Talk:Redbone (ethnicity)

Moving to "Redbone (ethnicity)"
I plan to move this article to "Redbone (ethnicity)" shortly because: I have already created a disambiguation page, whose title I will change to "Redbone". &mdash; Jeff Q 16:38, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * There are only two non-user-page references to this use, as opposed to half a dozen to the music group.
 * Neither Merriam-Webster Online nor Dictionary.com mention this use. They both define "redbone" as a type of dog.

It needs to be understood that this term, as applied to ethnicity, was considered pejorative, and consequently has had much more of a life in the oral tradition than in written records and reference works such as dictionaries. As sensitivities subside and interest in tracing heritage increases, the written record is being made by the present geeration.King Alexander (talk) 02:17, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

"specific geologically and ethnically distinct group" Improbable that "geologically" is actually what is meant here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.231.169.238 (talk) 23:02, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Reference to Melungeon in this definition
The paragraph reference to Melungeon is not appropriate to the definition Redbone and should be removed. Mishiho (talk) 07:41, 2 January 2008 (UTC)Mishiho


 * It is a related concept and does seem to deserve mention in the article, even if only to distinguish the differences. Badagnani (talk) 07:55, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Surnames, traditions, and now DNA do link the eastern seaboard Melungeons to the Sabine-Calcasieu area Redbones, the latter being a subset/colony of the former. —Preceding unsigned comment added by King Alexander (talk • contribs) 02:09, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Famous Redbones
This section will be removed, as the selections are arbitrary - most of the people were not born nor grew up in the South. They seem to have been selected because of being light-skinned African Americans. It is just pointless.--Parkwells (talk) 23:08, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Generalized Usage
From my observation (therefore, original research and unsuitable for Wikipedia?) the expression seems to have come into use to refer to light-skinned (i.e. mixed Euro-Afro-heritage) African-Americans, at least in Florida. Can anyone confirm/validate this, i.e. produce verifiable resource(s)?

This is news to me. I have lived in Florida almost all my 64 years, and have NEVER heard the term a single time. I came here, in fact, to find out what it meant.Maybe it is a young-folks word. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:CF99:1470:7878:432E:DC5E:5D09 (talk) 22:29, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Sir, with all due respect, perhaps you need to read the Wikipedia article. The term is not new nor is it slang.

This is why Wikipedia is useless. The term redbone is used all over the United States. It's primary connotation refers to a light complexioned black woman, and has at least as far back as the very early 20th century. —Preceding unsigned ]]) 11:44, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

It is used in many parts of the country to refer to a "light complexioned black woman" but it may also refer quite specifically to a distinct Creole group in Louisiana. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.2.52.23 (talk) 19:38, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Revision January 24, 2009
This revision was made to address the valid flags for including apparent original material and unsupported assertions of fact. The source most heavily relied upon is the only one I have been able to find addressing the topic generally AND meeting Wikipedia criteria for the quality of cited sources. (The anecdotal histories and amateur and self-published compilations lately appearing do not meet Wikipedia standards for supporting facts. Some are nevertheless included as items of further interest.)  Even so, the C. S. Everett article in 6 Encyclopedia of Southern Culture is considered a third-tier Wikipedia source if it is really an encyclopedia in the sense intended by the rules. The volume itself is titled Ethnicity. I took from it such facts as seem generally accepted as true, and omitted others that do not, which were few. Much in the article did not pertain to this group (there was quite a bit on South Carolina "Brass Ankles").

I included in "References" the two second-tier sources cited at the end of Everett's article. The Calcasieu Parish Public Library (Central) did not have them.

I created internal links for almost every word in the text that has an article. The Regulator-Moderator War link is kind of weak support for the dispersal of Louisiana Redbones to east Texas, but it does say that the people involved in that feud had largely migrated west from the Neutral Ground.

Probably the most radical thing done today was to dedicate the entire Redbone (ethnicity) article to the Louisiana Redbones, a term which includes those of the same heritage on the Texas side and elswhere. I think this is deserved by the facts, and that anyone wishing to apply the term to any other ethnicity has quite a burden of establishing specific facts by citation to acceptable sources. If anyone wishes to do that, a Redbone (ethnicity) disambiguation page should be established.

