Free people of color
Encyclopedia : F : FR : FRE : Free people of color
In the history of slavery in the Americas, a free person of color was a person of full or partial African descent who was not enslaved. In the United States, such persons were referred to as "free negroes," though many were, in fact, mulattos. In Caribbean and Latin American slave societies, specific terms were used to refer to such mixed-race groups.
Technically a maroon was also a free person of color, but because maroons lived outside slave society, scholars regard them as a very different group.
Free people of color were an important part of the history of the Caribbean during the slave period. They were especially numerous in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, which became independent as Haiti in 1804. In Saint-Domingue, Martinique, Guadeloupe, and other French Caribbean colonies before slavery was abolished, they were known as gens de couleur, and affranchis. They were also an important part of the population of British Jamaica, Spanish Cuba, and Puerto Rico.
Brazil was also home to large numbers of free people of color.
See also
External links
- [Free Men of Color Leave Indelible Mark on New Orleans Culture]
- [Gens de Couleur Libres (New Orleans Public Library)]
- [Gens de Couleur Libres (Frenchcreoles.com)]
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