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((More citations needed|date=August 2023))
((Short description|Ethnic groups formed from mixed cultural and linguistic ancestry))
((Other uses|Creole (disambiguation)((!))Creole))
[[File:APiCS languages map.png|thumb|upright=1.5|Map of Creole languages]]

'''Creole peoples''' may refer to different ethnic groups around the world.<ref>((Cite web|url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/creole|title=Definition of CREOLE|website=www.merriam-webster.com))</ref> The term has been used with various meanings, often conflicting or varying from region to region.<ref>((Cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Creole|title=Creole &#124; History, Culture & Language &#124; Britannica|website=www.britannica.com|date=15 December 2023 ))</ref>

Creole peoples vary widely in ethnic background and mixture and many have since developed distinct ethnic identities. The development of [[creole language]]s is sometimes mistakenly attributed to the [[ethnogenesis|emergence]] of Creole ethnic identities; however, the two developments occur independently.

In some places, they are [[ethnic group]]s formed during the [[Ethnic groups in Europe|European]] [[early modern period|colonial]] era, from the [[Forced displacement|mass displacement]] of peoples brought into sustained contact with others from different [[linguistic]] and [[cultural]] backgrounds, who converged onto a [[Colony|colonial territory]] to which they had not previously belonged.<ref name="Cohen"/><ref name="Eric"/>

In some cases, often involuntarily uprooted from their original home, the settlers were obliged to develop and creatively merge the desirable elements from their diverse backgrounds, to produce new varieties of [[social]], linguistic and cultural norms that superseded the prior forms.<ref name="Cohen">((Cite journal|last=Cohen|first=Robin|s2cid=54814946|date=2007|title=Creolization and Cultural Globalization: The Soft Sounds of Fugitive Power|journal=Globalizations|volume=4|issue=3|pages=369–384|doi=10.1080/14747730701532492|bibcode=2007Glob....4..369C ))</ref><ref name="Eric" /><ref name="auto2">((Cite book|title=Creolization as Cultural Creativity|last=Baron, Robert A., and Cara, Ana C.|publisher=University Press of Mississippi|year=2011|isbn= 9781617031069|location=Jackson, MS|pages=12–23))</ref> This process, known as [[creolization]],<ref name="auto">((Cite web|url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/creolization|title=Creolization|website=www.sciencedirect.com|access-date=2022-06-23|archive-date=2022-06-20|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220620093226/https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/creolization|url-status=live))</ref><ref name="auto1">((Cite book|title=Creolization history, ethnography, theory. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.|last=Stewart|first=Charles|publisher=Left Coast Press|year=2016|isbn=9781598742787|location=Walnut Creek, CA|pages=1–25))</ref> is characterized by rapid [[social change|social flux]] regularized into Creole [[ethnogenesis]].

== Etymology and overview==
The English word creole derives from the French créole, which in turn came from Portuguese crioulo, a diminutive of cria meaning a person raised in one's house. Cria is derived from criar, meaning "to raise or bring up", itself derived from the Latin creare, meaning "to make, bring forth, produce, beget"; which is also the source of the English word "create". It originally referred to the descendants of European colonists who had been born in the colony. Creole is also known by cognates in other languages, such as crioulo, criollo, creolo, créole, kriolu, criol, kreyol, kreol, kriol, krio, and kriyoyo.
In [[Louisiana]], the term Creole has been used since 1792 to represent descendants of African or [[mixed-race|mixed heritage]] parents as well as children of French and Spanish descent with no racial mixing.<ref name="Louisiana1"/><ref name="Louisiana2"/><ref name="Louisiana3"/> Its use as in the name for languages started from 1879, while as an adjective for languages, its use began around 1748.<ref name="beget">((Cite web|url=https://www.etymonline.com/word/creole|title=creole ((!)) Origin and meaning of creole by Online Etymology Dictionary|website=www.etymonline.com|language=en|access-date=2019-04-29|archive-date=2019-05-01|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190501164415/https://www.etymonline.com/word/creole|url-status=live))</ref> 

In Spanish-speaking countries, the word ''[[Criollo people|Criollo]]'' refers to the descendants of Europeans born in the Americas, but also in some countries, to describe something local or very typical of a particular [[Latin America]]n region.<ref>((Cite web|url=https://dle.rae.es/criollo|title=Criollo, criolla &#124; Diccionario de la lengua española|access-date=2022-06-14|archive-date=2021-02-26|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210226205737/https://dle.rae.es/criollo|url-status=live))</ref>

In the [[Caribbean]], the term broadly refers to all the people, whatever their class or ancestry — African, East Asian, European, Indian — who are part of the culture of the Caribbean.<ref name="Brit"/> In [[Trinidad and Tobago|Trinidad]], the term Creole is used to designate all Trinidadians except those of Asian origin. In [[Suriname]], the term refers only to the descendants of enslaved Africans and in neighboring [[French Guiana]] the term refers to anyone, regardless of skin colour, who has adopted a European lifestyle.<ref name="Eric"/><ref name="Brit">((Cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Creole|title=Creole|website=www.britannica.com|access-date=2022-06-14|archive-date=2022-06-27|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220627162453/https://www.britannica.com/topic/Creole|url-status=live))</ref>

[[File:Cafe Creole.jpg|thumb|[[Trilingual]] signs on Cafe Kreol in [[Cape Verde]].]]