If anyone has any first-tier or second-tier source material meeting Wikipedia standards, this article could really use them. I'd like to see a history section treating such events as the 1892 Shoot-out on the Sabine and the Great Pitkin Bank Robbery. Some of the web sites I've seen reference newspaper articles and contemporary accounts. Better support for the DNA assertions would be great if anyone has any further links or citations of that nature.

If someone knows how to fix the "Contents" box, be my guest; it isn't where it should be, and isn't really needed. Also I don't know what happened to my footnote codes. The markups look okay and initially worked, but then the notes all disappeared, so I put them back by hand.

King Alexander (talk) 06:47, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Ancestry.com Reference
I added a link to ancestry.com, but not to any specific trees within that website, because while the younger generation of people who have relatives within the Redbone community are beginning to reclaim some pride in their heritage, a stigma still exists, especially among older members. I do not want to "out" one particular family or another, because this can be a sensitive topic for some. An interested researcher who reads the speech Don Marler gave in the 1990s (link below) and then follows the surnames in Allen, Vernon, Rapides and Beauregard parishes can easily see that the patterns of marriage and census statements as to race are quite clear. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.2.52.23 (talk) 13:27, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

November 2014 updates
I have added information from newspaper and firsthand accounts as I find the information, but it is slow going. Several people have blogs and such about Redbones with various assertations. I won't add anything without having primary sources at hand, even if I don't reference them directly, so if those folks ever read this, please feel free with the sharing of sources. Remember, letters and old Bibles count! - Your humble researcher with family in Grant community. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.2.52.23 (talk) 14:52, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Although......what?!
"Newspaper references to individuals whose families are considered part of the historical Redbone community are notable mainly for those Redbones who settled along Ten Mile Creek in Rapides Parish and Allen Parish, although other settlements (primarily two communities - one in what is now Newton County, Texas and one along Bearhead creek in what is now Beauregard Parish)[...]."

I am not especially knowledgeable about this topic, so I don't know how those other settlements compared to those aforementioned. Can someone better e quip ed than I somehow make clear what is supposed to come next? The legacy of 2 community's press-cov is at stake, for that's stake, man!

96.41.246.213 (talk) 07:34, 15 April 2015 (UTC)I.P.B.

Could you be more clear? The statement is pretty direct. There are 3 communities of Redbones, and members of the different communities are often related (sometimes distantly). However, the only references in 19th century newspapers that I have come across are either to "red bones" or "10-milers." This is likely due to location as the 10 Mile community is close to Alexandria, LA which was not part of the old Neutral Zone and was settled by a different bunch of people than the settlers in Southwest Louisiana. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.2.52.23 (talk) 21:05, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Edit from January 2015
Hi, please add a citation for your source as to naming or I will delete. Thanks.

June 30 and July 2016 edits
Please provide citations that are or directly reference source documents for your assertations that there was/is a historic Redbone community in Northwest Louisiana and that Redbone ancestors came from North Carolina and Virginia. Until then, I've reverted your changes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.2.52.23 (talk) 17:11, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

M.A.thesis University of Louisiana-Lafayette: 'Occupy Till I Come' The Redbones of Louisiana's No Man's Land Gloria&#39;s Daughter (talk) 00:15, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

The usage of the term
I think there's some confusion, a redbone isn't a term that can be applied to all lightskins. Within the black community the two most common undertones that our skin can have is red and yellow, with orange being one as well but we're already "technically orange". The term red bone doesn't have much to do with someone being light, but instead it refers to the red undertone of their skin. It is also usually used to refer to a woman. The term for someone being very yellow is "high yellow" pronounced "yella". Proof of terms like these is hard to find in my community because we don't keep written records of definitions like these, we never need to refer to a source for a language you know? I'll try to find some proof of my point but.... Ibro26 (talk) 06:09, 5 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Added some sources and changed the wording. Some sources do indicate the term is used to mean 'light-skinned' broadly - and one study ("Redbones and earth mothers" - sorry it's paywalled if you don't have access through some university or through Wikipedia Library) found 12-16 year old Black girls unable to explain the difference between 'redbone' and 'yellowbone', while some also imply it's used to specifically refer to people with a red undertone like you said. Erinius (talk) 13:45, 6 July 2024 (UTC)