Marabou (ethnicity)

Marabou (marabout) is a term of Haitian origin denoting multiracial admixture. The term, which comes originally from the African Marabouts, describes the offspring of a Haitian person of mixed race: European, African, Taíno, and East Asian, Southeast Asian, or South Asian.

The Marabou label dates to the colonial period of Haiti's history, meaning the offspring of a mulatto and a griffe person. However, Médéric-Louis-Elie Moreau de Saint-Méry, in his threevolume work on the colony, describes Marabous as the product of the union of an African/European and an East Asian. Many events have shaped the lives of the Marabou, a people of mixed Haitian, East Asian, and other ancestries.