In Africa, the term Creole refers to any ethnic group formed during the [[Ethnic groups in Europe|European]] [[early modern period|colonial]] era, with some [[mixed-race|mix]] of African and non-African racial or cultural heritage.<ref name="African"/> Creole communities are found on most African islands and along the continent's coastal regions where indigenous Africans first interacted with Europeans. As a result of these contacts, five major Creole types emerged: [[Portuguese people|Portuguese]], [[African American]], [[Dutch people|Dutch]], [[French people|French]] and [[British people|British]].<ref name="African">((Cite web|url=https://geography.name/creoles/|title=Creoles of Africa|website=www.geography.name|access-date=2022-06-14|archive-date=2022-08-17|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220817004937/https://geography.name/creoles/|url-status=live))</ref>

The ''Crioulos'' of African or mixed Portuguese and African descent eventually gave rise to several ethnic groups in [[Cape Verde]], [[Guinea-Bissau]], [[São Tomé e Príncipe]], [[Angola]] and [[Mozambique]].<ref name="Berlin"/> The French-speaking [[Mauritian Creoles|Mauritian]] and [[Seychellois Creole]]s are both either African or ethnically mixed and [[Christianization|Christianized]]. On [[Réunion]], the term Creole applies to all people born on the island,<ref name="chaudenson">((cite book|author=Robert Chaudenson |title=Creolization of Language and Culture |isbn=978-0-203-44029-2|publisher=CRC press |page=11 |year=2001))</ref> while in [[South Africa]], the blending of East African and Southeast Asian slaves with [[Dutch people|Dutch]] settlers, later produced a creolized population.<ref name="Markey 1982 169–207">((Cite journal|last=Markey|first=Thomas L.|date=1982|title=Afrikaans: Creole or Non-Creole?|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40501733|journal=Zeitschrift für Dialektologie und Linguistik|volume=49|issue=2|pages=169–207|jstor=40501733|issn=0044-1449|access-date=2021-08-02|archive-date=2021-08-02|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210802143521/https://www.jstor.org/stable/40501733|url-status=live))</ref> The [[Fernandino peoples|Fernandino Creole peoples]] of [[Equatorial Guinea]] are a mix of [[Afro-Cubans]] with [[Emancipados]] and English-speaking [[Liberated Africans in Sierra Leone|Liberated Africans]],<ref>''Glimpses of Africa, West and Southwest coast''. By Charles Spencer Smith; A.M.E. Sunday School Union, 1895; p. 164</ref> while the [[Americo-Liberian]]s and [[Sierra Leone Creoles]] resulted from the intermingling of [[Liberated Africans in Sierra Leone|African Recaptives]] with [[Afro-Caribbean]] people and [[African American]]s.<ref>Murray, Robert P., ''Whiteness in Africa: Americo-Liberians and the Transformative Geographies of Race'' 
(2013). Theses and Dissertations--History. 23. 
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/history_etds/23 ((Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220614121007/https://uknowledge.uky.edu/history_etds/23/ |date=2022-06-14 ))</ref><ref>((cite book|last=Walker |first=James W |year=1992 |chapter=Chapter Five: Foundation of Sierra Leone |title=The Black Loyalists: The Search for a Promised Land in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone, 1783–1870 |location=Toronto |publisher=University of Toronto Press |pages=[https://archive.org/details/blackloyalistsse0000walk/page/94 94]–114 |url=https://archive.org/details/blackloyalistsse0000walk |url-access=registration |isbn=978-0-8020-7402-7)), originally published by Longman & Dalhousie University Press (1976).</ref>

Perhaps due to the range of divergent descriptions and lack of a coherent definition, Norwegian anthropologist [[Thomas Hylland Eriksen|T. H. Eriksen]] concludes: ((quote box
|border = 1.8px 
| quote = <span style="font-size:1.3em; font-family:'Times New Roman',serif; font-weight:400;">“A Creole society, in my understanding, is based wholly or partly on the mass displacement of people who were, often involuntarily, uprooted from their original home, shedding the main features of their social and political organisations on the way, brought into sustained contact with people from other linguistic and cultural areas and obliged to develop, in creative and improvisational ways, new social and cultural forms in the new land, drawing simultaneously on traditions from their respective places of origin and on impulses resulting from the encounter.”</span><ref name="Eric">Eriksen, T.H. (2020). ''Creolisation as a Recipe for Conviviality''. In: Hemer, O., Povrzanović Frykman, M., Ristilammi, PM. (eds) Conviviality at the Crossroads. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28979-9_3 ((Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230320035530/https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-28979-9_3 |date=2023-03-20 ))</ref>
|author =  [[Thomas Hylland Eriksen]]
|source = ''Creolisation as a Recipe for Conviviality'' (2020)
|bgcolor = #EEEEEE
|width  = 50%
|align  = right ))

