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{{Short description| |
{{Short description|Type of biracial person}} |
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{{Other uses}} |
{{Other uses}} |
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{{Use American English|date = April 2019}} |
{{Use American English|date = April 2019}} |
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[[File:Last of the Tasmanians Woodcut 12 - Walter George Arthur and Mary Anne.jpg|thumb| |
[[File:Last of the Tasmanians Woodcut 12 - Walter George Arthur and Mary Anne.jpg|thumb|An 1870 illustration by David Bonwick titled ''Last of the Tasmanians Woodcut 12'' - with the description -- Walter George Arthur with his ''half-caste'' wife Mary Anne]] |
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'''Half-caste''' is a term used for individuals of [[Multiracial|multiracial descent]].<ref>[https://www.memidex.com/half-caste Memidex/WordNet]</ref> It is derived from the term ''[[caste]]'', which comes from the Latin |
'''Half-caste''' is a term used for individuals of [[Multiracial|multiracial descent]].<ref>[https://www.memidex.com/half-caste Memidex/WordNet]</ref> It is derived from the term ''[[caste]]'', which comes from the Latin {{Lang|la|castus}}, meaning pure, and the derivative Portuguese and Spanish word ''casta'', meaning race. Terms such as ''half-caste'', ''caste'', ''quarter-caste'' and ''mix-breed'' were used by colonial officials in the [[British Empire]] during their classification of [[Indigenous peoples|indigenous populations]], and in Australia used during the [[Australian government]]'s pursuit of a policy of [[Cultural assimilation|assimilation]].<ref name=dodson>{{cite journal|title=The Wentworth Lecture: The end in the beginning|author= Michael Dodson|journal=Australian Aboriginal Studies|year=1994|number=3|url=https://www.columbiauniversity.org/itc/polisci/juviler/pdfs/dodson.pdf}}</ref> In [[Latin America]], the equivalent term for half-castes was ''[[Cholo]]'' and ''Zambo''.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Race, Color, and Class in Central America and the Andes|author=Julian Pitt-Rivers|journal=Daedalus|volume= 96|number=2|date=Spring 1967|pages=542–559|publisher=The MIT Press|jstor=20027052}}</ref> Some people now consider the term offensive. |
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==Use by region== |
==Use by region== |
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===Australia=== |
===Australia=== |
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{{Further|Half- |
{{Further|Half-Caste Act}} |
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In Australia, the term "half-caste", along with any other proportional representation of [[Australian Aboriginal identity|Aboriginality]] (such as "part-aborigine", "full-blood", "quarter-caste", "[[octoroon]]", "[[mulatto]]", or "hybrid"<ref>{{cite web| url=https://www.ipswich.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/10043/appropriate_indigenous_terminoloy.pdf| title=Appropriate Terminology, Indigenous Australian Peoples| author=[[Flinders University]]| date=2004| access-date=22 January 2022}}</ref>) is generally used as a harmless descriptor but may be seen as highly offensive to some [[Aboriginal Australians|Aboriginal peoples of Australia]] partly for historical reasons, as it is associated with [[cultural assimilation|assimilationist]] policies of the past.<ref>{{cite web | title=Half-Caste – any term making use of the word 'half' suggests an incomplete person | website=Ruminating | date=12 September 2016| first=Stephen|last=Hall | url=https://ruminating.org/news/half-caste-any-term-making-use-of-the-word-half-suggests-any-incomplete-person/ | access-date=22 January 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | title=Terminology Guide | website=Narragunnawali | url=https://www.narragunnawali.org.au/about/terminology-guide | access-date=22 January 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite book| url=http://www.community.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/321308/working_with_aboriginal.pdf| title=Working with Aboriginal people and communities: A practice resource| author=NSW Aboriginal Services Branch| publisher=NSW Department of Community Services| date= February 2009| isbn=978-1-74190-097-2| access-date=22 January 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url=https://www.reconciliation.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/inclusive-and-respectful-language.pdf| title=RAP drafting resource: Demonstrating inclusive and respectful language| author=[[Reconciliation Australia]]| access-date=22 January 2022}}</ref> Such terms were widely used in the 19th- and early-20th-century Australian laws to refer to the offspring of [[European Australians|European]] and Aboriginal parents.<ref>{{cite journal|author=A.O. Neville|title=The Half-Caste in Australia. By A. O. Ncville, Esy., Former Commissioner of Native Affairs for Western Australia1|journal=Mankind|volume=4|number=7|date=September 1951|pages=274–290|doi=10.1111/j.1835-9310.1951.tb00251.x}}</ref> For example, the ''[[Half-Caste Act|Aborigines Protection Act 1886]]'' mentioned half-castes habitually associating with or living with an "Aborigine" (another term no longer favoured),<ref>{{cite web|title=Aborigines Protection Act of 1886|publisher=Museum Victoria, Australia|url=http://museumvictoria.com.au/encounters/coranderrk/legislation/index.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070607042239/http://museumvictoria.com.au/encounters/coranderrk/legislation/index.htm|url-status=dead|archive-date=June 7, 2007}}</ref> while the Aborigines Amendments between 1934 and 1937 refer to it in various terms, including as a person with less than [[quadroon]] blood.<ref name=cs1>{{cite web|title=Aboriginal timeline (1900 - 1969)|publisher=Creative Spirits NGO|url=http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/aboriginal-history-timeline-early-20th.html|access-date=2012-06-02|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120814140823/http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/aboriginal-history-timeline-early-20th.html|archive-date=2012-08-14|url-status=dead}}</ref> |
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In Australia, the term "half-caste" or any other proportional representation of [[Australian Aboriginal identity|Aboriginality]] is highly offensive, and results in criminal, civil or a physical response.<ref>{{cite web |title=Indigenous Australians: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people |url=https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/articles/indigenous-australians-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-people |website=Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies |access-date=24 November 2019 |language=en |date=3 June 2015}}</ref> |
