Redbone is a term historically used in much of the southern United States, particularly in Louisiana, to refer to a Métis or Mestee ethnic group of mixed racial heritage.
Contents |
It had various meanings according to locality, most implying race mixture or miscegenation[1]. The racial mix is usually referred to as Tri-racial and may be any combination of the following: Native American, European Caucasian (i.e. English, French, Irish, Welsh), Asians, or Portuguese, Spanish, Moor, Turk, and any of the various African sub-groups[2].
The term Redbone became disfavored in the late 1960s,[3] as it was a pejorative nickname applied by others[3] to the geographically and socially isolated light-complexioned populations in most western Louisiana parishes, from Sabine Parish in the northwest and Rapides Parish near the center of the state down to Calcasieu Parish in the southwest.[4] This area is roughly coextensive with what was once known as the Neutral Ground or Sabine Free State, when no US state exercised jurisdiction over the area from the Calcasieu River on the east to the Sabine River on the west.[5]
Families ancestral to the Louisiana Redbones came primarily from South Carolina (where they faced legal classification as "other free persons", in other words, non-white[1]) to the hills and prairies of western Louisiana,[3] following the Louisiana Purchase by the United States in 1803.[6] In this area, the settlers successfully resisted categorization as non-white. Enough discrimination existed so they typically established their own communities with churches, stores, and schools.[6] Though their descendants now number over 20,000 individuals[1] and are dispersed to other states,[1] especially eastern Texas,[7] academically the group has been termed "largely unstudied."[8]