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 |
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