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Following the [[Federation of Australia|federation of the Australian colonies]] in 1901, Attorney-General [[Alfred Deakin]] ruled that references to "aboriginal natives" in the [[Australian Constitution]] did not include half-caste individuals. This definition was carried forward into the first federal welfare legislation, such as the [[Deakin government (1905–1908)|Deakin government]]'s ''Invalid and Old-Age Pensions Act 1908'' and the [[Andrew Fisher|Fisher government]]'s ''Maternity Allowance Act 1912'', which made half-castes eligible to receive old-age pensions and maternity allowances but excluded individuals "who are Asiatic, or are aboriginal natives of Australia, Papua or the Pacific Islands".<ref>{{cite journal|title=Conditional Inclusion: Aborigines and Welfare Rights in Australia, 1900–47|first=John|last=Murphy|year=2013|doi=10.1080/1031461X.2013.791707|journal=Australian Historical Studies|volume=44|issue=2|pages=209-210}}</ref> |
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It was widely used in the 19th- and early-20th-century Australian laws to refer to the offspring of [[European Australians|European]] and [[Aboriginal Australians|Aboriginal]] parents.<ref>{{cite journal|author=A.O. Neville|title=The Half-Caste in Australia. By A. O. Ncville, Esy., Former Commissioner of Native Affairs for Western Australia1|journal=Mankind|volume=4|number=7|date=September 1951|pages=274–290|doi=10.1111/j.1835-9310.1951.tb00251.x}}</ref> For example, the ''[[Half-Caste Act|Aborigines Protection Act 1886]]'' mentioned half-castes habitually associating with or living with an "Aborigine" (another term no longer favoured),<ref>{{cite web|title=Aborigines Protection Act of 1886|publisher=Museum Victoria, Australia|url=http://museumvictoria.com.au/encounters/coranderrk/legislation/index.htm}}</ref> while the Aborigines Amendments between 1934 and 1937 refer to it in various terms, including as a person with less than [[quadroon]] blood.<ref name=cs1>{{cite web|title=Aboriginal timeline (1900 - 1969)|publisher=Creative Spirits NGO|url=http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/aboriginal-history-timeline-early-20th.html|access-date=2012-06-02|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120814140823/http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/history/aboriginal-history-timeline-early-20th.html|archive-date=2012-08-14|url-status=dead}}</ref> Later literature, such as by [[Norman Tindale]], refers to it in terms of half, quadroon, octoroon, and other hybrids.{{citation needed|date=December 2019}} |
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The term was not merely a term of legal convenience; it became a term of common cultural discourse. Christian [[missionary]] John Harper, investigating the possibility of establishing of a [[Christian mission]] at [[Batemans Bay, New South Wales]], wrote that half-castes and anyone with any Aboriginal connections were considered "degraded as to divine things, almost on a level with a brute, in a state of moral unfitness for heaven".<ref>{{Citation |editor=Woolmington, Jean| title=Aborigines in colonial society, 1788-1850 : From "noble savage" to "rural pest" | publication-date=1973 | publisher=Cassell Australia | isbn=978-0-304-29960-7|others=Introduction by Jean Woolmington | year=1973 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=Marginal Men: A Study of Two Half Caste Aborigines|author=Jeremy Beckett|journal=Oceania|volume=29|number=2|date=December 1958|pages=91–108|doi=10.1002/j.1834-4461.1958.tb02945.x}}</ref> |
The term was not merely a term of legal convenience; it became a term of common cultural discourse. Christian [[missionary]] John Harper, investigating the possibility of establishing of a [[Christian mission]] at [[Batemans Bay, New South Wales]], wrote that half-castes and anyone with any Aboriginal connections were considered "degraded as to divine things, almost on a level with a brute, in a state of moral unfitness for heaven".<ref>{{Citation |editor=Woolmington, Jean| title=Aborigines in colonial society, 1788-1850 : From "noble savage" to "rural pest" | publication-date=1973 | publisher=Cassell Australia | isbn=978-0-304-29960-7|others=Introduction by Jean Woolmington | year=1973 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=Marginal Men: A Study of Two Half Caste Aborigines|author=Jeremy Beckett|journal=Oceania|volume=29|number=2|date=December 1958|pages=91–108|doi=10.1002/j.1834-4461.1958.tb02945.x}}</ref> |
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The term "[[Half-Caste Act]]" was given to [[Act of Parliament|Acts of Parliament]] passed in [[Victoria (Australia)|Victoria]] and [[Western Australia]] allowing the seizure of half-caste children and forcible removal from their parents. This was theoretically to provide them with better homes than those afforded by typical Aboriginal people, where they could grow up to work as domestic servants and for [[Social engineering (political science)|social engineering]].<ref name=cs1/><ref>{{cite journal|title=The barbarism of civilization: cultural genocide and the 'stolen generations'|author=Robert van Krieken|journal=The British Journal of Sociology|volume=50|number=2|pages=297–315|date=June 1999|doi=10.1080/000713199358752|pmid=15260027}}</ref><ref name=Hutnyk/> The removed children are now known as the [[Stolen Generations]]. Other [[Parliament of Australia|Australian Parliament]] acts on half-castes and Aboriginal people enacted between 1909 and 1943 were often called "Welfare Acts", but they deprived these people of basic [[Civil and political rights|civil]], [[Human rights|political]], and economic rights, and made it illegal to enter public places such as pubs and government institutions, marry, or meet relatives.<ref name=dodson/> |
The term "[[Half-Caste Act]]" was given to [[Act of Parliament|Acts of Parliament]] passed in [[Victoria (Australia)|Victoria]] and [[Western Australia]] allowing the seizure of half-caste children and forcible removal from their parents. This was theoretically to provide them with better homes than those afforded by typical Aboriginal people, where they could grow up to work as domestic servants and for [[Social engineering (political science)|social engineering]].<ref name=cs1/><ref>{{cite journal|title=The barbarism of civilization: cultural genocide and the 'stolen generations'|author=Robert van Krieken|journal=The British Journal of Sociology|volume=50|number=2|pages=297–315|date=June 1999|doi=10.1080/000713199358752|doi-broken-date=2024-04-19 |pmid=15260027}}</ref><ref name=Hutnyk/> The removed children are now known as the [[Stolen Generations]]. Other [[Parliament of Australia|Australian Parliament]] acts on half-castes and Aboriginal people enacted between 1909 and 1943 were often called "Welfare Acts", but they deprived these people of basic [[Civil and political rights|civil]], [[Human rights|political]], and economic rights, and made it illegal to enter public places such as pubs and government institutions, marry, or meet relatives.<ref name=dodson/> |
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===British Central Africa=== |
===British Central Africa=== |