The following ethnic groups have been historically characterized as "Creole" peoples:

* [[Afro-Brazilian|Afro-Brazilian Crioulos]]
* [[Aku people|Aku Krio people]]
* [[Atlantic Creole]]s
* [[Belizean Kriol people]]
* [[Cape Verdeans]] (Crioulos)
* [[Criollo people]] (European diaspora born in the [[Spanish colonization of the Americas|Spanish colonies in the Americas]])
* [[Fernandino peoples|Fernandino Creole peoples]]
* [[Haitian Creole people]] 
** [[Affranchi]]s
* [[Afro-Honduran#Creoles|Afro-Honduran Creoles]]
* [[Americo-Liberians|Liberian Creole people]]
* [[Louisiana Creole people]] 
** [[Creoles of color]]
* [[Mauritian Creole people]]
** also [[Réunion Creole]]
* [[Seychellois Creole people]]
* [[Sierra Leone Creole people]]
* [[Surinamese Creole people]]

== United States ==

=== Alaska ===
((Main|Alaskan Creole people))
((see also|Starozhily))
[[File:Aleut.jpg|thumb|right|An [[Aleut]]ian man with an [[Alaskan Creole people|Alaskan Creole]] woman in the [[Aleutian Islands]].]]
Alaskan Creole, sometimes colloquially spelled "Kriol" in English (from Russian креол), are a unique people who first came about through the intermingling of [[Russian old-settlers|Sibero-Russian]] ''[[promyshlenniki]]'' men with [[Aleut people|Aleut]] and [[Eskimo]] women in the late 18th century and assumed a prominent position in the economy of [[Russian America]] and the North Pacific Rim.<ref>((cite web|url=http://rocinak.sasktelwebsite.net/roc/creole.htm |title=Creoles in Alaska |access-date=2010-07-30 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110724054518/http://rocinak.sasktelwebsite.net/roc/creole.htm |archive-date=2011-07-24 ))</ref><ref>((Cite web|url=https://kreolmagazine.com/culture/history-and-culture/creoles-of-alaska-kreol-explores-their-fascinating-history/#.YlW-k8hBxPY|title=Creoles of Alaska – Kreol explores their fascinating history &#124; International Magazine Kreol|date=17 February 2016 |access-date=2022-04-12|archive-date=2022-10-22|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221022030335/https://kreolmagazine.com/culture/history-and-culture/creoles-of-alaska-kreol-explores-their-fascinating-history/#.YlW-k8hBxPY|url-status=live))</ref><ref>((Cite web|url=https://alutiiqmuseum.org/word-of-the-week-archive/305-creole|title=Alutiiq Word of the Week Archive - People - Creole))((Dead link|date=December 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes ))</ref><ref>((Cite web|url=https://depts.washington.edu/cspn/creole-policy-and-practice-in-russian-america-iakov-egorovich-netsvetov/|title=Featured Article: Creole Policy and Practice in Russian America – Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest|access-date=2022-04-12|archive-date=2022-04-12|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220412200620/https://depts.washington.edu/cspn/creole-policy-and-practice-in-russian-america-iakov-egorovich-netsvetov/|url-status=live))</ref>

=== Chesapeake Colonies ===
((Main|Chesapeake Colonies))

[[Atlantic Creole]] is a term coined by historian [[Ira Berlin]] to describe a group of people from Angola and Central Africa in the 16th and 17th centuries with cultural or ethnic ties to [[Africa]], [[Europe]], and sometimes the [[Caribbean]]. Some of these people arrived in the Chesapeake Colonies as the Charter Generation of [[Slavery|slaves]] during the [[European colonization of the Americas]] before 1660. Some had lived and worked in Europe or the Caribbean before coming (or being transported) to North America.<ref name="Berlin">((cite journal |last1=Berlin |first1=Ira |title=From Creole to African |journal=William and Mary Quarterly |date=April 1, 1996 |volume=53 |issue=2 |page=266 |doi=10.2307/2947401 |jstor=2947401 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2947401 |access-date=June 6, 2022 |archive-date=March 31, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220331225526/https://www.jstor.org/stable/2947401 |url-status=live ))</ref> Examples of such men included [[John Punch (slave)|John Punch]] and [[Emanuel Driggus]] (his surname was likely derived from [[Rodrigues (surname)|Rodrigues]]). 
Also, during the early settlement of the colonies, children born of immigrants in the colonies were often referred to as "Creole". This is found more often in the Chesapeake Colonies.<ref>((cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=387JNEjpczQC&pg=PA9 |title=First Generations: Women in Colonial America |author=Carol Berkin |page=9 |date=July 1997 |access-date=2016-10-03 |isbn=9780809016068 |archive-date=2023-03-20 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230320035510/https://books.google.com/books?id=387JNEjpczQC&pg=PA9 |url-status=live ))</ref>

