Sacatra

Sacatra was a term used in the French Colony of Saint-Domingue to describe the descendant of one black and one griffe parent, ^[1] a person whose ancestry is 7⁄8 black and 1⁄8 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 Spanish sacar'take out' and atrás'behind'; ^[3] 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 the 1989 novel The Dancing Other, French author Suzanne Dracius mentions her main character finding "true friendship with a cheery sacatra girl with soft, caramel skin." ^[4]
• Nalo Hopkinson's 2004 speculative fiction novel The Salt Roads begins with Georgine, an enslaved 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." ^[5]

See also

• Mulatto Haitians
• Quadroon
• Octoroon
• Affranchi
• Gens de couleur
• Afro-Haitians
• Marabou

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. "Nancy Naomi Carlson and Catherine Maigret Kellogg translating Suzanne Dracius". Drunken Boat. Retrieved 2017-04-08.
5. Hopkinson, Nalo (2004). The Salt Roads. New York: Warner US. p. 2. ISBN   978-0446677134.