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In [[British Central Africa Protectorate|British Central Africa]], now part of modern-day [[Malawi]] and [[Zimbabwe]], people of multiracial were referred to as half-castes. These unions were considered socially improper, with mixed couples being segregated and shunned by society at large, and colonial courts passing legislation against mixed marriages.<ref>{{cite news|title=The Half Caste|date=February 17, 1904|publisher=Boston News|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2249&dat=19040217&id=F-M0AAAAIBAJ&pg=4141,2297933}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|author=C. JOON-HAI LEE|title=The 'native' Undefined: Colonial Categories, Anglo-African Status and the Politics of Kinship in British Central Africa, 1929–38|journal=The Journal of African History|year=2005| volume=46 |issue=3|pages= 455–478| doi=10.1017/S0021853705000861}}</ref> |
In [[British Central Africa Protectorate|British Central Africa]], now part of modern-day [[Malawi]] and [[Zimbabwe]], people of multiracial descent were referred to as half-castes. These unions were considered socially improper, with mixed couples being segregated and shunned by society at large, and colonial courts passing legislation against mixed marriages.<ref>{{cite news|title=The Half Caste|date=February 17, 1904|publisher=Boston News|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2249&dat=19040217&id=F-M0AAAAIBAJ&pg=4141,2297933}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|author=C. JOON-HAI LEE|title=The 'native' Undefined: Colonial Categories, Anglo-African Status and the Politics of Kinship in British Central Africa, 1929–38|journal=The Journal of African History|year=2005| volume=46 |issue=3|pages= 455–478| doi=10.1017/S0021853705000861|s2cid=145790221}}</ref> |
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===Burma=== |
===Burma=== |
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{{quotation|"You Burmese women who fail to safeguard your own race, after you have married an Indian, your daughter whom you have begotten by such a tie takes an Indian as her husband. As for your son, he becomes a '''half-caste''' and tries to get a pure Burmese woman. Not only you but your future generation also is those who are responsible for the ruination of the race."|An editorial in Burmese Press, 27 November 1938<ref>{{cite news|title=Burmese women who took Indians|publisher=Seq-than Journal|newspaper=Burma Press Abstract|date=5 December 1940 |id=(IOR L/R/5/207)}}</ref>}} |
{{quotation|"You Burmese women who fail to safeguard your own race, after you have married an Indian, your daughter whom you have begotten by such a tie takes an Indian as her husband. As for your son, he becomes a '''half-caste''' and tries to get a pure Burmese woman. Not only you but your future generation also is those who are responsible for the ruination of the race."|An editorial in Burmese Press, 27 November 1938<ref>{{cite news|title=Burmese women who took Indians|publisher=Seq-than Journal|newspaper=Burma Press Abstract|date=5 December 1940 |id=(IOR L/R/5/207)}}</ref>}} |
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Similarly, Pu Gale in 1939 wrote ''Kabya Pyatthana'' (literally: The Half-Caste Problem), censured Burmese women for enabling half-caste phenomenon, with the claim,『a Burmese woman’s degenerative intercourse with an Indian threatened a spiraling destruction of Burmese society.』Such criticism was not limited to a few isolated instances, or just against Burmese girls (''thet khit thami''), Indians and British husbands. Starting in early 1930s through 1950s, there was an explosion of publications, newspaper articles and cartoons with such social censorship. Included in the criticism were Chinese-Burmese half-castes.<ref>{{cite book|title=GENDER, HISTORY AND MODERNITY: REPRESENTING WOMEN IN TWENTIETH CENTURY COLONIAL BURMA| author=Chie Ikeya|year=2006|publisher=Cornell University|url=http://ecommons.library.cornell.edu/bitstream/1813/2537/1/CIdissertationpartone.pdf}}</ref> |
Similarly, Pu Gale in 1939 wrote ''Kabya Pyatthana'' (literally: The Half-Caste Problem), censured Burmese women for enabling half-caste phenomenon, with the claim,『a Burmese woman’s degenerative intercourse with an Indian threatened a spiraling destruction of Burmese society.』Such criticism was not limited to a few isolated instances, or just against Burmese girls (''thet khit thami''), Indians and British husbands. Starting in early 1930s through 1950s, there was an explosion of publications, newspaper articles and cartoons with such social censorship. Included in the criticism were Chinese-Burmese half-castes.<ref>{{cite book|title=GENDER, HISTORY AND MODERNITY: REPRESENTING WOMEN IN TWENTIETH CENTURY COLONIAL BURMA| author=Chie Ikeya|author-link=Chie Ikeya|year=2006|publisher=Cornell University|url=http://ecommons.library.cornell.edu/bitstream/1813/2537/1/CIdissertationpartone.pdf}}</ref> |
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Prior to the explosion in censorship of half-castes in early-20th-century Burma, Thant claims inter-cultural couples such as Burmese-Indian marriages were encouraged by the local population. The situation began to change as colonial developments, allocation of land, rice mills and socio-economic privileges were given to European colonial officials and to Indians who migrated to Burma thanks to economic incentives passed by the [[British Raj|Raj]]. In the late 19th century, the colonial administration viewed intermarriage as a socio-cultural problem. The colonial administration issued circulars prohibiting European officials from conjugal liaisons with Burmese women. In Burma, as in other colonies in Southeast Asia, intimate relations between native women and European men, and the half-caste progeny of such unions were considered harmful to the white minority rule founded upon carefully maintained racial hierarchies.<ref>{{cite book|author=Laura Stoler|title=Carnal knowledge and imperial power: Race and the intimate in colonial rule. |publisher=University of California Press, Berkeley| year=1983|isbn=978-0520231115}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=The social world of Batavia: European and Eurasian in Dutch Asia|author= Jean Taylor|year=1983|publisher=University of Wisconsin Press.}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|author=Penny Edwards|year=2002|title=Half Caste - staging race in British Burma|journal=Postcolonial Studies|volume=5|number=3|pages=279–295|doi=10.1080/1368879022000032793|s2cid=143709779}}</ref> |