=== Louisiana ===
((Main|Louisiana Creole people|Creoles of color))
((multiple image
| align = right
| caption_align = center
| direction = vertical
| width = 200
| image1 = Portrait of a Black Man by Julien Hudson 1835.jpg
| image2 = Creole women of color out taking the air, from a watercolor series by Édouard Marquis, New Orleans, 1867.jpg
| image3 = Portrait of Matias Francisco Alpuente y Ruiz by José Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza.jpg
| caption1 = A Creole of [[New Orleans]]
| caption2 = Bourgeois [[Louisiana Creoles|Louisiana Creole]] girls in fashionable dress
| caption3 = New Orleans Creole Matias Alpuente
))

In the [[United States]], the words "Louisiana Creole" refers to people of any race or mixture thereof who are descended from colonial French [[La Louisiane]] and colonial Spanish [[Louisiana (New Spain)]] settlers before the Louisiana region became part of the United States in 1803 with the [[Louisiana Purchase]]. Both the word and the ethnic group derive from a similar usage, beginning in the Caribbean in the 16th century, which distinguished people born in the French, Spanish, and Portuguese colonies from the various new arrivals born in their respective, non-Caribbean homelands. Some writers from other parts of the country have mistakenly assumed the term to refer only to people of mixed racial descent, but this is not the traditional [[Louisiana]] usage.<ref name="Louisiana1">Dominguez, Virginia R. ''White by Definition: Social Classification in Creole Louisiana.'' New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1986.</ref><ref name="Louisiana2">Dormon, James H. ''Louisiana's 'Creoles of Color': Ethnicity, Marginality, and Identity,'' Social Science Quarterly 73, No. 3, 1992: 615-623.</ref><ref name="Louisiana3">Eaton, Clement. ''A History of the Old South: The Emergence of a Reluctant Nation,'' third edition. New York: Macmillan, 1975.</ref><ref name="Fowler">Fowler, H.W. (1926) ''A Dictionary of Modern English Usage'', Oxford University Press</ref>

In Louisiana, the term "Creole" was first used to describe people born in Louisiana, who used the term to distinguish themselves from newly arrived immigrants. It was not a racial or ethnic identifier; it was simply synonymous with "born in the New World," meant to separate native-born people of any ethnic background—white, African, or any mixture thereof—from European immigrants and slaves imported from Africa. Later, the term was racialized after newly arrived Anglo-Americans began to associate créolité, or the quality of being Creole, with racially mixed ancestry. This caused many white Creoles to eventually abandon the label out of fear that the term would lead mainstream Americans to believe them to be of racially mixed descent (and thus endanger their livelihoods or social standing). Later writers occasionally make distinctions among French Creoles (of European ancestry), Creoles of Color (of mixed ethnic ancestry), and occasionally, African Creoles (of primarily African descendant); these categories, however, are later inventions, and most primary documents from the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries make use of the word "Creole" without any additional qualifier. Creoles of Spanish and German descent also exist, and Spanish Creoles survive today as [[Isleños]] and Malagueños, both found in southern Louisiana. However, all racial categories of Creoles - from Caucasian, mixed racial, African, to Native American - tended to think and refer to themselves solely as Creole, a commonality in many other [[Francophone]] and [[Iberoamerican]] cultures, who tend to lack strict racial separations common in [[United States History]] and other countries with large populations from [[Northern Europe]]'s various cultures. This racial neutrality persists to the modern day, as many Creoles do not use race as a factor for being a part of the ethno-culture.<ref name="Louisiana1"/><ref name="Louisiana2"/><ref name="Louisiana3"/>

Contemporary usage has again broadened the meaning of [[Louisiana Creole people|Louisiana Creoles]] to describe a broad cultural group of people of all races who share a colonial Louisianian background. Louisianians who identify themselves as "Creole" are most commonly from historically [[French language|Francophone]] and [[Hispanic]] communities. Some of their ancestors came to Louisiana directly from [[France]], [[Spain]], or [[Germany]], while others came via the French and Spanish colonies in the [[Caribbean]] and Canada. Many Louisiana Creole families arrived in Louisiana from [[Saint-Domingue]] as refugees from the [[Haitian Revolution]], along with other immigrants from Caribbean colonial centers like [[Santo Domingo]] and [[Havana]]. The children of slaves brought primarily from Western Africa were also considered Creoles, as were children born of unions between Native Americans and non-Natives. Creole culture in Louisiana thus consists of a unique blend of European, Native American, and African cultures.

