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67-467: Mauritian Creoles trace their origins to the plantation owners and slaves who were brought to work the sugar fields. When slavery was abolished on 1 February 1835, an attempt was made to secure a cheap source of adaptable labour for intensive sugar plantations in Mauritius. Indentured labour began with Indian, Chinese, Malay, African and Malagasy labourers, but ultimately, it was India which supplied

134-496: A humanism of diversity . Subsequent to a Constitutional amendment in 1982, there is no need for Mauritians to reveal their ethnic identities for the purpose of population census. Official statistics on ethnicity are not available. The 1972 census was the last one to measure ethnicity. Statistics Mauritius compiles data on religious affiliation every ten years during census. The Mauritian diaspora consists of Mauritian emigrants and their descendants in various countries around

201-469: A Recipe for Conviviality (2020) The following ethnic groups have been historically characterized as "Creole" peoples: Alaskan Creole, sometimes colloquially spelled "Kriol" in English (from Russian креол), are a unique people who first came about through the intermingling of Sibero-Russian promyshlenniki men with Aleut and Eskimo women in the late 18th century and assumed a prominent position in

268-587: A certain privilege during the Portuguese era. In Sierra Leone , the mingling of newly freed Africans and mixed heritage Nova Scotians and Jamaican Maroons from the Western hemisphere and Liberated Africans - such as the Akan , Igbo people , and Yoruba people - over several generations in the late 18th and early 19th centuries led to the eventual creation of the aristocratic ethnic group now known as

335-484: A commonality in many other Francophone and Iberoamerican cultures, who tend to lack strict racial separations common in United States History and other countries with large populations from Northern Europe 's various cultures. This racial neutrality persists to the modern day, as many Creoles do not use race as a factor for being a part of the ethno-culture. Contemporary usage has again broadened

402-661: A distinct cultural identity that has been shaped over time. The emergence of creole languages , frequently associated with Creole ethnicity, is a separate phenomenon. In specific historical contexts, particularly during the European colonial era , the term Creole applies to ethnicities formed through large-scale population movements . These movements involved people from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds who converged upon newly established colonial territories . Often involuntarily separated from their ancestral homelands, these populations were forced to adapt and create

469-545: A few of these groups have retained the name crioulo or variations of it: The usage of creole in the islands of the southwest of the Indian Ocean varies according to the island. In Mauritius , Mauritian Creoles will be identified based on both ethnicity and religion. Mauritian Creoles being either people who are of Mauritian ancestry or those who are both racially mixed and Christian. The Mauritian Constitution identifies four communities namely, Hindu, Muslim, Chinese and

536-410: A new way of life. Through a process of cultural amalgamation, they selectively adopted and merged desirable elements from their varied heritages. This resulted in the emergence of novel social norms, languages, and cultural practices that transcended their individual origins. This process of cultural amalgamation, termed creolization , is characterized by rapid social change that ultimately leads to

603-612: A number of independent republics. Persons of pure Spanish descent born in the islands of the Spanish Philippines were called Insulares ("islanders") or Criollos. Although many of the Spanish Americans in the islands were also persons of pure Spanish descent, they, along with many Mestizos and Castizos from Spanish America living in the East Indies were also classified as "Americanos". In many parts of

670-511: A number of settlements in southeastern Texas and western Louisiana (e.g. Los Adaes ). Black Texas Creoles have been present in Texas ever since the 1600s; they served as soldiers in Spanish garrisons of eastern Texas. Generations of Black Texas Creoles, also known as "Black Tejanos", played a role in later phases of Texas history: Mexican Texas, Republic of Texas, and American Texas. Unlike

737-401: A product of colonization , nor become colonially organized territories. Territories furthermore do not need to have been militarily conquered and occupied to come under colonial rule and to be considered de facto colonies, instead neocolonial exploitation of dependency or imperialist use of power to intervene to force policy, might make a territory be considered a colony, which broadens

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804-493: A settlement became known as its metropolis ("mother-city"). Since early-modern times, historians, administrators, and political scientists have generally used the term "colony" to refer mainly to the many different overseas territories of particularly European states between the 15th and 20th centuries CE , with colonialism and decolonization as corresponding phenomena. While colonies often developed from trading outposts or territorial claims , such areas do not need to be