Prior to the explosion in censorship of half-castes in early-20th-century Burma, Thant claims inter-cultural couples such as Burmese-Indian marriages were encouraged by the local population. The situation began to change as colonial developments, allocation of land, rice mills and socio-economic privileges were given to European colonial officials and to Indians who migrated to Burma thanks to economic incentives passed by the [[British Raj|Raj]]. In the late 19th century, the colonial administration viewed intermarriage as a socio-cultural problem. The colonial administration issued circulars prohibiting European officials from conjugal liaisons with Burmese women. In Burma, as in other colonies in Southeast Asia, intimate relations between native women and European men, and the half-caste progeny of such unions were considered harmful to the white minority rule founded upon carefully maintained racial hierarchies.<ref>{{cite book|author=Laura Stoler|title=Carnal knowledge and imperial power: Race and the intimate in colonial rule. |publisher=University of California Press, Berkeley| year=1983|isbn=978-0520231115}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=The social world of Batavia: European and Eurasian in Dutch Asia|author= Jean Taylor|year=1983|publisher=University of Wisconsin Press.}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|author=Penny Edwards|year=2002|title=Half Caste - staging race in British Burma|journal=Postcolonial Studies|volume=5|number=3|pages=279–295|doi=10.1080/1368879022000032793|s2cid=143709779}}</ref> |
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===China=== |
===China=== |
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While the term ''half-caste'' tends to evoke the understanding of it referring to the offspring of two persons of two different pure bloods or near pure bloods, in other languages, such as Mandarin Chinese, the words ''half-caste'' and ''mixed ethnicity'' or ''multi-ethnic'' are the same word, ''hun-xue'' (混血). |
While the term ''half-caste'' tends to evoke the understanding of it referring to the offspring of two persons of two different pure bloods or near pure bloods{{Citation needed|reason=Your explanation here|date=May 2023}}, in other languages, such as Mandarin Chinese, the words ''half-caste'' and ''mixed ethnicity'' or ''multi-ethnic'' are the same word, ''hun-xue'' (混血). |
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===Fiji=== |
===Fiji=== |
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Fijian people of mixed descent were called half-caste, ''kailoma'' or ''vasu''. European and Indian immigrants started migrating to Fiji and intermarrying during the period of colonial rule. The colonial government viewed this as a |
Fijian people of mixed descent were called half-caste, ''kailoma'' or ''vasu''. European and Indian immigrants started migrating to Fiji and intermarrying during the period of colonial rule. The colonial government viewed this as a "race problem", as it created a privileged underclass of semi-Europeans who lived on the social fringes in the colonial ordering of Fiji. This legacy continues to affect the ethnic and racial discourse in Fiji.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Histories of Diversity: Kailoma Testimonies and 'Part-European' Tales from Colonial Fiji|author=Lucy Bruce|journal=Journal of Intercultural Studies|volume=28|issue=1|year=2007| pages=113–127|doi=10.1080/07256860601082970|s2cid=216112561}}</ref> |
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''Kailomas'' or ''vasus'' were children born to a [[Fiji|Fijian native]] and European or [[Indians in Fiji|indentured laborers]] brought in by the colonial government to work on sugarcane plantations over a century ago. Over the generations, these half-caste people experienced social shunning and poor treatment from the colonial government, which became determined in herding citizens into separate, tidy, racial boxes, which led to the separation of Fijian mixed-bloods from their natural families.<ref>{{cite book|title=Telling Pacific Lives (see: Section 2 of Chapter 7. A Tartan Clan in Fiji: Narrating the Coloniser 'Within' the Colonised)|isbn= 9781921313813|publisher=Australian National University|author=Vicky de Bruce (Editors: Vicki Luker, Brij Lal)|pages=94–105|year=2005|url=http://epress.anu.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/whole_book7.pdf}}</ref> |
''Kailomas'' or ''vasus'' were children born to a [[Fiji|Fijian native]] and European or [[Indians in Fiji|indentured laborers]] brought in by the colonial government to work on sugarcane plantations over a century ago. Over the generations, these half-caste people experienced social shunning and poor treatment from the colonial government, which became determined in herding citizens into separate, tidy, racial boxes, which led to the separation of Fijian mixed-bloods from their natural families.<ref>{{cite book|title=Telling Pacific Lives (see: Section 2 of Chapter 7. A Tartan Clan in Fiji: Narrating the Coloniser 'Within' the Colonised)|isbn= 9781921313813|publisher=Australian National University|author=Vicky de Bruce (Editors: Vicki Luker, Brij Lal)|pages=94–105|year=2005|url=http://epress.anu.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/whole_book7.pdf}}</ref> |
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With Malaysia experiencing a wave of immigrations from China, the Middle East, India, and southeast Asia, and a wave of different colonial powers (Portuguese, Dutch, English), many other terms have been used for half-castes. Some of these include ''cap-ceng'', ''half-breed'', ''mesticos''. These terms are considered pejorative.<ref>{{cite journal|title=THE PORTUGUESE COMMUNITY AT THE PERIPHERY: A MINORITY REPORT ON THE PORTUGUESE QUEST FOR BUMIPUTERA STATUS|author=Gerard Fernandis|journal=Kajian Malaysia|volume=XXI|number= 1&2|year= 2003}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=The White Man's Burden and Brown Humanity: Colonialism and Ethnicity in British Malaya|author=A.J. Stockwell|journal= Southeast Asian Journal of Social Science|volume=10|number=1|year=1982|pages=44–68|doi=10.1163/156853182X00047}}</ref> |
With Malaysia experiencing a wave of immigrations from China, the Middle East, India, and southeast Asia, and a wave of different colonial powers (Portuguese, Dutch, English), many other terms have been used for half-castes. Some of these include ''cap-ceng'', ''half-breed'', ''mesticos''. These terms are considered pejorative.<ref>{{cite journal|title=THE PORTUGUESE COMMUNITY AT THE PERIPHERY: A MINORITY REPORT ON THE PORTUGUESE QUEST FOR BUMIPUTERA STATUS|author=Gerard Fernandis|journal=Kajian Malaysia|volume=XXI|number= 1&2|year= 2003}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|title=The White Man's Burden and Brown Humanity: Colonialism and Ethnicity in British Malaya|author=A.J. Stockwell|journal= Southeast Asian Journal of Social Science|volume=10|number=1|year=1982|pages=44–68|doi=10.1163/156853182X00047}}</ref> |
