
Ziguinchor
Ziguinchor is the capital of the Ziguinchor Region, and the chief town of the Casamance area of Senegal, lying at the mouth of the Casamance River. It has a population of over 230,000...
(Casamance
Casamance
Casamance is the area of Senegal south of The Gambia including the Casamance River. It consists of Basse Casamance and Haute Casamance...
), Angola
Angola
Angola, officially the Republic of Angola , is a country in south-central Africa bordered by Namibia on the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean with Luanda as its capital city...
, Mozambique
Mozambique
Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest...
. Only a few of these groups have retained the name crioulo or variations of it:
- Cape VerdeCape VerdeThe Republic of Cape Verde is an island country, spanning an archipelago of 10 islands located in the central Atlantic Ocean, 570 kilometres off the coast of Western Africa...
- the dominant ethnic group, called Kriolus or Kriols in the local language; the language itself is also called "Creole";
- Guinea-BissauGuinea-BissauThe Republic of Guinea-Bissau is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Senegal to the north, and Guinea to the south and east, with the Atlantic Ocean to its west....
- Guinea-Bissau
- Crioulos
- São Tomé and PríncipeSão Tomé and PríncipeSão Tomé and Príncipe, officially the Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe, is a Portuguese-speaking island nation in the Gulf of Guinea, off the western equatorial coast of Central Africa. It consists of two islands: São Tomé and Príncipe, located about apart and about , respectively, off...
- São Tomé and Príncipe
- Crioulos
Other parts of Africa
Sierra LeoneSierra Leone
Sierra Leone , officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea to the north and east, Liberia to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west and southwest. Sierra Leone covers a total area of and has an estimated population between 5.4 and 6.4...
, founded by the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
to serve as a colony for freed slaves, has a Creole
Sierra Leone Creole people
The Sierra Leone Creoles, or Krios, are an ethnic group in Sierra Leone, descendants of West Indian slaves from the Caribbean, primarily from Jamaica; freed African American slaves from the Thirteen Colonies resettled from Nova Scotia; and Liberated Africans from various parts of Africa...
ethnic group whose ancestors migrated from Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, where many were Americans who had fought with the British and settled there after the American Revolutionary War
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
; the British West Indies
British West Indies
The British West Indies was a term used to describe the islands in and around the Caribbean that were part of the British Empire The term was sometimes used to include British Honduras and British Guiana, even though these territories are not geographically part of the Caribbean...
, and various parts of West Africa
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...
. Their offspring (born in the Freetown
Freetown
Freetown is the capital and largest city of Sierra Leone, a country in West Africa. It is a major port city on the Atlantic Ocean located in the Western Area of the country, and had a city proper population of 772,873 at the 2004 census. The city is the economic, financial, and cultural center of...
colony
Colony
In politics and history, a colony is a territory under the immediate political control of a state. For colonies in antiquity, city-states would often found their own colonies. Some colonies were historically countries, while others were territories without definite statehood from their inception....
) came to be known as Creoles or its cognate Krio
Sierra Leone Creole people
The Sierra Leone Creoles, or Krios, are an ethnic group in Sierra Leone, descendants of West Indian slaves from the Caribbean, primarily from Jamaica; freed African American slaves from the Thirteen Colonies resettled from Nova Scotia; and Liberated Africans from various parts of Africa...
. Many of these Creoles or Krios were of mixed ancestry, carrying admixture from the African slave heritage of the Americas as well as ancestry from allied Afo-European ethnic clans such as the Sherbro people
Sherbro people
The Sherbro people are a native people of Sierra Leone, who speak the Sherbro language; they make up 3% of Sierra Leone's population or about 201,000. They are also known as the Bullom people...
.
Similarly, the United States established a colony for freed slaves in what became Liberia
Liberia
Liberia , officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Sierra Leone on the west, Guinea on the north and Côte d'Ivoire on the east. Liberia's coastline is composed of mostly mangrove forests while the more sparsely populated inland consists of forests that open...
