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:''For the languages, see Creole language. For other meanings, see Creole (disambiguation).''
The term '''Creole''' and its cognates in other languages — such as '''crioulo''', '''criollo''', '''créole''', '''kriolu''', '''criol''', '''kreyol''', '''kriulo''', '''kriol''', '''krio''', etc. — have been applied to people in different countries and epochs, with rather different meanings.
Those terms are almost always used in the general area of present or former colonies in other continents, and originally referred to locally-born people with foreign ancestry.

Contents

''Creoles'' in Africa

Spanish American ''Criollos''

Brazilian ''Crioulos''

Philippine ''Criollos'' (Insulares)

Louisiana ''Creoles''

Alaska ''Creoles''

Caribbean ''Creoles''

Indian Ocean ''Creoles''

See also

External links

''Creoles'' in Africa

The English word ''creole'' derives from the French ''créole'', which in turn came from Portuguese ''crioulo''. This word, a derivative of the verb ''criar'' ("to raise"), was coined in the 15th century, in the trading and military outposts established by Portugal in West Africa and Cape Verde. It was originally applied to descendants of the Portuguese settlers who were born and "raised" locally. The word then spread to other languages, probably by the Portuguese slave traders who supplied most of the slaves to South America through the 16th century.
While the Portuguese may have originally reserved the term ''crioulo'' to people of strictly European descent, the ''crioulo'' population eventually came to be dominated by people of mixed Portuguese and African ancestry. This mixing happened relatively quickly in most Portuguese colonies of the time, due to the scarcity of Portuguese-born women in the settlements, and to a Portuguese Crown policy of encouraging mixed marriages in the colonies.
These ''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, Ziguinchor (Casamance), Angola, Mozambique. However, only a few of these groups have retained the name ''Crioulo'' or variations of it:

★ Cape Verde: the dominant ethnic group, called ''Kriolus'' or ''Kriols'' in the local language; the language itself is also called ''Kriolu'' or ''Kriol''

★ Guinea-Bissau: ''Crioulos''

★ São Tomé and Príncipe: ''Crioulos''.
There was an early 1900s trend where unions between European men and African women had become common producing, for the most part, ''Crioulos'' populations in Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, and Cameroon.

★ Equatorial Guinea: were called 'Los Fernandinos', those of native Bubi and Spanish ancestry. It wasn't uncommon for offspring of such unions to be accepted into the indigenous tribe; however, ''Crioulos'' were later encouraged to collectively settle in Annobón as well as the Canary Islands, forming their own societies.

★ In Sierra Leone the word ''Creole'' refers to a member of the Krio ethnic group. The ancestors of the Krio were freed slaves from the United States, Canada, the British West Indies and various parts of West Africa. Their offspring (born in the Freetown colony) came to be known as ''Creoles'' or its cognate ''Krio''. Some of these Krios or ''creoles'' were also of mixed ancestry.

Spanish American ''Criollos''

Main articles: Spanish Criollo peoples

In Spanish-speaking Latin America, the word '''criollo''' (cognate and closest equivalent of English '''Creole''') generally refers to people of unmixed European (typically Spanish) descent born in the New World. According to the Spanish American caste system, people with European and indigenous origin who possessed 1/8th or less of Amerindian ancestry, were also considered ''criollos'' (unlike people with mainly European and some black African ancestry, who were deemed to be mulatto or mixed-raced). In any case, the expression ''Spanish American criollo'' is only applicable to people born in the New World.
Throughout the colonial period, a caste system was effectively in force, where the local-born ''criollos'' ranked strictly lower than governing ''peninsulares'' ("born in the Iberian Peninsula"), despite both being of European ancestry. By the 19th century, this discrimination eventually led the ''criollo'' to rebel against the Spanish rule. With the support of the even lower classes — ''castizos'', ''mestizos'', ''cholos'', ''mulattos'', ''amerindians'', ''zambos'', and ultimately blacks — they engaged Spain in the Mexican War of Independence (1810–1821) and the South American Wars of Independence (1810–1826), which ended with the break-up of former Spanish Empire in America into a number of independent republics.

