(East) Texas "geechee" redux

[Wilson Gray]

IAC, "sacatro" is the term that applies to your humble correspondent.
I may be wrong, but I'm under the impression that such lists of
ancestral definitions are still in use in Spanish- and
Portuguese-America. I've also read somewhere or other that Spanish
"prieto" and Portuguese "preto," not "negro," are used to refer to
skin tone. "Negro" has various generally meliorative meanings that
vary across countries and/or dialects. As La Orquesta Aragon of Cuba
brags:

De los negros de la Habana,
Yo soy el negro mas guapeton.

And as Tito Puente y su orquesta ask:

Que sera, mi china?
Que sera, mulata?
Que sera, prieta?

-Wilson Gray

On 9/16/05, Mullins, Bill <Bill.Mullins at us.army.mil> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Mullins, Bill" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
> Subject:      Re: (East) Texas "geechee" redux
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> > )  we  get the followibng list of these sort boxes:
> > SACATRO - Negro & Griffe - 87.5 Black blood
> In OED under "sacatra" 1859
>
>  The Independent Chronicle;  Date: 1807-03-23;   Vol: XXXIX;   Iss:
> 2703;   Page: [3];  [advertisement]
> "Cargo of the ship Patter, in from Batavia. . . 934,000 lbs. Sacatra
> Coffee"
>
>
> "Slavery - Its Effect on the Property, Intelligence, and Morals of the
> Whites. - Olmsted on the Seaboard Slave States" [A book review]
> Title: New Englander and Yale review. / Volume 14, Issue 54  pp. 264-295
>
> Publisher: W. L. Kingsley etc.
> Publication Date: May 1856 [cite from p. 293]
> "The various grades of the colored people are designated by the French
> in Louisiana, as follows, according to the greater or less predominance
> of negro blood:
>
> Sacatra  . . . griffe and negress.
> Griffe   . . . negro and mulatto.
> Marabon  . . . mulatto and griffe.
> Mulatto  . . . white and negro.
> Quarteron  . . white and mulatto.
> Metif  . . . . white and quarteron.
> Meamelouc  . . white and metif.
> Quarteron  . . white and meamelouc.
> Sang-mele  . . white and quarteron."
>
> "A Midsummer Trip to the West Indies", Lafcadio Hearn, Harper's new
> monthly magazine. / Volume 77, Issue 457, June 1888, p. 214
> [illustration caption] "Sacatra Types -- Almost Pure Negro"
>
> > GRIFFE - Negro & Mulatto - 75% Black blood
> OED has 1850 cite under "Griff"
>
> ILLUSTRATION OF AMERICAN SLAVERY.
> Liberator (1831-1865); Nov 23, 1849; 19, 47; APS Online
> pg. 1, col 6.
> "The next subject was the griffe man, Patrick, aged twenty years; 'a
> very likely man,' said Mr. B., 'having a good character; a good barber
> and house servant, fullya guaranteed against the vices and maladies
> prescribed by law, (what they were we did not learn,) and is only sold
> because his mistress just got married.' "
>
>
>
> > MARABON - Mulatto & Griffe - 62.5 Black blood
> Not in OED. [see 1856 cite above]
>
> > MULATTO - Negro & White - 50 % Black Blood
> numerous varian spellings in OED, which carries it back to 1591
>
> > OS ROUGE - Negro & Indian - 50 % Black blood
> Not in OED.
>
> > TIERCERON - Mulatto & Quadroon - 37.5 Black blood
>
> Not in OED under this spelling.  OED has a 1760 - 1772 cite for
> "Tercerone" under the entry for "terceroon".  (There is an OED entry for
> "Tierceron" as an architecteral term with an 1842-1876 cite.
>
> > QUADROON - White & Mullatto - 25% Black blood
> various forms in OED back to 1707
>
> > OCTAROON - White & Quadroon - 12.5% Black blood
> In OED under "octoon" (1840)
>


--
-Wilson Gray