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A mulatto (also mulato) is a person of mixed ancestry with an African and a European parent (half black and half white) and the offspring of two mulatto parents. Also, a person of lighter skin pigmentation that may refer to his/herself as the oxymoron, light-skinned black.

In colonial years the term originally referred to the children of one European and one African parent, or the children of two mulatto parents. During this era a myriad of other terms, both in Latin America and the USA, were in use to denote other individuals of African/European ancestry. Today, mulatto usually refers to people with a median of African and European skin tone and features.

The origin of the term is often said to derive from "mula", the Spanish word for mule, once a generic designation name for any hybrid. This is believed to be the reason it is considered offensive by some English-speakers, who might prefer terms like "biracial" or "mixed" instead. Others, however, insist on using the term mulatto because it is more precise in defining the genetic admixture. Eventhough some words may have negative origins, many words that are now widely used are acceptable in American vernacular, e.g. Hysteria (sexist origin but now refers to something very amusing) and Slav (referred to being enslaved but now refers to the Slavic people. Many Spanish-speakers do not consider "mulatto" offensive; in fact, in Latin America the term is even associated with beauty and sometimes with artistic ability. An alternate etymology traces mulatto to the Arabic muwallad, which means "a person of mixed ancestry".

Etymology

Mule

The origin of the term given by most dictionaries is mulo, mule, from Old Spanish, from Latin mulus.

Mulo/a versus muwallad

Muwallad referred to the offspring of Arab men and African women. Some of these mixed children were usually not discriminated against, and actually succeeded their fathers as caliphs. According to professor Labrado muwallad is the etymological origin of mulato. Another theory maintains that mulato would not have been directly derived from muwallad but from muladi which was in turn derived from muwallad.

The term mulato is documented in the data bank of the Real Academia Española for the first time in 1549, while muladi does not appear until the half of the 18th century. However, it is very unlikely that this reflected the actual period of coinage. The question raised is, how could muladí be coined three to four hundred years after the Arab period in Spain? Common usage could not pull an Arabic word out of thin air to serve as model. The explanation for the late occurrence of muladí in Spanish dictionaries is not hard to find. Both muladí and mulato would have originated not in Christian Spain, but among Christians living under Islamic rule - the Mozarabs (practicing Christians and Arabic-speaking Christians), and later the muladíes (Christians converted to Islam).

There are several problems with this interpretation, however. Muladí was used predominantly in Spanish, but the definition indicates those that converted to Islam and lived among Arabs. The definition did not indicate phenotype.

The phonetic similarity is not as strong orally. There is a strong need to focus on the accent as it identifies how the word was pronounced and how it could evolve. The term was Moo-lah-DEE with the stress on the i. This contrasts with mulato pronounced Moo-LAH-toh. That stress difference is obvious in the plural writing too. Muladíes, Moo-lah-DEE-es. Considering the fact that mulato and muladí were contemporaneous in use there is still the question of how would the division in spelling and pronunciation have occurred.

The claim is addressed by the Royal Academy of Spain: "The term MULATO is documented in our diachronic data bank in 1549, whereas MULADÍ (From Mullawadí) does not appear until the half of the XVIII century, according to Corominas (in our data bank CORDE there are no examples until 1902). Therefore, it is not possible to derive MULATO from MULADí. On the other hand, the suffix -ato is found in the DRAE with several meanings, among them the one of 'animal young': fawn cervato, wild boar jabato, and Mule mulato. The term would have been used by comparison of the hybrid generation of the mulato with the one of the mule.

Even if muladí was coined at an earlier date outside Spain prior to the recordings in the DRAE, the existence of mulato, used in context of a small mule and the lack of the existence of muladí in Spain would obviate any causational correlation between the two.

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" or "mixed race," instead. The second meaning of mulo in Spanish according to the Real Academia Española 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 as well as Leopoldo Eguilaz y Yanguas and others as well as different Arab sources 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 English vocabulary.

Demography

Hispanic America and Brazil

Mulattos represent a significant portion of these countries: Cuba (approx. 51%), Brazil (approx. 38%), Colombia, Venezuela, and Panama (approx. 14%), Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica (approx. 5%).

The roughly 200,000 Africans brought to Mexico (and a similar number in Honduras) were for the most part absorbed by the mestizo populations of mixed European and Amerindian descent. The state of Guerrero once had a large population of African slaves. Mexican states inhabited by people with some African ancestry next to other ancestries also include Oaxaca, Veracruz and Yucatan. When slavery was abolished, the African and Mulatto populations were even more absorbed. Culturally the blending of native American, European and African elements over four and a half centuries produced new cultures reflective of the mixing of these peoples.

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.

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 patrilineal 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 10% of the population.

Mulattos made up a class of their own. 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.

See Also

• List of Black/White people
• Quadroon/Octoroon - Includes list of famous quadroons and octoroons
• Sambo

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.

• Multiracial affairs