Louisianians descended from the French [[Acadians]] of Canada are also Creoles in a strict sense, and there are many historical examples of people of full European ancestry and with Acadian surnames, such as the influential Alexandre and Alfred Mouton,<ref>((cite web |last1=Buman |first1=Nathan |title=Two histories, one future: Louisiana sugar planters, their slaves, and the Anglo-Creole schism, 1815-1865 |url=https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2907&context=gradschool_dissertations |access-date=2019-07-23 |archive-date=2021-08-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210804064752/https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2907&context=gradschool_dissertations |url-status=live ))</ref> being explicitly described as "Creoles."<ref>((cite web |last1=Landry |first1=Christophe |title=Attakapas Post Spanish Militia Rolls, 1792 |url=http://www.mylhcv.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/1792-Militia.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://www.mylhcv.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/1792-Militia.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live))</ref> Today, however, the descendants of the Acadians are more commonly referred to as, and identify as, '[[Cajuns]]'—a derivation of the word Acadian, indicating French Canadian settlers as ancestors. The distinction between "Cajuns" and "Creoles" is stronger today than it was in the past because American racial ideologies have strongly influenced the meaning of the word "Creole" to the extent that there is no longer unanimous agreement among Louisianians on the word's precise definition. Today, many assume that any francophone person of European descent is Cajun and any francophone of African descent is Creole—a false assumption that would not have been recognized in the nineteenth century((citation needed|date=April 2019)). Some assert that "Creole" refers to aristocratic urbanites whereas "Cajuns" are agrarian members of the francophone working class, but this is another relatively recent distinction. Creoles may be of any race and live in any area, rural or urban((citation needed|date=April 2019)). The Creole culture of Southwest Louisiana is thus more similar to the culture dominant in Acadiana than it is to the Creole culture of New Orleans((citation needed|date=April 2019)). Though the land areas overlap around New Orleans and down river, Cajun/Creole culture and language extend westward all along the southern coast of Louisiana, concentrating in areas southwest of New Orleans around Lafayette, and as far as Crowley, Abbeville, and into the rice belt of Louisiana nearer Lake Charles and the Texas border.

[[File:Free Woman of Color with daughter NOLA Collage.jpg|thumb|[[Free people of color|Free woman of color]] with [[mixed-race]] daughter; late 18th-century collage painting, New Orleans]]
Louisiana Creoles historically spoke a variety of languages; today, the most prominent include Louisiana French and [[Louisiana Creole]]. (There is a distinction between "Creole" people and the "creole" language. Not all Creoles speak creole—many speak French, Spanish, or English as primary languages.) Spoken creole is dying with continued 'Americanization' in the area. Most remaining Creole [[lexemes]] have drifted into popular culture. Traditional creole is spoken among those families determined to keep the language alive or in regions below New Orleans around St. James and St. John Parishes where German immigrants originally settled (also known as 'the German Coast', or La Côte des Allemands) and cultivated the land, keeping the ill-equipped French Colonists from starvation during the Colonial Period and adopting commonly spoken French and creole (arriving with the exiles) as a language of trade.
Creoles are largely Roman Catholic and influenced by traditional French and Spanish culture left from the first Colonial Period, officially beginning in 1722 with the arrival of the [[Ursulines|Ursuline Nuns]], who were preceded by another order, the sisters of the Sacred Heart, with whom they lived until their first convent could be built with monies from the French Crown. (Both orders still educate girls in 2010). The "fiery Latin temperament" described by early scholars on New Orleans culture made sweeping generalizations to accommodate Creoles of Spanish heritage as well as the original French. The mixed-race Creoles, descendants of mixing of European colonists, slaves, and Native Americans or sometimes ''Gens de Couleur'' (free men and women of colour), first appeared during the colonial periods with the arrival of slave populations. Most Creoles, regardless of race, generally consider themselves to share a collective culture. Non-Louisianans often fail to appreciate this and assume that all Creoles are of mixed race, which is historically inaccurate.

Louisiane Creoles were also referred to as ''criollos'', a word from the Spanish language meaning "created" and used in the post-French governance period to distinguish the two groups of New Orleans area and down river Creoles. Both mixed race and European Creole groups share many traditions and language, but their socio-economic roots differed in the original period of Louisiana history. Actually, the French word Créole is derived from the Portuguese word ''Crioulo'', which described people born in the Americas as opposed to Spain.

The term is often used to mean simply "pertaining to the [[New Orleans]] area," but this, too, is not historically accurate. People all across the Louisiana territory, including the ''[[Illinois Country|pays des Illinois]],'' identified as Creoles, as evidenced by the continued existence of the term ''Créole'' in the critically endangered [[Missouri French]].

=== Mississippi ===
The [[Mississippi Gulf Coast]] region has a significant population of Creoles—especially in [[Pass Christian, Mississippi|Pass Christian]], [[Gulfport, Mississippi|Gulfport]], [[Biloxi, Mississippi|Biloxi]], and [[Pascagoula, Mississippi|Pascagoula]]. A community known as Creoletown is located in Pascagoula, with its history on record.<ref name="blog.gulflive.com">((Cite web|url=http://blog.gulflive.com/mississippi-press-living/2012/04/creoletown_name_racial_identit.html|title=Creoletown: Name, racial identity of community lost in Pascagoula's past|date=9 April 2012|access-date=22 November 2018|archive-date=22 November 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181122131842/http://blog.gulflive.com/mississippi-press-living/2012/04/creoletown_name_racial_identit.html|url-status=live))</ref> Many in this location are Catholic and have also used the Creole, French. and English languages.