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Half-castes of Malaya and other European colonies in Asia have been part of non-fiction and fictional works. Brigitte Glaser notes that the half-caste characters in literary works of the 18th through 20th century were predominantly structured with prejudice, as degenerate, low, inferior, deviant or barbaric. Ashcroft in his review considers the literary work structure as consistent with morals and values of colonial era where the European colonial powers considered people from different ethnic groups as unequal by birth in their abilities, character and potential, where laws were enacted that made sexual relations and marriage between ethnic groups as illegal.<ref>{{cite book|title=Racism, Slavery, and Literature (Editor: Wolfgang Zach, Ulrich Pallua)|author=Brigitte Glaser|pages=209–232|isbn=978-3631590454|publisher=Peter Lang GmbH|year=2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Post-Colonial Studies: The Key Concepts |author=Ashcroft |author2=Griffiths |author3=Tiffin |year=2007 |isbn=978-0415428552 |edition=2}}</ref> |
Half-castes of Malaya and other European colonies in Asia have been part of non-fiction and fictional works. Brigitte Glaser notes that the half-caste characters in literary works of the 18th through 20th century were predominantly structured with prejudice, as degenerate, low, inferior, deviant or barbaric. Ashcroft in his review considers the literary work structure as consistent with morals and values of colonial era where the European colonial powers considered people from different ethnic groups as unequal by birth in their abilities, character and potential, where laws were enacted that made sexual relations and marriage between ethnic groups as illegal.<ref>{{cite book|title=Racism, Slavery, and Literature (Editor: Wolfgang Zach, Ulrich Pallua)|author=Brigitte Glaser|pages=209–232|isbn=978-3631590454|publisher=Peter Lang GmbH|year=2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Post-Colonial Studies: The Key Concepts |author=Ashcroft |author2=Griffiths |author3=Tiffin |year=2007 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0415428552 |edition=2}}</ref> |
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===New Zealand=== |
===New Zealand=== |
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The term ''half-caste'' to classify people based on their birth and ancestry became popular in New Zealand from the early 19th century. Terms such as ''Anglo-New Zealander'' suggested by John Polack in 1838, ''Utu Pihikete'' and ''Huipaiana'' were alternatively but less used.<ref>{{cite web|author=Paul Meredith|title=A Half-Caste on the Half-Caste in the Cultural Politics of New Zealand|year=2001|url=http://lianz.waikato.ac.nz/PAPERS/paul/Paul%20Meredith%20Mana%20Verlag%20Paper.pdf}}</ref> |
The term ''half-caste'' to classify people based on their birth and ancestry became popular in New Zealand from the early 19th century. Terms such as ''Anglo-New Zealander'' suggested by John Polack in 1838, ''Utu Pihikete'' and ''Huipaiana'' were alternatively but less used.<ref>{{cite web|author=Paul Meredith|title=A Half-Caste on the Half-Caste in the Cultural Politics of New Zealand|year=2001|url=http://lianz.waikato.ac.nz/PAPERS/paul/Paul%20Meredith%20Mana%20Verlag%20Paper.pdf}}</ref> |
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===South Africa=== |
===South Africa=== |
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People of mixed descent, the half-caste, were considered inferior and slaves by birth in the 19th-century hierarchically arranged, closed colonial social stratification system of South Africa. This was the case even if the father or mother of half-caste person was a European.<ref name=berghe/><ref>{{cite book|author=Robert Percival|title=An account of the Cape of Good Hope|publisher=Baldwin|year=1804|isbn=978-0217773904|url=https://archive.org/stream/anaccountcapego00percgoog#page/n4/mode/2up}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|author=O.F. Mentzel|title=A description of the African Cape of Good Hope - 1787 (See volume II; also see other Mentzel records and books|year=1944|publisher=The Van Riebeeck Society|url=http://www.vanriebeecksociety.co.za/catalogue.htm}}</ref> |
People of mixed descent, the half-caste, were considered inferior and slaves by birth in the 19th-century hierarchically arranged, closed colonial social stratification system of South Africa. This was the case even if the father or mother of half-caste person was a European.<ref name=berghe/><ref>{{cite book|author=Robert Percival|title=An account of the Cape of Good Hope|publisher=Baldwin|year=1804|isbn=978-0217773904|url=https://archive.org/stream/anaccountcapego00percgoog#page/n4/mode/2up}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|author=O.F. Mentzel|title=A description of the African Cape of Good Hope - 1787 (See volume II; also see other Mentzel records and books|year=1944|publisher=The Van Riebeeck Society|url=http://www.vanriebeecksociety.co.za/catalogue.htm}}</ref> |
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Also, during the apartheid eras, [[Indian South Africans|Indians]] were treated as the [[upper middle class]] that was virtually superior to half-caste [[Coloureds]].{{cn|date=September 2023}} |
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===United Kingdom=== |
===United Kingdom=== |
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In the United Kingdom, the term when used primarily applies to those of mixed Black and White parentage, although can extend to those of differing heritages as well.<ref name=Hill2>{{cite web|title=Half-Caste, Bi-racial, Mixed-Race or Black?| author=J. Hill|year=2010|url=http://www.colorfultimes.com/2010/03/society/race-society/ethnicity-identity/halfcaste-biracial-mixedrace-black/}}</ref> |
In the United Kingdom, the term when used primarily applies to those of mixed Black and White parentage, although can extend to those of differing heritages as well.<ref name=Hill2>{{cite web|title=Half-Caste, Bi-racial, Mixed-Race or Black?| author=J. Hill|year=2010|url=http://www.colorfultimes.com/2010/03/society/race-society/ethnicity-identity/halfcaste-biracial-mixedrace-black/}}</ref> |
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Sociologist [[Peter J. Aspinall]] argues that the term was coined by 19th-century British colonial administrations, and eventually started to be used as a descriptor of multiracial Britons in the 20th century who had partial white ancestry. From the 1920s to 1960s, |
Sociologist [[Peter J. Aspinall]] argues that the term was coined by 19th-century British colonial administrations, and eventually started to be used as a descriptor of multiracial Britons in the 20th century who had partial white ancestry. From the 1920s to 1960s, Aspinall argues it was "used in Britain as a derogatory racial category associated with the moral condemnation of '[[miscegenation]]{{'"}}.<ref name=Aspinall>{{cite journal|title=The Social Evolution of the Term 'Half-Caste' in Britain: The Paradox of its Use as Both Derogatory Racial Category and Self-Descriptor|first=Peter J.|last=Aspinall|journal=Journal of Historical Sociology|volume=26|issue=4|pages=503–526|year=2013|doi=10.1111/johs.12033}}</ref> |
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The National Union of Journalists has stated that the term half-caste is considered offensive today. The union's guidelines for race reporting instructs journalists to |