871-533: A similar usage, beginning in the Caribbean in the 16th century, which distinguished people born in the French, Spanish, and Portuguese colonies from the various new arrivals born in their respective, non-Caribbean homelands. Some writers from other parts of the country have mistakenly assumed the term to refer only to people of mixed racial descent, but this is not the traditional Louisiana usage. In Louisiana,

938-609: A unique blend of European, Native American, and African cultures. Louisianians descended from the French Acadians of Canada are also Creoles in a strict sense, and there are many historical examples of people of full European ancestry and with Acadian surnames, such as the influential Alexandre and Alfred Mouton, being explicitly described as "Creoles." Today, however, the descendants of the Acadians are more commonly referred to as, and identify as, ' Cajuns '—a derivation of

1005-552: A varying degree dominated by remaining colonial settler societies or neocolonialism . The term colony originates from the ancient Roman colonia , a type of Roman settlement. Derived from colonus (farmer, cultivator, planter, or settler), it carries with it the sense of 'farm' and 'landed estate'. Furthermore, the term was used to refer to the older Greek apoikia ( Ancient Greek : ἀποικία , lit.   'home away from home'), which were overseas settlements by ancient Greek city-states . The city that founded such

1072-430: Is Cajun and any francophone of African descent is Creole—a false assumption that would not have been recognized in the nineteenth century . Some assert that "Creole" refers to aristocratic urbanites whereas "Cajuns" are agrarian members of the francophone working class, but this is another relatively recent distinction. Creoles may be of any race and live in any area, rural or urban . The Creole culture of Southwest Louisiana

1139-727: Is found more often in the Chesapeake Colonies. In the United States , the words "Louisiana Creole" refers to people of any race or mixture thereof who are descended from colonial French La Louisiane and colonial Spanish Louisiana (New Spain) settlers before the Louisiana region became part of the United States in 1803 with the Louisiana Purchase . Both the word and the ethnic group derive from

1206-429: Is historically inaccurate. Louisiane Creoles were also referred to as criollos , a word from the Spanish language meaning "created" and used in the post-French governance period to distinguish the two groups of New Orleans area and down river Creoles. Both mixed race and European Creole groups share many traditions and language, but their socio-economic roots differed in the original period of Louisiana history. Actually,

1273-540: Is now present day Mozambique and Zimbabwe, to create the Prazeros and Luso-Africans , who were loyal to the Portuguese crown and served to advance its interests in southeastern Africa . A legacy of this era are the numerous Portuguese words that have entered Shona , Tsonga and Makonde. Today, mixed race communities exist across the region, notably so in South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe. In colonial era Zambia,

1340-541: Is spoken among those families determined to keep the language alive or in regions below New Orleans around St. James and St. John Parishes where German immigrants originally settled (also known as 'the German Coast', or La Côte des Allemands) and cultivated the land, keeping the ill-equipped French Colonists from starvation during the Colonial Period and adopting commonly spoken French and creole (arriving with

1407-533: Is thus more similar to the culture dominant in Acadiana than it is to the Creole culture of New Orleans . Though the land areas overlap around New Orleans and down river, Cajun/Creole culture and language extend westward all along the southern coast of Louisiana, concentrating in areas southwest of New Orleans around Lafayette, and as far as Crowley, Abbeville, and into the rice belt of Louisiana nearer Lake Charles and

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1474-558: The Creoles . Thoroughly westernized in their manners and bourgeois in their methods, the Creoles established a comfortable dominance in the country through a combination of British colonial favouritism and political and economic activity. Their influence in the modern republic remains considerable, and their language Krio - an English-based creole language - is the lingua franca and de facto national language spoken throughout

1541-573: The Caribbean and Canada. Many Louisiana Creole families arrived in Louisiana from Saint-Domingue as refugees from the Haitian Revolution , along with other immigrants from Caribbean colonial centers like Santo Domingo and Havana . The children of slaves brought primarily from Western Africa were also considered Creoles, as were children born of unions between Native Americans and non-Natives. Creole culture in Louisiana thus consists of

