Sacatra
Person who was the descendant of one black and one griffe parent
Sacatra was a term used in the French Colony of Saint-Domingue to describe the descendant of one black and one griffe parent, 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.
The etymology of sacatra is uncertain; Félix Rodríguez González linked it to Spanish sacar 'take out' and atrás 'behind'; thus, a sacatra is a slave who is not kept in the house or at the front as a lighter-skinned servant might be.
01In 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."
- 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."
Sources and credits
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