The National Union of Journalists has stated that the term half-caste is considered offensive today. The union's guidelines for race reporting instructs journalists to "avoid words that, although common in the past, are now considered offensive".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nuj.org.uk/news/updated-nuj-race-reporting-guidelines-and-efj-manifesto/|title=Updated NUJ race reporting guidelines and EFJ manifesto|website=National Union of Journalists|language=en|access-date=2017-11-18}}</ref> NHS Editorial guidance states documents should "Avoid offensive and stereotyping words such as coloured, half-caste and so forth".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nhs.uk/aboutnhschoices/documents/nhs_choiceseditorial_style_guide_v2.1.pdf|title=NHS Choices, Editorial Style Guide V2.1|website=NHS Choices}}</ref> |
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==Half-caste in other colonial empires== |
==Half-caste in other colonial empires== |
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The term ''half-caste'' was widely used by colonial administrators in the [[British Empire]]. In Spanish colonies, other terms were in use for half-caste people; the above painting, for example, shows a Zamba. The caption India in the painting refers to native Indian American woman.]] |
The term ''half-caste'' was widely used by colonial administrators in the [[British Empire]]. In Spanish colonies, other terms were in use for half-caste people; the above painting, for example, shows a Zamba. The caption India in the painting refers to native Indian American woman.]] |
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The term ''half-caste'' was common in British colonies, however it was not exclusive to the [[British Empire]]. Other colonial empires [[Spanish Empire|such as Spain]] devised terms for mixed-race children. The Spanish colonies devised a complex system of [[casta]]s, consisting of [[mulatto]]s, [[mestizo]]s, and many other descriptors. [[French colonial empire|French colonies]] used terms such as [[Métis]], while [[Portuguese Empire|the Portuguese]] used the term ''[[mestiço]]''. French colonies in the [[Caribbean]] referred to half-caste people as ''Chabine'' (female) and ''Chabin'' (male). Before the [[American Civil War]], the term [[Métis people (United States)|''mestee'']] was commonly applied in the |
The term ''half-caste'' was common in British colonies, however it was not exclusive to the [[British Empire]]. Other colonial empires [[Spanish Empire|such as Spain]] devised terms for mixed-race children. The Spanish colonies devised a complex system of [[casta]]s, consisting of [[mulatto]]s, [[mestizo]]s, and many other descriptors. [[French colonial empire|French colonies]] used terms such as [[Métis]], while [[Portuguese Empire|the Portuguese]] used the term ''[[mestiço]]''. French colonies in the [[Caribbean]] referred to half-caste people as ''Chabine'' (female) and ''Chabin'' (male). Before the [[American Civil War]], the term [[Métis people (United States)|''mestee'']] was commonly applied in the United States to certain people of mixed descent.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Wallace Gesner|title=Habitants, Half-Breeds and Homeless Children: Transformations in Metis and Yankee-Yorker Relations in Early Michigan|journal=Michigan Historical Review|volume=24|issue=1|date=Jan 1998|pages=23–47|doi=10.2307/20173718|jstor=20173718}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Race, Gender, & Comparative Black Modernism|url=https://archive.org/details/racegendercompar0000wilk|url-access=registration|author=Jennifer M. Wilks|publisher=Louisiana State University Press|isbn=978-0-8071-3364-4|date=2008-12-01}}</ref> |
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Other terms in use in colonial era for half-castes included |
Other terms in use in colonial era for half-castes included creole, casco, cafuso, caburet, cattalo, citrange, griffe, half blood, half-bred, [[half-breed]], high yellow, hinny, hybrid, ladino, liger, mamaluco, mixblood, mixed-blood, mongrel, mule, mustee, octoroon, plumcot, quadroon, quintroon, sambo, tangelo, xibaro. The difference between these terms of various European colonies usually was the [[Race (human classification)|race]], [[ethnic group|ethnicity]] or [[casta|caste]] of the father and the mother.<ref>{{cite book|title=The English people overseas|author=Aubrey Wyatt Tilby|author-link=A. Wyatt Tilby|year=1912|publisher=Houghton Mifflin|url=https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=vCkuAQAAIAAJ&rdid=book-vCkuAQAAIAAJ&rdot=1}}</ref> |
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[[Ann Laura Stoler]] has published a series of reviews of half-caste people and ethnic intermixing during the colonial era of human history. She states that colonial control was predicated on identifying who was white and who was native, which children could become citizens of the empire while who remained the subjects of the empire, who had hereditary rights of a progeny and who did not. This was debated by colonial administrators, then triggered regulations by the authorities. At the start of colonial empires, mostly males from Europe and then males of indentured laborers from India, China and southeast Asia went on these distant trips; in these early times, intermixing was accepted, approved and encouraged. Over time, differences were emphasised, and the colonial authorities proceeded to restrict, then disapprove and finally forbid sexual relationships between groups of people to maintain so-called purity of blood and limit inheritable rights.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Ann Stoler|year=1989|title=Rethinking colonial categories: European communities and the boundaries of rule|journal=Comparative Studies in Society and History|volume=31|number=1|pages=134–61|doi=10.1017/s0010417500015693}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|author=Ann Stoler|year=1989|title=Making Empire respectable: The politics of race and morality in 20th century colonial cultures|journal=American Ethnologist|volume=16|number=4|pages=634–660|doi=10.1525/ae.1989.16.4.02a00030|hdl=2027.42/136501|hdl-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|author=PAUL SHANKMAN|title=Interethnic Unions and the Regulation of Sex in Colonial Samoa, 1830-1945|journal=The Journal of the Polynesian Society|volume=110|number= 2|date=June 2001|pages= 119–147|jstor=20706988|pmid=18163284}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|author=Ann Stoler|year=1992|title=Sexual affronts and racial frontiers: European identities and the cultural politics of exclusion in colonial Southeast Asia|journal=Comparative Studies in Society and History|volume= 34|number=3|pages=514–551|doi=10.1017/s001041750001793x}}</ref> |
