02 Fever Season

NOTE ON TERMINOLOGY

As in my previous book of this series, A Free Man of Color, I have employed, as far as possible, the terminology of the 1830s, which differs considerably from that in use today. In the 1830s, as far as I can tell, creole was generally taken to mean a native-born white descendant of French or Spanish colonists. If a person of African parentage was being referred to, he or she was specified as a creole Negro, that is, born in the Americas and therefore less susceptible to local diseases than Congos-African-born blacks. There was a vast distinction between black and colored. The latter term had a specific meaning as the descendant of African and European ancestors. Sang m?l? was one of the French terms: "mixed blood." Any colored person would have been deeply offended to be referred to as "black," since black meant "slave"; and the free colored had worked long and hard to establish themselves as a third order, a caste that was neither black nor white. Likewise, they were careful to distinguish between themselves and slaves of mixed race and between themselves and freedmen, whatever the percentage of African genetics in their makeup. Given the economics of the time and the society, this was a logical mechanism of survival. That they did survive and thrive, and establish a culture of amazing richness that was neither African nor European, is a tribute to the stubborn and wonderful life force of the human spirit.