Sacatra

Sacatra was a term used in the French Colony of Saint-Domingue to describe one who was the descendant of one black and one griffe parent.[1] The term is also used to describe one whose ancestry is 78ths black and 18th white. It was one of the many terms used in the colony's racial caste system to measure one's black blood.[2]

The etymology of sacatra is uncertain; Félix Rodríguez González linked it to the Spanish sacar ("take out") and atrás ("behind");[3][4] thus, a sacatra is a slave who is not kept in the house or at the front as a lighter-skinned servant might be.

In fiction

  • In French author Suzanne Dracius' 1989 novel, The Dancing Other, she mentions her main character finding "true friendship with a cheery sacatra girl with soft, caramel skin." [5]
  • Nalo Hopkinson's speculative fiction novel The Salt Roads begins with Georgine, a slave girl who gets pregnant by a white man, denying that her child is going to be "just mulatto. I’m griffonne, my mother was sacatra. The baby will be marabou.” [6]

See also

References

  1. "Sacatra". Wordnik.
  2. "The Kingdom of This World". msu.edu. Retrieved 2017-03-28.
  3. Gonzáles, Félix Rodríguez (26 June 2017). Spanish Loanwords in the English Language: A Tendency towards Hegemony Reversal. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. ISBN 9783110890617 via Google Books.
  4. Curry, Ginette (5 May 2009). "Toubab La!" Literary Representations of Mixed-Race Characters in the African Diaspora. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 9781443810715 via Google Books.
  5. "Nancy Naomi Carlson and Catherine Maigret Kellogg translating Suzanne Dracius". Drunken Boat. Retrieved 2017-04-08.
  6. Hopkinson, Nalo (2004). The Salt Roads. New York: Warner US. p. 2. ISBN 978-0446677134.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.