[[Ann Laura Stoler]] has published a series of reviews of half-caste people and ethnic intermixing during the colonial era of human history. She states that colonial control was predicated on identifying who was white and who was native, which children could become citizens of the empire while who remained the subjects of the empire, who had hereditary rights of a progeny and who did not. This was debated by colonial administrators, then triggered regulations by the authorities. At the start of colonial empires, mostly males from Europe and then males of indentured laborers from India, China and southeast Asia went on these distant trips; in these early times, intermixing was accepted, approved and encouraged. Over time, differences were emphasised, and the colonial authorities proceeded to restrict, then disapprove and finally forbid sexual relationships between groups of people to maintain so-called purity of blood and limit inheritable rights.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Ann Stoler|year=1989|title=Rethinking colonial categories: European communities and the boundaries of rule|journal=Comparative Studies in Society and History|volume=31|number=1|pages=134–61|doi=10.1017/s0010417500015693|s2cid=145116007 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|author=Ann Stoler|year=1989|title=Making Empire respectable: The politics of race and morality in 20th century colonial cultures|journal=American Ethnologist|volume=16|number=4|pages=634–660|doi=10.1525/ae.1989.16.4.02a00030|hdl=2027.42/136501|hdl-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|author=PAUL SHANKMAN|title=Interethnic Unions and the Regulation of Sex in Colonial Samoa, 1830-1945|journal=The Journal of the Polynesian Society|volume=110|number= 2|date=June 2001|pages= 119–147|jstor=20706988|pmid=18163284}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|author=Ann Stoler|year=1992|title=Sexual affronts and racial frontiers: European identities and the cultural politics of exclusion in colonial Southeast Asia|journal=Comparative Studies in Society and History|volume= 34|number=3|pages=514–551|doi=10.1017/s001041750001793x|s2cid=145246006 }}</ref> |
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==See also== |
==See also== |
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:*[[Luso-Indian]] |
:*[[Luso-Indian]] |
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:*[[Burgher people]], Sri Lankan people of partly European ancestry |
:*[[Burgher people]], Sri Lankan people of partly European ancestry |
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:* |
:*Eurasian (mixed ancestry) |
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:*[[Indo people]] (similar group in the [[Dutch East Indies]]) |
:*[[Indo people]] (similar group in the [[Dutch East Indies]]) |
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==References== |
==References== |
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{{ |
{{reflist}} |
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{{Authority control}} |
{{Authority control}} |
Half-caste is a term used for individuals of multiracial descent.[1] It is derived from the term caste, which comes from the Latin castus, meaning pure, and the derivative Portuguese and Spanish word casta, meaning race. Terms such as half-caste, caste, quarter-caste and mix-breed were used by colonial officials in the British Empire during their classification of indigenous populations, and in Australia used during the Australian government's pursuit of a policy of assimilation.[2]InLatin America, the equivalent term for half-castes was Cholo and Zambo.[3] Some people now consider the term offensive.
In Australia, the term "half-caste", along with any other proportional representation of Aboriginality (such as "part-aborigine", "full-blood", "quarter-caste", "octoroon", "mulatto", or "hybrid"[4]) is generally used as a harmless descriptor but may be seen as highly offensive to some Aboriginal peoples of Australia partly for historical reasons, as it is associated with assimilationist policies of the past.[5][6][7][8] Such terms were widely used in the 19th- and early-20th-century Australian laws to refer to the offspring of European and Aboriginal parents.[9] For example, the Aborigines Protection Act 1886 mentioned half-castes habitually associating with or living with an "Aborigine" (another term no longer favoured),[10] while the Aborigines Amendments between 1934 and 1937 refer to it in various terms, including as a person with less than quadroon blood.[11]
Following the federation of the Australian colonies in 1901, Attorney-General Alfred Deakin ruled that references to "aboriginal natives" in the Australian Constitution did not include half-caste individuals. This definition was carried forward into the first federal welfare legislation, such as the Deakin government's Invalid and Old-Age Pensions Act 1908 and the Fisher government's Maternity Allowance Act 1912, which made half-castes eligible to receive old-age pensions and maternity allowances but excluded individuals "who are Asiatic, or are aboriginal natives of Australia, Papua or the Pacific Islands".[12]
The term was not merely a term of legal convenience; it became a term of common cultural discourse. Christian missionary John Harper, investigating the possibility of establishing of a Christian missionatBatemans Bay, New South Wales, wrote that half-castes and anyone with any Aboriginal connections were considered "degraded as to divine things, almost on a level with a brute, in a state of moral unfitness for heaven".[13][14]
The term "Half-Caste Act" was given to Acts of Parliament passed in Victoria and Western Australia allowing the seizure of half-caste children and forcible removal from their parents. This was theoretically to provide them with better homes than those afforded by typical Aboriginal people, where they could grow up to work as domestic servants and for social engineering.[11][15][16] The removed children are now known as the Stolen Generations. Other Australian Parliament acts on half-castes and Aboriginal people enacted between 1909 and 1943 were often called "Welfare Acts", but they deprived these people of basic civil, political, and economic rights, and made it illegal to enter public places such as pubs and government institutions, marry, or meet relatives.[2]
InBritish Central Africa, now part of modern-day Malawi and Zimbabwe, people of multiracial descent were referred to as half-castes. These unions were considered socially improper, with mixed couples being segregated and shunned by society at large, and colonial courts passing legislation against mixed marriages.[17][18]
In Burma, a half-caste (orKabya[19]) was anyone with mixed ethnicity from Burmese and British, or Burmese and Indian. During the period of colonial rule, half-caste people were ostracised and criticised in Burmese literary and political media. For example, a local publication in 1938 published the following:
"You Burmese women who fail to safeguard your own race, after you have married an Indian, your daughter whom you have begotten by such a tie takes an Indian as her husband. As for your son, he becomes a half-caste and tries to get a pure Burmese woman. Not only you but your future generation also is those who are responsible for the ruination of the race."