===Texas===
((further|Tejanos))
[[File:Frederic Remington - The Mier Expedition- The Drawing of the Black Bean - Google Art Project.jpg|300px|thumb|Spanish Creoles from Texas]]
In colonial Texas, the term "Creole" (''criollo'') distinguished old-world Africans and Europeans from their descendants born in the new world, Creoles; they composed the citizen class of [[New Spain]]'s Tejas province.<ref name="andrewdelbanco">((cite book |title=The War Before the War Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America's Soul from the Revolution to the Civil War|author=Andrew Delbanco|publisher=Penguin Publishing Group|year=2019|pages=190))</ref><ref name="williamcdavis">((cite book |title=Lone Star Rising|author=William C. Davis|publisher=Free Press|year=2017|pages=63,64))</ref><ref name="philipthomastucker">((cite book |title=Emily D. West and the "Yellow Rose of Texas" Myth|author=Phillip Thomas Tucker|publisher=McFarland, Incorporated, Publishers|year=2014|pages=100))</ref>

Texas Creole culture revolved around "'''ranchos''" (Creole ranches), attended mostly by ''vaqueros'' (cowboys) of African, Spaniard, or Mestizo descent, and [[Tlaxcaltec|Tlaxcalan Nahuatl settlers]], who established a number of settlements in southeastern Texas and western Louisiana (e.g. [[Los Adaes]]).<ref name="andrewdelbanco"/><ref name="williamcdavis"/><ref name="francisxgalan">((cite book |title=Los Adaes, the First Capital of Spanish Texas|author= Francis X. Galan|publisher=Texas A&M University Press|year=2020|pages=416))</ref><ref name="vaqueros">((cite book |title=Vaqueros, Cowboys, and Buckaroos|author=Lawrence Clayton|author2=Jim Hoy|author3=Jerald Underwood|publisher=University of Texas Press|year=2010|pages=2))</ref>

Black Texas Creoles have been present in Texas ever since the 1600s; they served as soldiers in Spanish garrisons of eastern Texas. Generations of Black Texas Creoles, also known as "Black Tejanos", played a role in later phases of Texas history: Mexican Texas, Republic of Texas, and American Texas.<ref name="philipthomastucker"/>

== Africa ==
=== Southern Africa ===
Unlike the Americas, the term coloured is preferred in Southern Africa to refer to mixed people of African and European descent. The colonisation of the [[Cape Colony]] by the [[Dutch East India Company]] led to the importation of Indonesian, East African and Southeast Asian slaves, who intermingled with Dutch settlers and the indigenous population leading to the development of a creolized population in the early 1700s. Additionally, Portuguese traders mixed with African communities, in what is now present day Mozambique and Zimbabwe, to create the [[Prazeros]] and [[Luso-Africans]], who were loyal to the Portuguese crown and served to advance its interests in [[southeastern Africa]]. A legacy of this era are the numerous Portuguese words that have entered [[Shona language|Shona]], [[Tsonga language|
Tsonga]] and Makonde. Today, mixed race communities exist across the region, notably so in South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe. In colonial era Zambia, the term ''Eurafrican'' was often used though it has largely fallen out of use in the modern era and is no longer recognized at the national level.<ref name="Markey 1982 169–207"/> Today, South African [[Coloureds]] and [[Cape Malays|Cape Malay]] form the majority of the population in the [[Western Cape]] and a plurality in the [[Northern Cape]].

In addition to Coloured people, the term [[mestico]] is used in Angola and Mozambique to refer to mixed race people, who enjoyed a certain privilege during the Portuguese era.

=== West Africa ===

[[File:SierraLeone Hofstra 043.jpg|thumb|upright|Portrait of a Creole family in [[Sierra Leone]], early 1900s.]]
In [[Sierra Leone]], the mingling of newly freed Africans and [[Multiracial people|mixed heritage]] [[Nova Scotian settlers|Nova Scotians]] and [[Jamaican Maroons in Sierra Leone|Jamaican Maroons]] from the Western hemisphere and [[Liberated Africans in Sierra Leone|Liberated Africans]] - such as the [[Akan people|Akan]], [[Igbo people]], and [[Yoruba people]] - over several generations in the late 18th and early 19th centuries led to the eventual creation of the 
[[aristocratic]] [[ethnic group]] now known as the ''[[Sierra Leone Creole people|Creoles]]''. Thoroughly [[Western culture|westernized]] in their manners and [[bourgeois]] in their methods, the Creoles established a comfortable dominance in the country through a combination of [[British colonialism|British colonial]] favouritism and political and economic activity. Their influence in the modern republic remains considerable, and their language [[Sierra Leone Krio language|Krio]] - an [[English-based creole language]] - is the [[lingua franca]] and [[de facto]] [[national language]] spoken throughout the country.