1608-862: The European colonial era, with some mix of African and non-African racial or cultural heritage. Creole communities are found on most African islands and along the continent's coastal regions where indigenous Africans first interacted with Europeans. As a result of these contacts, five major Creole types emerged in Africa: Portuguese , African American , Dutch , French and British . The Crioulos of African or mixed Portuguese and African descent eventually gave rise to several ethnic groups in Cape Verde , Guinea-Bissau , São Tomé e Príncipe , Angola and Mozambique . The French-speaking Mauritian and Seychellois Creoles are both either African or ethnically mixed and Christianized . On Réunion ,

1675-527: The European colonization of the Americas before 1660. Some had lived and worked in Europe or the Caribbean before coming (or being transported) to North America. Examples of such men included John Punch and Emanuel Driggus (his surname was likely derived from Rodrigues ). Also, during the early settlement of the colonies, children born of immigrants in the colonies were often referred to as "Creole". This

1742-623: The Spanish word criollo (implying "native born") historically denoted a class in the colonial caste system comprising people born in the colonies with total or mostly European, mainly Spanish , descent. Those with mostly European descent were considered on the basis of their “passing” for white. For example, many castizos could've gotten away with passing as criollo because their features would be strikingly European and so many of them would assume such identity in passing, mainly for economic reasons. "Criollo" came to refer to things distinctive of

1809-679: The 19th century, this discrimination and the example of the American Revolution and the ideals of the Enlightenment eventually led the Spanish American Criollo elite to rebel against the Spanish rule. With the support of the lower classes, they engaged Spain in the Spanish American wars of independence (1810–1826), which ended with the break-up of the former Spanish Empire in the Americas into

1876-685: The Americas, the term coloured is preferred in Southern Africa to refer to mixed people of African and European descent. The colonisation of the Cape Colony by the Dutch East India Company led to the importation of Indonesian, East African and Southeast Asian slaves, who intermingled with Dutch settlers and the indigenous population leading to the development of a creolized population in the early 1700s. Additionally, Portuguese traders mixed with African communities, in what

1943-487: The Caribbean has French, Spanish, Portuguese, British, or Dutch ancestry, mixed with sub-Saharan African ethnicities, and sometimes mixed with Native Indigenous peoples of the Americas. As workers from Asia entered the Caribbean, Creole people of colour intermarried with Arabs, Indians, Chinese, Javanese, Filipinos, Koreans, and Hmongs. The latter combinations were especially common in Guadeloupe. The foods and cultures are

2010-612: The Chesapeake Colonies as the Charter Generation of slaves during the Transatlantic Slave Trade before 1660. The Crioulos of mixed Portuguese and African descent eventually gave rise to several major ethnic groups in Africa, especially in Cape Verde , Guinea-Bissau , São Tomé e Príncipe , Equatorial Guinea (especially Annobón Province ), Ziguinchor ( Casamance ), Angola , Mozambique . Only

2077-593: The Franco-Mauritians and their Creole allies to the Indo-Mauritians. The meeting of a mosaic of people from Europe, India, Africa and China began a process of hybridisation and intercultural frictions and dialogues, which poet Khal Torabully has termed "coolitude". This social reality is a major reference for identity opened to otherness and is widely used in Mauritius where it represents

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2144-464: The French word Créole is derived from the Portuguese word Crioulo , which described people born in the Americas as opposed to Spain. The term is often used to mean simply "pertaining to the New Orleans area," but this, too, is not historically accurate. People all across the Louisiana territory, including the pays des Illinois , identified as Creoles, as evidenced by the continued existence of

2211-491: The General Population. Creoles are included in the General Population category along with white Christians. The term also indicates the same to the people of Seychelles . On Réunion the term creole applies to all people born on the island. In all three societies, creole also refers to the new languages derived from French and incorporating other languages. In regions that were formerly colonies of Spain ,

2278-627: The Southern Caribbean, the term Creole people is used to refer to the mixed-race descendants of Europeans and Africans born in the islands. Over time, there was intermarriage with Amerindians and residents from Asia, the Middle East and Latin America as well. They eventually formed a common culture based on their experience of living together in countries colonized by the French, Spanish, Dutch, and British. A typical Creole person from