— An editorial in Burmese Press, 27 November 1938[20]
Similarly, Pu Gale in 1939 wrote Kabya Pyatthana (literally: The Half-Caste Problem), censured Burmese women for enabling half-caste phenomenon, with the claim,『a Burmese woman’s degenerative intercourse with an Indian threatened a spiraling destruction of Burmese society.』Such criticism was not limited to a few isolated instances, or just against Burmese girls (thet khit thami), Indians and British husbands. Starting in early 1930s through 1950s, there was an explosion of publications, newspaper articles and cartoons with such social censorship. Included in the criticism were Chinese-Burmese half-castes.[21]
Prior to the explosion in censorship of half-castes in early-20th-century Burma, Thant claims inter-cultural couples such as Burmese-Indian marriages were encouraged by the local population. The situation began to change as colonial developments, allocation of land, rice mills and socio-economic privileges were given to European colonial officials and to Indians who migrated to Burma thanks to economic incentives passed by the Raj. In the late 19th century, the colonial administration viewed intermarriage as a socio-cultural problem. The colonial administration issued circulars prohibiting European officials from conjugal liaisons with Burmese women. In Burma, as in other colonies in Southeast Asia, intimate relations between native women and European men, and the half-caste progeny of such unions were considered harmful to the white minority rule founded upon carefully maintained racial hierarchies.[22][23][24]
While the term half-caste tends to evoke the understanding of it referring to the offspring of two persons of two different pure bloods or near pure bloods[citation needed], in other languages, such as Mandarin Chinese, the words half-caste and mixed ethnicityormulti-ethnic are the same word, hun-xue (混血).
Fijian people of mixed descent were called half-caste, kailomaorvasu. European and Indian immigrants started migrating to Fiji and intermarrying during the period of colonial rule. The colonial government viewed this as a "race problem", as it created a privileged underclass of semi-Europeans who lived on the social fringes in the colonial ordering of Fiji. This legacy continues to affect the ethnic and racial discourse in Fiji.[25]
Kailomasorvasus were children born to a Fijian native and European or indentured laborers brought in by the colonial government to work on sugarcane plantations over a century ago. Over the generations, these half-caste people experienced social shunning and poor treatment from the colonial government, which became determined in herding citizens into separate, tidy, racial boxes, which led to the separation of Fijian mixed-bloods from their natural families.[26]
Half-caste in Malaysia referred to Eurasians and other people of mixed descents.[27][28] They were also commonly referred to as hybrids, and in certain sociological literature the term hybridity is common.[16][29]
With Malaysia experiencing a wave of immigrations from China, the Middle East, India, and southeast Asia, and a wave of different colonial powers (Portuguese, Dutch, English), many other terms have been used for half-castes. Some of these include cap-ceng, half-breed, mesticos. These terms are considered pejorative.[30][31]
Half-castes of Malaya and other European colonies in Asia have been part of non-fiction and fictional works. Brigitte Glaser notes that the half-caste characters in literary works of the 18th through 20th century were predominantly structured with prejudice, as degenerate, low, inferior, deviant or barbaric. Ashcroft in his review considers the literary work structure as consistent with morals and values of colonial era where the European colonial powers considered people from different ethnic groups as unequal by birth in their abilities, character and potential, where laws were enacted that made sexual relations and marriage between ethnic groups as illegal.[32][33]
The term half-caste to classify people based on their birth and ancestry became popular in New Zealand from the early 19th century. Terms such as Anglo-New Zealander suggested by John Polack in 1838, Utu Pihikete and Huipaiana were alternatively but less used.[34]
Sociological literature on South Africa, including the pre-colonial, colonial and apartheid eras, refers to half-caste as anyone born from admixing of White and people of color. An alternate, less common term, for half-caste was Mestizzo (conceptually similar to Mestizo in Latin American colonies).[35]
Griqua (Afrikaans: Griekwa) is another term for half-caste people from intermixing in South Africa and Namibia.[36]
People of mixed descent, the half-caste, were considered inferior and slaves by birth in the 19th-century hierarchically arranged, closed colonial social stratification system of South Africa. This was the case even if the father or mother of half-caste person was a European.[35][37][38]
Also, during the apartheid eras, Indians were treated as the upper middle class that was virtually superior to half-caste Coloureds.[citation needed]
In the United Kingdom, the term when used primarily applies to those of mixed Black and White parentage, although can extend to those of differing heritages as well.[39]
Sociologist Peter J. Aspinall argues that the term was coined by 19th-century British colonial administrations, and eventually started to be used as a descriptor of multiracial Britons in the 20th century who had partial white ancestry. From the 1920s to 1960s, Aspinall argues it was "used in Britain as a derogatory racial category associated with the moral condemnation of 'miscegenation'".[40]
The National Union of Journalists has stated that the term half-caste is considered offensive today. The union's guidelines for race reporting instructs journalists to "avoid words that, although common in the past, are now considered offensive".[41] NHS Editorial guidance states documents should "Avoid offensive and stereotyping words such as coloured, half-caste and so forth".[42]
The term half-caste was common in British colonies, however it was not exclusive to the British Empire. Other colonial empires such as Spain devised terms for mixed-race children. The Spanish colonies devised a complex system of castas, consisting of mulattos, mestizos, and many other descriptors. French colonies used terms such as Métis, while the Portuguese used the term mestiço. French colonies in the Caribbean referred to half-caste people as Chabine (female) and Chabin (male). Before the American Civil War, the term mestee was commonly applied in the United States to certain people of mixed descent.[43][44]
Other terms in use in colonial era for half-castes included creole, casco, cafuso, caburet, cattalo, citrange, griffe, half blood, half-bred, half-breed, high yellow, hinny, hybrid, ladino, liger, mamaluco, mixblood, mixed-blood, mongrel, mule, mustee, octoroon, plumcot, quadroon, quintroon, sambo, tangelo, xibaro. The difference between these terms of various European colonies usually was the race, ethnicityorcaste of the father and the mother.[45]
Ann Laura Stoler has published a series of reviews of half-caste people and ethnic intermixing during the colonial era of human history. She states that colonial control was predicated on identifying who was white and who was native, which children could become citizens of the empire while who remained the subjects of the empire, who had hereditary rights of a progeny and who did not. This was debated by colonial administrators, then triggered regulations by the authorities. At the start of colonial empires, mostly males from Europe and then males of indentured laborers from India, China and southeast Asia went on these distant trips; in these early times, intermixing was accepted, approved and encouraged. Over time, differences were emphasised, and the colonial authorities proceeded to restrict, then disapprove and finally forbid sexual relationships between groups of people to maintain so-called purity of blood and limit inheritable rights.[46][47][48][49]
A chapter from The Last of the Tasmanians (includes story of one half-caste family)
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