Half-caste

Half-caste is a term used for individuals of

In Australia, the term "half-caste", along with any other proportional representation of

In 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.^[16][17]

Burma

In Burma, a half-caste (or Kabya^[18]) 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^[19]

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.^[20]

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.^[21][22][23]

China

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 ethnicity or multi-ethnic are the same word, hun-xue (混血).

Fiji

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.^[24]

Kailomas or vasus were children born to a

Half-caste in Malaysia referred to Eurasians and other people of mixed descents.[26]^[27] They were also commonly referred to as hybrids, and in certain sociological literature the term hybridity is common.^[15][28]

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.^[29][30]

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.^[31][32]

New Zealand

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.^[33]

South Africa

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).^[34]

Griqua (Afrikaans: Griekwa) is another term for half-caste people from intermixing in South Africa and Namibia.^[35]

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.^[34][36][37]

Also, during the apartheid eras, Indians were treated as the upper middle class that was virtually superior to half-caste Coloureds.^{[citation needed]}

United Kingdom

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.^[38]

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'".^[39]

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".^[40] NHS Editorial guidance states documents should "Avoid offensive and stereotyping words such as coloured, half-caste and so forth".^[41]

Half-caste in other colonial empires

The term half-caste was common in British colonies, however it was not exclusive to the

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.^{[45][46][47][48]}

See also

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

A chapter from The Last of the Tasmanians (includes story of one half-caste family)

General concepts

• Race (human classification)
• Caste
• Miscegenation
• Euphemism treadmill

Historical applications of the mixed-caste concept

• Between white/European and black/African:

• Mulatto
• Quadroon
• Octoroon

• Between white/European and Native American / American Indian:

• Mestee

• their native wives

• Mestizo, a word common in Latin America, particularly Mexico

• Between white and Asian:

• Kutcha butcha
• Anglo-Indian
• Luso-Indian
• Burgher people, Sri Lankan people of partly European ancestry
• Eurasian (mixed ancestry)
• Indo people (similar group in the Dutch East Indies)

• Other:

• Nuremberg Laws
  as being non-Jewish but as having a significant amount of Jewish ancestry/"blood". Since then regarded as pejorative.)

• In literature:

• Half Caste (poem)
• non-playing character, in many role-playing games
  derived from or inspired by the fantasy genre