The extension of these Sierra Leoneans' business and religious activities to neighbouring [[Nigeria]] in the late 19th and early 20th centuries - where many of them had ancestral ties - subsequently caused the creation of an offshoot in that country, the ''[[Saro people|Saros]]''. Now often considered to be part of the wider Yoruba ethnicity, the Saros have been prominent in politics, the law, religion, the arts, and journalism.

=== Portuguese Africa ===

[[Atlantic Creole]] is a term coined by historian [[Ira Berlin]] to describe a group of people from Angola and Central Africa in the 16th and 17th centuries with cultural or ethnic ties to [[Africa]], [[Europe]], and sometimes the [[Caribbean]]. They often had Portuguese names and were sometimes mixed race. Their knowledge of different cultures made them skilled traders and negotiators, but some were enslaved and arrived in the Chesapeake Colonies as the Charter Generation of [[Slavery|slaves]] during the [[Atlantic slave trade|Transatlantic Slave Trade]] before 1660.<ref name="Berlin"/>

The ''Crioulos'' of mixed Portuguese and African descent eventually gave rise to several major ethnic groups in Africa, especially in [[Cape Verde]], [[Guinea-Bissau]], [[São Tomé e Príncipe]], [[Equatorial Guinea]] (especially [[Annobón|Annobón Province]]), [[Ziguinchor]] ([[Casamance]]), [[Angola]], [[Mozambique]]. Only a few of these groups have retained the name ''crioulo'' or variations of it:

* [[Cape Verde]]
: the dominant ethnic group, called ''Kriolus'' or ''Kriols'' in the local language; the language itself is also called "[[Cape Verdean Creole|Creole]]";
* [[Guinea-Bissau]]
: ''Crioulos''
* [[São Tomé and Príncipe]]
: ''Crioulos''

===Indian Ocean===
[[File:Seychelles Creole Festival Victoria.jpg|thumb|right|Women at the Seychelles Creole Festival in [[Victoria, Seychelles|Victoria]] celebrate their heritage.]]
((Main|Mauritian Creole people|Seychellois Creole people))
((See also|Mauritian Creole |Réunion Creole|Seychellois Creole))

The usage of creole in the islands of the southwest of the Indian Ocean varies according to the island. In [[Mauritius]], Mauritian Creoles will be identified based on both ethnicity and religion. Mauritian Creoles being either [[people of color|people]] who are of Mauritian ancestry or those who are both racially mixed and Christian. The Mauritian Constitution identifies four communities namely, Hindu, Muslim, Chinese and the General Population. Creoles are included in the General Population category along with white Christians.

The term also indicates the same to the people of [[Seychelles]]. On [[Réunion]] the term creole applies to all people born on the island.<ref name="chaudenson"/>

In all three societies, creole also refers to the new [[French-based creole languages|languages derived from French]] and incorporating other languages.

== Former Spanish colonies ==
((main|Criollo people|Creole nationalism))

In regions that were formerly colonies of [[Spain]], the [[Spanish language|Spanish]] word ''[[criollo people|criollo]]'' (implying "native born") historically denoted a class in the [[Casta|colonial caste system]] comprising people born in the colonies with total or mostly European, mainly [[Spanish people|Spanish]], descent. Those with mostly European descent were considered on the basis of their “passing” for white. For example, many [[castizos]] could've gotten away with passing as criollo because their features would be strikingly European and so many of them would assume such identity in passing, mainly for economic reasons. "Criollo" came to refer to things distinctive of the region, as it is used today, in expressions such as "comida criolla" ("country" food from the area).

[[File:Independenciacentroamerica2.jpg|thumb|[[Criollo people|Criollos]] in [[Guatemala]] celebrating independence from Spain, 1821.]]

In the latter period of settlement of Latin America called ''La Colonia'', the Bourbon Spanish Crown preferred Spanish-born ''[[Peninsulares]]'' (literally "born in the [[Iberian Peninsula]]") over Criollos for the top military, administrative, and religious offices due to the former mismanagement of the colonies on a previous Habsburg era.<ref>((Cite journal|url = https://historiamexicana.colmex.mx/index.php/RHM/article/view/2717/2226|title = Vista de Sobre Mark A. Burkholder y D. S. Chandler, from impotence to authority. The Spanish crown and the American audiencias, 1687-1808|journal = Historia Mexicana|date = April 1979|pages = 618–620|last1 = Sudo|first1 = Takako|access-date = 2019-09-06|archive-date = 2019-09-06|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190906040444/https://historiamexicana.colmex.mx/index.php/RHM/article/view/2717/2226|url-status = live))</ref>

In [[Argentina]], in an ambiguous ethnoracial way, ''criollo'' currently is used for people whose ancestors were already present in the territory in the colonial period, regardless their ethnicity. The exception are dark-skinned African people and current indigenous groups.

The word ''criollo'' is the origin and cognate of the French word ''creole''.

