Sacatra Explained

Sacatra was a term used in the French Colony of Saint-Domingue to describe the descendant of one black and one griffe parent,^[1] a person whose ancestry is ths black and th white. It was one of the many terms used in the colony's racial caste system to measure one's black blood.^[2]

The etymology of sacatra is uncertain; Félix Rodríguez González linked it to the Spanish sacar ("take out") and atrás ("behind");^[3] thus, a sacatra is a slave who is not kept in the house or at the front as a lighter-skinned servant might be.

In fiction

• In French author Suzanne Dracius' 1989 novel, The Dancing Other, she mentions her main character finding "true friendship with a cheery sacatra girl with soft, caramel skin."^[4]
• Nalo Hopkinson's speculative fiction novel The Salt Roads begins with Georgine, a slave 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.” ^[5]

See also

• Mulatto Haitians
• Quadroon
• Octoroon
• Affranchi
• Gens de couleur
• Afro-Haitians
• Marabou

Notes and References

1. Web site: Sacatra. Wordnik.
2. Web site: The Kingdom of This World. msu.edu. 2017-03-28.
3. Book: Gonzáles, Félix Rodríguez. Spanish Loanwords in the English Language: A Tendency towards Hegemony Reversal. 26 June 2017. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. 9783110890617. Google Books.
4. Web site: Nancy Naomi Carlson and Catherine Maigret Kellogg translating Suzanne Dracius. Drunken Boat. en. 2017-04-08.
5. Book: Hopkinson, Nalo. The Salt Roads. Warner US. 2004. 978-0446677134. New York. 2.