Atlantic Creole

Atlantic Creole is a term used in North America to describe the Charter Generation of slaves during the European colonization of the Americas before 1660. These slaves had cultural roots in Africa, Europe and sometimes the Caribbean. They were of mixed race, primarily descended from European fathers and African mothers. Some had lived and worked in Europe or the Caribbean before coming (or being transported) to North America. Examples of such men included John Punch and Emanuel Driggus (his surname was possibly derived from Rodriguez).

The historian Ira Berlin (1998) identified the arrival of the "Atlantic Creoles" in the Chesapeake Bay region in the 17th century. He traced the Atlantic creoles to descendants of European sailors and traders as fathers and African mothers. They were born generally in the port cities of the west coast of Africa, where Portuguese traders had been active since the mid-16th century. Growing up in multi-lingual environments, the men, whether enslaved or free, often worked as interpreters or go-betweens for Africans and Europeans; others worked as sailors, merchants and traders. Later some traveled to the Caribbean, North America, or Europe.

Berlin writes that Atlantic creoles were among what he called the Charter Generation of slaves in the Chesapeake Colony, up until the end of the seventeenth century. Through the first 50 years of settlement, lines were fluid between black and white workers; often both worked off passage as indentured servants, and any slaves were less set apart than they were later. The working class lived together, and many white women and black men developed relationships. Many of the new generation of creoles born in the colonies were the children of European indentured servants and bonded or enslaved workers of primarily West African ancestry (some Native Americans were also enslaved, and some Indian slaves were brought to North America from the Caribbean, Central and South America.).

According to the principle of partus sequitur ventrem, incorporated into colonial law in 1662, children born in the colony took the status of the mother; when the mothers were enslaved, the children were born into slavery, regardless of paternity, whether by free Englishmen or enslaved workers. This was a change from English common law, which had asserted that children took the status of the father. Paul Heinegg and other twentieth-century researchers have found that 80% of the free people of color in the Upper South in colonial times were born to white mothers (thus gaining freedom) and African or African-American fathers. Some male African slaves were freed in the early years as well, but free mothers were the source of most of the free families of color.

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