=== Spanish America ===
The racially-based caste system was in force throughout the [[Spanish conquest of the Americas|Spanish viceroyalties in the Americas]], since the 16th century. During the early Spanish colonial period the Spaniards had a policy selecting promising assimilationist Indigenous to educate and indoctrinate. They were accepted into the colonial leadership but sometimes remained in Spain. Among the descendants of these assimilated sons of chiefs are the Aztec descended [[Duke of Moctezuma de Tultengo|Moctezuma de Tultengo]]. By the 19th century, this discrimination and the example of the [[American Revolution]] and the ideals of [[the Enlightenment]] eventually led the Spanish American Criollo elite to rebel against the Spanish rule. With the support of the lower classes, they engaged Spain in the [[Spanish American wars of independence]] (1810–1826), which ended with the break-up of the former Spanish Empire in the Americas into a number of independent republics.

=== Malesia Ecoregion ===

Persons of pure Spanish descent born in the islands of the [[Spanish East Indies]] were called Insulares ("islanders")<ref>((Cite web|url=https://dle.rae.es/insular|title=insular &#124; Definición &#124; Diccionario de la lengua española &#124; RAE - ASALE))</ref> or Criollos.

Although many of the Spanish Americans in the islands were also persons of pure Spanish descent, they, along with many Mestizos and Castizos from Spanish America living in the East Indies were also classified as "Americanos".

== Caribbean ==
((Further|Afro-Caribbean))

In many parts of the [[Southern Caribbean]], the term Creole people is used to refer to the mixed-race descendants of Europeans and Africans born in the islands. Over time, there was intermarriage with Amerindians and residents from Asia, the Middle East and Latin America as well. They eventually formed a common culture based on their experience of living together in countries colonized by the French, Spanish, Dutch, and British.

A typical Creole person from the Caribbean has French, Spanish, Portuguese, British, or Dutch ancestry, mixed with sub-Saharan African ethnicities, and sometimes mixed with Native Indigenous peoples of the Americas. As workers from Asia entered the Caribbean, Creole people of colour intermarried with Arabs, Indians, Chinese, Javanese, Filipinos, Koreans, and Hmongs. The latter combinations were especially common in Guadeloupe. The foods and cultures are the result of creolization of these influences.<ref name="Cohen"/>

=== Caribbean Languages ===
((See also|Languages of the Caribbean|Creole language))

"Kreyòl" or "Kwéyòl" or "Patois/Patwa" refers to the French-lexicon [[Creole languages]] in the Caribbean, including [[Antillean Creole|Antillean French Creole]], [[Haitian Creole]], and [[Trinidadian Creole]]. Creole also refers to [[Bajan Creole]], [[Bahamian Creole]], [[Belizean Creole]], [[Guyanese Creole]], [[Jamaican Patois]], [[Tobagonian Creole]], [[Trinidadian Creole]] and [[Sranan Tongo]], among others.

People speak French-lexicon [[Antillean Creole]] in the following islands:<ref>Ethnologue codes Guadeloupean French Creole (spoken in Guadeloupe and Martinique) and Saint Lucian Creole French (spoken in Dominica and Saint Lucia) distinctly, with the respective ISO 639-3 codes: '''gcf''' and '''acf'''. However, it notes that their rate of comprehension is 90%, which would qualify them as dialects of a single language.</ref><ref>((cite web |url=http://www.avirtualdominica.com/creole.cfm |title=The Creole Language of Dominica |access-date=31 March 2014 |archive-date=2 April 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140402205539/http://www.avirtualdominica.com/creole.cfm |url-status=live ))</ref><ref>((Cite book|last=Mitchell|first=Edward S.|url=https://www.cambridgescholars.com/download/sample/60530|title=St. Lucian Kwéyòl on Saint Croix: A Study of Language Choice and Attitudes|publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing|year=2010|isbn=978-1-4438-2147-6|pages=22|access-date=2022-12-17|archive-date=2017-06-11|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170611194241/http://www.cambridgescholars.com/download/sample/60530|url-status=live))</ref><ref>((Cite web |url=http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=acf |title=Ethnologue report for language code:acf<!-- Bot generated title --> |access-date=2022-12-17 |archive-date=2005-04-28 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050428161945/http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=acf |url-status=live))</ref>
* [[St. Lucia]]
* [[Martinique]]
* [[Dominica]]
* [[Guadeloupe]]
* [[Saint Martin (island)|St. Martin]]
* [[Saint-Barthélemy]]
* [[Trinidad and Tobago]]
* [[Grenada]]

== See also ==
* [[Criollo people]]
* [[Creole nationalism]]
* [[Blanqueamiento]]
* [[Creolisation]]
* [[Indo people]]
* [[Kristang people]]
* [[McGill family (Monrovia)]]
* [[Mestizo]]
* [[Métis]]
* [[Mulatto]]

== Notes ==
((Notelist))

== References ==
((Reflist))

==External links==
*((Commons category-inline))
*[http://iocp.potomitan.info/ International Organization of Creole Peoples]

((Authority control))

((DEFAULTSORT:Creole Peoples))
[[Category:Creole peoples| ]]
[[Category:Creole culture]]
[[Category:African diaspora history]]
[[Category:African diaspora]]
[[Category:Ethnonyms]]

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