Talk:Quadroon

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Offensive?

I assume such a designate would be considered offensive as with the "n-bomb" although I've also heard my mixed race friends use the term. Can someone clear this up and add in the lede for ignorant people like me? It's not a word I would use by choice but it's in my lexicon thanks to Archer (the cartoon). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.24.18.184 (talk) 20:22, 23 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Why would it be anything like the "n-bomb"? it isn't a derogatory term you know, it's just a racial classification. 220.238.69.169 (talk) 14:38, 4 July 2022 (UTC)


 * I fit by genome, and I don't find it especially so. Unlike 'mullato' or 'sambo', besides the roon whatever that is, it's just a fraction. 98.4.112.204 (talk) 09:46, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Racial classification
I've gone down a minor rabbit hole into archaic terms for mixed-race individuals, and this is what I've come up with: half white/black is mulatto, 1/4 black to 3/4 white is quadroon/terceroon, 1/8 black is octoroon/mustee, 1/16 black was quintroon/mustafino, and any less than that would be called a "nigger in the woodpile" in accordance with the one-drop rule. 3/4 black to 1/4 white is sambo/griffe, and 7/8 black was mango/sacatra. These terms were also applied to native ancestry; more specific to native/white mixes were métis, mestizo, and mestee, related terms used in various contexts and overlapping with the above; mestee in particular was used for greater proportions of white ancestry, with mustee & mustafino being derived from it. Other general terms include sang-mêlé (mixed-blood), creole, etc. This should cover most of it, although it's not exhaustive, and there are variations that go down to 1/32 or 1/64, as seen in the article.

As for "hexadecaroon", I never heard of that word until this article. Checking on google books, the other terms I listed lead to 19th century literature and other historical references, while "hexadecaroon" only leads to modern literature on race/colonialism. I think it may be a fanciful scholarly invention that wasn't used historically; thus, I've taken the step of switching out "hexadecaroon" from the lede in favor of quintroon.

I also changed the given definition of "terceroon", since I believe the source was incorrect. It does in fact refer to three generations remove, but this is counting the full-blooded ancestor as the first, making it equivalent to quadroon, not octoroon. This is stated here, and Wiktionary gives it as: (dated) A person with one white and one mulatto parent which fits my definition and agrees with other sources (as an aside, it seems that while quadroon refers to one quarter, and octoroon one-eighth, quintroon refers to the fifth generation, which is also supported by etymonline ).

Questions/comments welcome. Xcalibur (talk) 14:09, 31 July 2022 (UTC)