octoroon
One-eighth African ancestry
Octoroon is a now-archaic term for a person of one-eighth Black ancestry—someone with one Black great-grandparent.
The word belongs to a system of racial classification used in the American South and Caribbean during slavery and segregation, which included quadroon (one-quarter) and mulatto (one-half).
These terms codified degrees of Blackness for legal and social purposes: The 1850 census classified her as an octoroon.
The terminology is obsolete and offensive, a relic of pseudoscientific racism.
Having two racial ancestries
- multiracialOf multiple ethnicities
- mixed-raceOf multiple ancestries
- interracialBetween different ethnic groups
- mestizoBiracial Latin American
Creole · Eurasian · coloureds · Afro-Caribbean · mixed heritage · dual heritage · multicultural · amalgamation
Mixed-race person, archaic
- one-eighthSingle portion of eight
- blood quantumAncestral proportion for tribal enrollment
- one-drop ruleAny ancestry means full classification
- racial classificationGrouping by ancestry or ethnicity
casta · marabou · passing · colorism · phenotype · racial purity · mixed-blood · octavo
Before a war's start
- slaveryOwnership of people
- plantationLarge-scale farming operation
- emancipationRelease from legal bondage
- manumissionFormal freeing of enslaved
freedman · Reconstruction · Jim Crow · segregation · colonialism · Civil War · abolitionist · anti-miscegenation
Descent from progenitors
- ancestryFamily line of descent
- descentDownward slope or lineage
- bloodlineAncestry through generations
- parentageFamily line origin
heritage · forebears · pedigree · family tree · kinship · progenitor · consanguinity · extraction
Belonging to earlier times
- obsoleteNo longer in use
- offensiveCausing displeasure or attack-oriented
- pejorativeTerm expressing disapproval
- slurInsulting group label
racist · derogatory · pseudoscientific · eugenics · scientific racism · stigma · discrimination · prejudice
biracial
Having two racial ancestries
- multiracialOf multiple ethnicities
- mixed-raceOf multiple ancestries
- interracialBetween different ethnic groups
mestizo · Creole · Eurasian · coloureds · Afro-Caribbean · mixed heritage · dual heritage · multicultural · amalgamation
mulatto
Mixed-race person, archaic
- one-eighthSingle portion of eight
- blood quantumAncestral proportion for tribal enrollment
- one-drop ruleAny ancestry means full classification
racial classification · casta · marabou · passing · colorism · phenotype · racial purity · mixed-blood · octavo
antebellum
Before a war's start
- slaveryOwnership of people
- plantationLarge-scale farming operation
- emancipationRelease from legal bondage
manumission · freedman · Reconstruction · Jim Crow · segregation · colonialism · Civil War · abolitionist · anti-miscegenation · Louisiana
lineage
Descent from progenitors
parentage · heritage · forebears · pedigree · family tree · kinship · progenitor · consanguinity · extraction · genealogical
archaic
Belonging to earlier times
- obsoleteNo longer in use
- offensiveCausing displeasure or attack-oriented
- pejorativeTerm expressing disapproval
slur · racist · derogatory · pseudoscientific · eugenics · scientific racism · stigma · discrimination · prejudice · dehumanizing