COLONIAL RACIAL CATEGORIES
A casta is a term which has been interpreted by certain historians during the 20th century to describe mixed-race individuals in Spanish America, resulting from unions of Spaniards (españoles), Amerindians (Indios), and Africans (Negros). Basic mixed-race categories that appeared in official colonial documentation include Mestizo, generally offspring of a Spaniard and an India; Castizo, offspring of a Spaniard and a Mestiza; Mulatto, offspring of a Spaniard and a Negra; and Morisco was the offspring of a Spaniard and a Mulatta. There were a plethora of terms for mixed-race persons of indigenous and African ancestry, some of which appear in official documentation, but many do not.
Racial category labels had legal and social consequences, since racial status was a key organizing principle of Spanish colonial rule. Often called the sistema de castas or the sociedad de castas, there was, in fact, no fixed system of classification for individuals. There was considerable fluidity in society, with individuals being identified by different categories simultaneously or over time. Individuals self-identified by particular terms, often to shift their status from one category to another to their advantage. For example, Mestizos were exempt from tribute obligations, but were subject to the Inquisition, unlike Indios, who paid tribute and were exempt from the Inquisition. A Mestizo might try to "pass" as an Indio to escape the Inquisition. An Indio might try to pass as a Mestizo to escape tribute obligations.
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Affranchi is a former French legal term denoting a freedman or emancxipated slave, but was a term used to refer pejoratively to mulattoes. It is used in the English language to describe the social class of freedmen in Saint-Domingue, and other slave-holding French territories, who held legal rights intermediate between those of free whites and enslaved Africans. In Saint-Domingue, roughly half of the affranchis were gens de couleur libres (free people of color; Mulatto) and the other half African slaves.
The term is derived from the French word for emancipation — affranchissement, or enfranchisement in terms of political rights. But, the affranchis were barred from the franchise (voting) prior to a 1791 court case, which followed the French Revolution. The decision in their favor prompted a backlash from the French white planter class on Saint-Domingue, who also exerted power in France. These elements contributed to the outbreak of the Haitian Revolution.
The affranchis had legal and social advantages over enslaved Africans. They became a distinct class in the society between whites and slaves. They could get some education, were able to own land, and could attend some French colonial entertainments. Planters who took slave women or free women of color as concubines, often sent their sons to France for education. In some cases these sons entered the French military. The parents were more likely to settle property on them as well. Because of such property and class issues, some free men of color considered themselves to have status above that of the petits blancs, shopkeepers and workers. Nonetheless, the latter had more political rights in the colony until after the Revolution.
The colonists passed so many restrictions that the affranchis were limited as a separate caste. The affranchis could not vote or hold colonial administrative posts, or work in professional careers as doctors or lawyers. There were sumptuary laws: the free people of color were forbidden to wear the style of clothes favored by the wealthy white colonists. In spite of the disadvantages, many educated affranchis identified culturally with France rather than with the enslaved population. A social class in between, the free people of color sometimes had tensions with both whites and enslaved Africans.
Ambitious mulattoes worked to gain acceptance from the white colonists who held power in that society. As they advanced in society, affranchis often also held land and slaves. Some acted as creditors for planters. One of the affranchi leaders in the late 18th century, Julien Raimond, an indigo planter, claimed that affranchis owned a third of all the slaves in the colony at that time. In the early years of the French Revolution and Haitian Revolution, many gens de couleur were committed to maintaining the institution of slavery. They wanted political equality based on class - that is, extended to men of property, regardless of skin color.
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Plaçage was a recognized extralegal system in French and Spanish slave colonies of North America (including the Caribbean) by which ethnic European men entered into civil unions with non-Europeans of African, Native American and mixed-race descent. The term comes from the French placer meaning "to place with". The women were not legally recognized as wives but were known as placées; their relationships were recognized among the free people of color (gens de couleur libres) as mariages de la main gauche or left-handed marriages. They became institutionalized with contracts or negotiations that settled property on the woman and her children, and in some cases gave them freedom if they were enslaved. The system flourished throughout the French and Spanish colonial periods, reaching its zenith during the latter, between 1769 and 1803.
Placage was widely practiced in New Orleans, where planter society had created enough wealth to support the system. It also took place in the Latin-influenced cities of Natchez and Biloxi, Mississippi; Mobile, Alabama; Saint Augustine and Pensacola, Florida; as well as Saint-Domingue (now the Republic of Haiti). Placage became associated with New Orleans as part of its cosmopolitan society.
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