. Descendants of African-American immigrants, or Americo-Liberians, were often called Creoles. Many of the African-American immigrants and their descendants were of mixed ancestry.
Creoles from these two nations emigrated to other African countries, such as Equatorial Guinea
Equatorial Guinea
Equatorial Guinea, officially the Republic of Equatorial Guinea where the capital Malabo is situated.Annobón is the southernmost island of Equatorial Guinea and is situated just south of the equator. Bioko island is the northernmost point of Equatorial Guinea. Between the two islands and to the...
, where they were known as Krios; or Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
, where they were known as Saros. Some scholars report that a new wave of Krio immigrant descendants of freed slaves of Sierra Leone and Liberia are known as Fernandinos (see Fernando Po). The original Fernandinos of the region who existed on the islands of Bioko
Bioko
Bioko is an island 32 km off the west coast of Africa, specifically Cameroon, in the Gulf of Guinea. It is the northernmost part of Equatorial Guinea with a population of 124,000 and an area of . It is volcanic with its highest peak the Pico Basile at .-Geography:Bioko has a total area of...
and Sao Tome and Principe
São Tomé and Príncipe
São Tomé and Príncipe, officially the Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe, is a Portuguese-speaking island nation in the Gulf of Guinea, off the western equatorial coast of Central Africa. It consists of two islands: São Tomé and Príncipe, located about apart and about , respectively, off...
, both discovered by explorer Fernão do Pó
Fernão do Pó
Fernão do Pó , also Fernão Pó, Fernando Pó, Fernando Poo was a Portuguese navigator and explorer of the West African coast. He discovered the islands in the Gulf of Guinea around 1472, one of which until the mid 1900s bore a version of his name, Fernando Pó or Fernando Poo. The island is...
, stemmed from indigenous, Spanish and/or Portuguese ancestry.
An additional sub-group of African descent from the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
and South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
on Bioko Island
History of Equatorial Guinea
-Pre-colonial history:The first inhabitants of the region that is now Equatorial Guinea are believed to have been Pygmies, of whom only isolated pockets remain in northern Rio Muni. Bantu migrations between the 17th and 19th centuries brought the coastal tribes and later the Fang...
were descendants of freed Cuban and Brazilian slaves brought to the islands during the 17th century and 19th century. People of this specific ancestry were part of the emancipado
Emancipados
Emancipado was a term used for an African descended social-political demographic within the population of Spanish Guinea that existed in the early to mid 1900s...
population which included other distinct groups assimilated into the local colonial society.
Brazil
In Brazil, the word crioulo initially denoted persons of Portuguese parentage born in Brazil (as distinct from colonists that migrated from Portugal), like in Portuguese-speaking Africa. It eventually came to denote a person of predominantly African ancestry. In colonial Brazil, it was common refer to a Brazilian-born slave as a crioulo, whereas slaves from Africa were known as "Africans". Thus crioulo came to refer to slaves born and raised in Brazil. Later, crioulos was used to refer to all people of African ancestry.African slaves were imported into the country from the 17th century until the first half of the 19th century. Due to their multiple ethnic roots and to the wide geographic expanse of the country, the slaves and their descendants did not constitute a cohesive ethnic group. On the other hand, as in the Portuguese colonies in Africa, people of mixed Portuguese and African ancestry soon came to constitute a large segment of the population. There were no sharp class divisions based on degrees of African heritage.
Former Spanish Colonies
In regions that were formerly colonies of SpainSpain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, the Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
word criollo (literally, "native," "local") historically referred to class in the colonial caste system
Casta
Casta is a Portuguese and Spanish term used in seventeenth and eighteenth centuries mainly in Spanish America to describe as a whole the mixed-race people which appeared in the post-Conquest period...
, comprising people born in the colonies with unmixed Spanish
Spanish people
The Spanish are citizens of the Kingdom of Spain. Within Spain, there are also a number of vigorous nationalisms and regionalisms, reflecting the country's complex history....
descent. People with at most 1/8 of Amerindian ancestry, were also considered Criollos
Criollo people
The Criollo class ranked below that of the Iberian Peninsulares, the high-born permanent residence colonists born in Spain. But Criollos were higher status/rank than all other castes—people of mixed descent, Amerindians, and enslaved Africans...
