Person who was the descendant of one black and one griffe parent
Sacatra was a term used in the French Colony of Saint-Domingue to describe the descendant of one black and one griffe parent,[1] a person whose ancestry is 7⁄8ths black and 1⁄8th white. It was one of the many terms used in the colony's racial caste system to measure one's black blood.[2]
The etymology of sacatra is uncertain; Félix Rodríguez González linked it to the Spanishsacar ("take out") and atrás ("behind");[3] thus, a sacatra is a slave who is not kept in the house or at the front as a lighter-skinned servant might be.
In fiction
In French author Suzanne Dracius' 1989 novel, The Dancing Other, she mentions her main character finding "true friendship with a cheery sacatra girl with soft, caramel skin."[4]
Nalo Hopkinson's speculative fiction novel The Salt Roads begins with Georgine, a slave girl who gets pregnant by a white man, denying that her child is going to be "just mulatto. I’m griffonne, my mother was sacatra. The baby will be marabou.” [5]