2345-476: The Texas border. Louisiana Creoles historically spoke a variety of languages; today, the most prominent include Louisiana French and Louisiana Creole . (There is a distinction between "Creole" people and the "creole" language. Not all Creoles speak creole—many speak French, Spanish, or English as primary languages.) Spoken creole is dying with continued 'Americanization' in the area. Most remaining Creole lexemes have drifted into popular culture. Traditional creole

2412-445: The arts, and journalism. Atlantic Creole is a term coined by historian Ira Berlin to describe a group of people from Angola and Central Africa in the 16th and 17th centuries with cultural or ethnic ties to Africa , Europe , and sometimes the Caribbean . They often had Portuguese names and were sometimes mixed race. Their knowledge of different cultures made them skilled traders and negotiators, but some were enslaved and arrived in

2479-424: The colonies on a previous Habsburg era. In Argentina , in an ambiguous ethnoracial way, criollo currently is used for people whose ancestors were already present in the territory in the colonial period, regardless their ethnicity. The exception are dark-skinned African people and current indigenous groups. The word criollo is the origin and cognate of the French word creole . The racially-based caste system

2546-534: The concept, including indirect rule or puppet states (contrasted by more independent types of client states such as vassal states ). Subsequently, some historians have used the term informal colony to refer to a country under a de facto control of another state. Though the broadening of the concept is often contentious. The word "colony" comes from the Latin word colōnia , used for ancient Roman outposts and eventually for cities. This in turn derives from

2613-505: The country. The extension of these Sierra Leoneans' business and religious activities to neighbouring Nigeria in the late 19th and early 20th centuries - where many of them had ancestral ties - subsequently caused the creation of an offshoot in that country, the Saros . Now often considered to be part of the wider Yoruba ethnicity, the Saros have been prominent in politics, the law, religion,

2680-404: The culture of the Caribbean. In Trinidad , the term Creole is used to designate all Trinidadians except those of Asian origin. In Suriname , the term refers only to the descendants of enslaved Africans and in neighboring French Guiana the term refers to anyone, regardless of skin colour, who has adopted a European lifestyle. In Africa, the term Creole refers to any ethnic group formed during

2747-446: The descendants of European colonists who had been born in the colony. Creole is also known by cognates in other languages, such as crioulo , criollo , creolo , kriolu , criol , kreyol , kreol , kriol , krio , and kriyoyo . In Louisiana , the term Creole has been used since 1792 to represent descendants of African or mixed heritage parents as well as children of French and Spanish descent with no racial mixing. Its use as in

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2814-470: The economy of Russian America and the North Pacific Rim. Atlantic Creole is a term coined by historian Ira Berlin to describe a group of people from Angola and Central Africa in the 16th and 17th centuries with cultural or ethnic ties to Africa , Europe , and sometimes the Caribbean . Some of these people arrived in the Chesapeake Colonies as the Charter Generation of slaves during

2881-429: The eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries make use of the word "Creole" without any additional qualifier. Creoles of Spanish and German descent also exist, and Spanish Creoles survive today as Isleños and Malagueños, both found in southern Louisiana. However, all racial categories of Creoles - from Caucasian, mixed racial, African, to Native American - tended to think and refer to themselves solely as Creole,

2948-792: The exiles) as a language of trade. Creoles are largely Roman Catholic and influenced by traditional French and Spanish culture left from the first Colonial Period, officially beginning in 1722 with the arrival of the Ursuline Nuns , who were preceded by another order, the sisters of the Sacred Heart, with whom they lived until their first convent could be built with monies from the French Crown. (Both orders still educate girls in 2010). The "fiery Latin temperament" described by early scholars on New Orleans culture made sweeping generalizations to accommodate Creoles of Spanish heritage as well as

