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Redbone (ethnicity)

"Redbone" is a term used to describe certain racially mixed ethnic groups in the United States, especially in the Sabine River area of Louisiana and Texas. Many use the term "redbone" for African Americans with light skin. This still seems to cause controversy and confusion among people. A related term is "yellowbone". A traditional expression was someone is "so light that you can see the red blood flowing though their bones".

"Redbone" was not a polite term and was sometimes used as an epithet. However, some who have identified with this group have embraced the name Redbone. They have established family surname, genetic, and historical websites to collect and trace their common heritage. Locally, and especially in the twentieth century, they had the collective reputation of being clannish, staunchly independent citizens and fierce fighters. They are considered a contributing element historically and sociologically to the "culture of lawlessness" that once prevailed in the so-called Neutral Ground.

The Hill Brothers Official State Map of Louisiana shows, in a side map titled "French Louisiana and Cultural Enclaves of Louisiana", two pink-colored areas marked "Endogamous Community". The name reflects ambiguous issues of classification, but these are the historical Louisiana Redbone areas. The larger of the two blotches is an ellipse in the southwest, where it extends across the Sabine River into Orange County, Texas, and takes in the east bank towns of Vinton, Louisiana and Starks, Louisiana, both in Calcasieu Parish. The other such area corresponds roughly to the community of Singer, Louisiana and environs in Beauregard Parish. The town of DeQuincy, Louisiana, which is near Starks and Singer but larger than both combined, is also often associated with redbones, and was more so during the twentieth century.

The Melungeon ethnicity of Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina were long thought to be connected to the Sabine River-area Redbones. In both areas, the ethnicity is associated with certain common surnames and families' typically having members with dark complexions and straight or wavy blue-black hair. Traditionally, these families were English speakers of Protestant Christian religious denominations. Nicknames were associated with them to account for their appearance. In some locations they were called Indians or Portuguese. They were traditionally thought to have both, or all, white and Native American and/or African ancestry.

The Melungeon DNA Project coordinated by descendant Jack Goins, has so far shown primarily European and African ancestry. This confirms extensive research by late 20th century scholars who used early colonial records to determine the origins of African Americans free in Virginia and to trace their migration and descendants in Virginia, North Carolina and the region. While some were descendants of freed slaves, most were descendants of unions/marriages between white English women (indentured servants or free) and African/African-American men (servant, slave or free), from years when working classes did not have many barriers between them. Depending on the family, there may have been some intermarriages with Native Americans, but these took place less frequently than in tradition.

Despite the Jim Crow rules of public school segregation in Louisiana, and some social discrimination, the Redbones were not classified in 20th century censuses as "Negro" or "Indian". Their children attended the "white" schools. Today most members of this group would identify officially as "Creole," though some may elect other classifications or reject them altogether.

Redbones in literature

Will D. Campbell, The Glad River

References

Marler, D. C., Louisiana Redbones, presented at the First Union, a meeting of Melungeons, at Clinch Valley College in Wise, Va. July 1997 (anecdotal history)