; but this rule did not apply to black African
Black people
The term black people is used in systems of racial classification for humans of a dark skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups.Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class, socio-economic status also plays a...
ancestry. The crown often passed over Criollos for the top military, administrative, and religious offices in the colonies in favor of the Spanish-born Peninsulares
Peninsulares
In the colonial caste system of Spanish America, a peninsular was a Spanish-born Spaniard or mainland Spaniard residing in the New World, as opposed to a person of full Spanish descent born in the Americas or Philippines...
(literally "born in the Iberian Peninsula
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...
").
The word Criollo is a cognate of English "Creole", and often translated by it; even though many other Creole peoples never were historically connected to Spain or to the colonial system, and/or were never defined in terms of racial purity.
Spanish America
The racially based caste system was in force throughout the Spanish colonies in the AmericasSpanish colonization of the Americas
Colonial expansion under the Spanish Empire was initiated by the Spanish conquistadores and developed by the Monarchy of Spain through its administrators and missionaries. The motivations for colonial expansion were trade and the spread of the Christian faith through indigenous conversions...
, since the 16th century. By the 19th century, this discrimination and the example of the American Revolution
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
and the ideals of the Enlightenment eventually led the Spanish American Criollo elite to rebel against the Spanish rule. With the support of the lower classes, they engaged Spain in the Spanish American wars of independence (1810–1826), which ended with the break-up of former Spanish Empire in America into a number of independent republics.
Caribbean
In many parts of the Southern CaribbeanSouthern Caribbean
The Southern Caribbean is a group of islands that neighbor mainland South America in the West Indies. St. Lucia lies to the north of the region, Barbados in the east, Trinidad & Tobago at its southern most point, and Aruba at the most westerly section....
, the term "Creolean" is used to refer to a French-speaking person of primarily European ethnicity born in the Caribbean islands.
The term Creole is sometimes used to describe anyone, regardless of race or ethnicity, who was born and raised in the region. In Guadeloupe
Guadeloupe
Guadeloupe is an archipelago located in the Leeward Islands, in the Lesser Antilles, with a land area of 1,628 square kilometres and a population of 400,000. It is the first overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. As with the other overseas departments, Guadeloupe...
and Martinique
Martinique
Martinique is an island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a land area of . Like Guadeloupe, it is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. To the northwest lies Dominica, to the south St Lucia, and to the southeast Barbados...
, 'creole' is used to refer to people of mixed race accepted as white, and people classified as black/mulatto who are mixed of European, African and both native and east Indian. In the French West Indies, people of African and East Indian ancestry are called "Bata-Indians," which is not considered a pejorative term.
Creole, 'Kreyol' or 'Kweyol' also refers to the creole languages in the Caribbean, including Antillean Creole
Antillean Creole
Antillean Creole is a creole language with a vocabulary based on French. It is spoken primarily in the Lesser Antilles. Its grammar and vocabulary also include elements of Carib and African languages. Antillean Creole is related to Haitian Creole, but has a number of distinctive features; they are...
, Haitian Creole, and Jamaican Creole
Jamaican Creole
Jamaican Patois, known locally as Patois or Jamaican, and called Jamaican Creole by linguists, is an English-lexified creole language with West African influences spoken primarily in Jamaica and the Jamaican diaspora. It is not to be confused with Jamaican English nor with the Rastafarian use of...
, among others.
Indian Ocean
The usage of 'creole' in the islands of the southwest of the Indian Ocean varies according to the island. In RéunionRéunion
Réunion is a French island with a population of about 800,000 located in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar, about south west of Mauritius, the nearest island.Administratively, Réunion is one of the overseas departments of France...
and the Seychelles
Seychelles
Seychelles , officially the Republic of Seychelles , is an island country spanning an archipelago of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean, some east of mainland Africa, northeast of the island of Madagascar....