3015-823: The following islands: Colony A colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, the rule remains separate to the original country of the colonizers, the metropolitan state (or "mother country"), which together have often been organized as colonial empires , particularly with the development of modern imperialism and its colonialism . This coloniality and possibly colonial administrative separation, while often blurred, makes colonies neither annexed or integrated territories nor client states . Colonies contemporarily are identified and organized as not sufficiently self-governed dependent territories . Other past colonies have become either sufficiently incorporated and self-governed , or independent , with some to

3082-448: The formation of a distinct Creole identity. The English word creole derives from the French créole , which in turn came from Portuguese crioulo , a diminutive of cria meaning a person raised in one's house. Cria is derived from criar , meaning "to raise or bring up", itself derived from the Latin creare , meaning "to make, bring forth, produce, beget"; which is also the source of the English word "create". It originally referred to

3149-418: The intermingling of African Recaptives with Afro-Caribbean people and African Americans . Perhaps due to the range of divergent descriptions and lack of a coherent definition, Norwegian anthropologist T. H. Eriksen concludes: “A Creole society, in my understanding, is based wholly or partly on the mass displacement of people who were, often involuntarily, uprooted from their original home, shedding

3216-444: The main features of their social and political organisations on the way, brought into sustained contact with people from other linguistic and cultural areas and obliged to develop, in creative and improvisational ways, new social and cultural forms in the new land, drawing simultaneously on traditions from their respective places of origin and on impulses resulting from the encounter.” Thomas Hylland Eriksen , Creolisation as

3283-410: The meaning of Louisiana Creoles to describe a broad cultural group of people of all races who share a colonial Louisianian background. Louisianians who identify themselves as "Creole" are most commonly from historically Francophone and Hispanic communities. Some of their ancestors came to Louisiana directly from France , Spain , or Germany , while others came via the French and Spanish colonies in

3350-411: The much needed labourers to Mauritius, mainly sugar cane workers. This period of intensive use of Indian labour took place during British rule , with many brutal episodes and a long struggle by the indentured for respect. The term applied to the indentured during this period, and which has since become a derogatory term for Mauritians of Asian descent, was coolie . The island soon became the key-point in

3417-548: The name for languages started from 1879, while as an adjective for languages, its use began around 1748. In Spanish-speaking countries, the word Criollo refers to the descendants of Europeans born in the Americas, but also in some countries, to describe something local or very typical of a particular Latin American region. In the Caribbean , the term broadly refers to all the people, whatever their class or ancestry — African, East Asian, European, Indian — who are part of

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3484-482: The nation. Their ancestors and more recent migrants are now known as Mauritian Australians . Aboriginal people from islands south of the continent likewise settled in Australia. Creole peoples Creole peoples may refer to various ethnic groups around the world. The term's meaning exhibits regional variations, often sparking debate. Creole peoples represent a diverse array of ethnicities, each possessing

3551-457: The original French. The mixed-race Creoles, descendants of mixing of European colonists, slaves, and Native Americans or sometimes Gens de Couleur (free men and women of colour), first appeared during the colonial periods with the arrival of slave populations. Most Creoles, regardless of race, generally consider themselves to share a collective culture. Non-Louisianans often fail to appreciate this and assume that all Creoles are of mixed race, which

3618-540: The region, as it is used today, in expressions such as "comida criolla" ("country" food from the area). In the latter period of settlement of Latin America called La Colonia , the Bourbon Spanish Crown preferred Spanish-born Peninsulares (literally "born in the Iberian Peninsula ") over Criollos for the top military, administrative, and religious offices due to the former mismanagement of

3685-571: The result of creolization of these influences. "Kreyòl" or "Kwéyòl" or "Patois/Patwa" refers to the French-lexicon Creole languages in the Caribbean, including Antillean French Creole , Haitian Creole , and Trinidadian Creole . Creole also refers to Bajan Creole , Bahamian Creole , Belizean Creole , Guyanese Creole , Jamaican Patois , Tobagonian Creole , Trinidadian Creole and Sranan Tongo (Surinamese Creole), among others. People speak French-lexicon Antillean Creole in

3752-542: The term Créole in the critically endangered Missouri French . The Mississippi Gulf Coast region has a significant population of Creoles—especially in Pass Christian , Gulfport , Biloxi , and Pascagoula . A community known as Creoletown is located in Pascagoula, with its history on record. Many in this location are Catholic and have also used the Creole, French. and English languages. In colonial Texas,