Brazilian ''Crioulos''

In Brazil, the word ''crioulo'' came to mean ''dark skinned person'', that is, a person of predominantly African ancestry. In the Colony it was common to refer to a slave born in Brazil as a "crioulo" and to a slave from Africa as an "african".So the word "crioulo" in Brazil was not more used to people of European descent born and raised there, but instead used to slaves born and raised in Brazil. Later, the word "crioulo" would refer to all people of African ancestry.
African slaves were imported into the country from the 17th century until the first half of the 19th century. Due to their multiple ethnic roots and to the extension of the country, the Brazilian slaves and their descendants did not constitute a cohesive ethnic group. On the other hand, as in the Portuguese colonies in Africa, people of mixed Portuguese and African ancestry soon came to constitute a large segment of the population, in which there were no sharp class divisions based on degrees of "Africaness".
As a consequence, the term ''crioulo'' never became the name of an ethnic group. Instead it became simply a racial label, that is now considered highly offensive — roughly with the same connotations that ''nigger'' has in the US.

Philippine ''Criollos'' (Insulares)

During the colonial era of the Philippines, the Spanish term ''criollo'' was used with the same sense as Spanish America, namely, in reference to a person born in the Philippines with wholly Spanish ancestry. However, the term was not widely used, and instead were more commonly called ''insulares'' ("from the islands"), to contrast them with the higher-ranking ''peninsulares'' born on the Iberian Peninsula. However, the most common term was ''filipinos'' ("from the Philippines").
The meaning of ''filipino'' changed drastically during the Philippine Revolution. It was adopted by nationalist movements and transformed into a national designation that encompassed the entire population of the Philippines, especially the descendants of the native Austronesian peoples. In fact, the meaning of ''Filipino'' today is the opposite of its colonial meaning, since it tends to include the ''mestizos'' of mixed Spanish descent, who are seen as foreigners; as well as the non-mixed ''criollos''.

Louisiana ''Creoles''

Main articles: Louisiana Creole people

In the United States, the word "Creole" usually refers to people of any race or mixture thereof who are descended from settlers in colonial French Louisiana before it became part of the United States in 1803 with the Louisiana Purchase. 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. It is now accepted that Creoles form a broad cultural group of people of all races who share a French or Spanish background. Louisianans who identify themselves as "Creole" are most commonly from historically Francophone communities with some ancestors who came to Louisiana either directly from France or via the French colonies in the Caribbean. (Those descended from the Acadians of French Canada usually identify as Cajuns, rather than Creoles.) The term is also often used to mean simply "pertaining to New Orleans". The general perception of a Creole is usually of an olive toned individual and has been connoted more recently to be a person with strong African-American consanguine relations. While this is true for a number of the Creole population, not all have these ties and many are White New Orleanians or Whites in Southeast Louisiana. Others show a range of races native to post and pre-colonial settlement of Louisiana, notably Native American.

Alaska ''Creoles''

People of mixed Native American (especially Alaskan) and European (esp. Russian) ancestry. The intermingling of promyshleniki men and Aleut women in the late 18th century gave rise to a people who assumed a prominent position in the economy of fur trading in the northern Pacific.

Caribbean ''Creoles''

In the Caribbean region, the term ''Creole'' is sometimes used to describe anyone, regardless of race or ethnicity, who was born and raised in the region. It is sometimes used to refer to persons of European, African, or mixed ''Afro-European'' descent, in contradistinction to other ethnicities such as East Indians in Trinidad and Guyana, Afro-Portuguese in Barbados or Mestizos in Belize. It also refers to the syncretism of the various cultures (African, French, British and Spanish among others) which influenced the area. This is also referred to as the creolization of society "due to its ability to suggest some of the complex sociocultural issues also involved in the process" (Manuel, p. 14). Creole, 'Kreyol' or 'Kweyol' also refers to languages in the Caribbean that are derived from a fusion of African and European languages, dialects and syntax.

Indian Ocean ''Creoles''

In Mauritius, in the Indian ocean, the term denotes someone whose ancestry is so mixed that they don't belong to the other categories (small white, big white, Indian, Chinese, and so on).
In Reunion island, creole is a more inclusive term that denotes all those born on the island.

See also

★ Creole elites

★ Crioulo

★ Criollo

★ Criol

★ Krio

★ Kriol

★ Kreyol

★ Mestizo

★ Kristang people

★ List of terms for multiraciality

External links

★ Made for the Creole Experience, news website aimed at multiracial readers

★ AllCaboVerde.com, about the Crioulos of Cape Verde

★ Frenchcreoles.com, about the Louisiana Creoles

★ Creole Heritage Center, also about the Louisiana Creoles

★ kiskeyAcity blog entry: What exactly is a Creole?

★ Avoyelles Parish Creoles