, the term 'creole' includes people born there of all ethnic groups. In Mauritius
Mauritius
Mauritius , officially the Republic of Mauritius is an island nation off the southeast coast of the African continent in the southwest Indian Ocean, about east of Madagascar...
, on the other hand, the term excludes people of primarily European descent. In all three, 'creole' also refers to languages derived from French.
See also
- Atlantic CreoleAtlantic CreoleAtlantic Creole is a term used in North America to describe the Charter Generation of slaves during the European colonization of the Americas before 1660. These slaves had cultural roots in Africa, Europe and sometimes the Caribbean. They were of mixed race, primarily descended from European...
- Creole elites
- Creole languageCreole languageA creole language, or simply a creole, is a stable natural language developed from the mixing of parent languages; creoles differ from pidgins in that they have been nativized by children as their primary language, making them have features of natural languages that are normally missing from...
- CriouloAfro-BrazilianIn Brazil, the term "preto" is one of the five categories used by the Brazilian Census, along with "branco" , "pardo" , "amarelo" and "indígena"...
- CriolloCriollo (people)The Criollo class ranked below that of the Iberian Peninsulares, the high-born permanent residence colonists born in Spain. But Criollos were higher status/rank than all other castes—people of mixed descent, Amerindians, and enslaved Africans...
- Haitian Creole peopleHaitian Creole peopleHaiti is one out of six Francophone countries and territories in the Americas that has a population which refers to themselves as Créole.The term Créole as used in Haïti and the rest of the French West Indies refers to the natives of these areas. Créole natif natal is a term used in Haiti to refer...
- Indo people
- KreolKreolThe name Kreol may be*any of many creole peoples or creole languages*Kreol , a software midi instrument.-See also:*Creole peoples*Creole language*Criol*Criollo *Krio *Kriol...
- KreyolKreyolThe word Kreyol may mean:*Liberian Kreyol language*Haitian Creole language *Louisiana Creole language -See also:*Creole peoples*creole language*Kriol *Krio *Kriolu*Criol...
- KriolKriolThe word Kriol could mean one of the following ethnic groups:* Belizean Kriol people or Kriols* Upper Guinea Kriol peopleIt could also mean any of the following Creole languages:* The English-based Australian Kriol language...
- Kristang peopleKristang peopleThe Kristang are a creole ethnic group of people of mixed Portuguese and Malaccan descent based in Malaysia and Singapore. People of this ethnicity have strong Dutch heritage, some British as well as Chinese and Indian heritage due to intermarriage, which was common among the Kristang...
- McGill family (Monrovia)McGill family (Monrovia)The McGill family of Monrovia, Liberia was a free African American mulatto family from Baltimore, Maryland which immigrated to Monrovia in the 19th century. The McGills were one of the most prominent early Americo-Liberian families and they were one of the early American settlers of Liberia...
- MestizoMestizoMestizo is a term traditionally used in Latin America, Philippines and Spain for people of mixed European and Native American heritage or descent...
- MétisMétisA Métis is a person born to parents who belong to different groups defined by visible physical differences, regarded as racial, or the descendant of such persons. The term is of French origin, and also is a cognate of mestizo in Spanish, mestiço in Portuguese, and mestee in English...
External links
- Made for the Creole Experience, news website aimed at multiracial readers
- AllCaboVerde.com, about the Crioulos of Cape Verde
- Frenchcreoles.com, about the Louisiana Creoles
- Creole Heritage Center, also about the Louisiana Creoles
- Creole island, also about the Reunionese Creoles
- kiskeyAcity blog entry: What exactly is a Creole?
- Avoyelles Parish Creoles
- Photos of Belize Creoles
- The History of Creoles and the French Language
- http://smallaxe.dukejournals.org/cgi/pdf_extract/13/3_30/vii - Islands of Créolité
- http://www.montraykreyol.org/spip.php?article177 - Créole (Not a term of race but of national origin and culture "C'est vrai")