3819-598: The term Eurafrican was often used though it has largely fallen out of use in the modern era and is no longer recognized at the national level. Today, South African Coloureds and Cape Malay form the majority of the population in the Western Cape and a plurality in the Northern Cape . In addition to Coloured people, the term mestiço is used in Angola and Mozambique to refer to mixed race people, who enjoyed

3886-401: The term "Creole" ( criollo ) distinguished old-world Africans and Europeans from their descendants born in the new world, Creoles; they composed the citizen class of New Spain 's Tejas province. Texas Creole culture revolved around "' ranchos " (Creole ranches), attended mostly by vaqueros (cowboys) of African, Spaniard, or Mestizo descent, and Tlaxcalan Nahuatl settlers , who established

3953-465: The term "Creole" was first used to describe people born in Louisiana, who used the term to distinguish themselves from newly arrived immigrants. It was not a racial or ethnic identifier; it was simply synonymous with "born in the New World," meant to separate native-born people of any ethnic background—white, African, or any mixture thereof—from European immigrants and slaves imported from Africa. Later,

4020-545: The term Creole applies to all people born on the island, while in South Africa , the blending of East African and Southeast Asian slaves with Dutch settlers, later produced a creolized population. The Fernandino Creole peoples of Equatorial Guinea are a mix of Afro-Cubans with Emancipados and English-speaking Liberated Africans , while the Americo-Liberians and Sierra Leone Creoles resulted from

4087-662: The term was racialized after newly arrived Anglo-Americans began to associate créolité, or the quality of being Creole, with racially mixed ancestry. This caused many white Creoles to eventually abandon the label out of fear that the term would lead mainstream Americans to believe them to be of racially mixed descent (and thus endanger their livelihoods or social standing). Later writers occasionally make distinctions among French Creoles (of European ancestry), Creoles of Color (of mixed ethnic ancestry), and occasionally, African Creoles (of primarily African descendant); these categories, however, are later inventions, and most primary documents from

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4154-532: The trade of indentured labourers, as thousands of Indians set forth from Calcutta or Karikal ; not only did they modify the social, political and economic physiognomies of the island, but some also went farther, to the West Indies . Indo-Mauritians are descended from Indian immigrants who arrived in the 19th century via the Aapravasi Ghat in order to work as indentured labourers after slavery

4221-451: The word colōnus , which referred to a Roman tenant farmer . Settlements that began as Roman coloniae include cities from Cologne (which retains this history in its name) to Belgrade to York . A telltale sign of a settlement within the Roman sphere of influence once being a Roman colony is a city centre with a grid pattern. The Special Committee on Decolonization maintains

4288-427: The word Acadian, indicating French Canadian settlers as ancestors. The distinction between "Cajuns" and "Creoles" is stronger today than it was in the past because American racial ideologies have strongly influenced the meaning of the word "Creole" to the extent that there is no longer unanimous agreement among Louisianians on the word's precise definition. Today, many assume that any francophone person of European descent

4355-403: The world, mainly Great Britain ( United Kingdom ), Australia , New Zealand, Canada, France, Ireland and Belgium. Given the island's importance for international shipping routes and limited opportunities locally, Mauritian Creole people settled internationally before some of these countries were founded as nations. For example, Mauritians settled on the continent of Australia before federation of

4422-627: Was abolished in 1835. Included in the Indo-Mauritian community are Hindus (48.5% of the Mauritian population) and Muslims (17.2%) from the Indian subcontinent. The Franco-Mauritian elite controlled nearly all of the large sugar estates and was active in business and banking. As the Indian population became numerically dominant after independence from British rule and the voting franchise was extended, political and economic power shifted from

4489-588: Was in force throughout the Spanish viceroyalties in the Americas , since the 16th century. During the early Spanish colonial period the Spaniards had a policy selecting promising assimilationist Indigenous to educate and indoctrinate. They were accepted into the colonial leadership but sometimes remained in Spain. Among the descendants of these assimilated sons of chiefs are the Aztec descended Moctezuma de Tultengo . By

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