Brazil-Carribbean-Surinam Slave Terminology

Plate 23, Torna atras x Grifo; Chino, p. 87.jpg
Ilona Katzew, "New World Orders: Casta Painting and Colonial Latin America",
Americas Society Art Gallery, New York, 1996, Plate 23: Torna atras × Grifo; Chino, p. 87

To the reader: please do not take offense at the terminology below. This terminology is clearly racist, and should be insulting to many, many people. This terminology is here as it is a record of how people were viewed.

Aside from terminology, members of each "casta" were more or less distinguishable by their dress. Sumptuary laws specified dress that would be illigal for members of specific castas to wear. Other ways in which the castas were distinguished were as follows: 1

Slaves on the Carribbean sugar plantations, or at Dutch Guyanese sugar plantations, or Brazilian Fazendas (especially sugar in Pernambuco, coffee, etc. or working at diamond mines, gold and silver mines, mercury mines, etc.) were described by a different terminology than that used in Nueva España. The following list is brief, as many terms were used.

Terminology Meaning
acabralhado mulatto × Black
alboraico, alboraique The terms "alboraico" and "alboraique" are used pejoratively for conversos, roots similar to alcohol, algebra, arroba, etc. Muhammad's fabled animal, neither horse nor mule (New Christians, or converso: neither Jews nor Christians) Click for additional information
alobado Amerindian × Black
boshneger maroon or cimarron: escaped slaves
brancarrõe light-skinned mulatto
caboegre, carboeger,
    caboekkel, cabocolo 2
Amerindian × Black: copper-coloured mestizo
caburé dark-skinned coboclo
gente do color pardo
grief Caucasian × Black
Máe Prêta Mammy (Black slave, mother to Caucasian child)
mameluco 3 Caucasian × Amerindian (Portuguese African creole)
misty (misty claro,
    misty oscuro)
Caucasian × Black (light-skinned, dark-skinned)
moreno Prêto
mozambo Brazilian born slave of Portuguese descent
mucama, mumbanda slave (wet-nurse or favorite female)
mulatto, mulatto blanco,
    mulatto claro
Iberian Caucasian × Black (light skin coloured)
octoroon Caucasian × Black (1/8 Black)
pardivasco Caucasian × Black
pardo Caucasian × African Black: colored person
poestiche Caucasian × Black
prêtinho Black (diminutive): nigger "boy"
prêto Black
prêto retinto dark-complexioned Black
quadroon Caucasian × Black (1/4 Black)
quintroon Caucasian × Black (1/16 Black)
sarará light-skinned mullata with red, kinky hair
weglooper runaway slave

1   Magnus Mörner, "Race Mixture in the History of Latin America", Little, Brown and Company, Boston, pp. 62-63.
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2   Caboclo applied to mestizos as well as acculturated Indians. Magnus Mörner, "Race Mixture in the History of Latin America", Little, Brown and Company, Boston, pp. 70-71.
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3   Mameluco applied to mestizo. Magnus Mörner, "Race Mixture in the History of Latin America", Little, Brown and Company, Boston, p. 70.

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