Redbone (ethnicity)

Redbone is a term historically used in much of the southern United States to denote a multi-racial individual or culture. In Louisiana, it also refers to a specific, geographically and ethnically distinct group.

The term has had various meanings according to locality, mostly implying multiracial people.[1]

In Louisiana, the Redbone cultural group consists mainly of the families of migrants to the state following the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.[1] These individuals may have ancestral ties to the Melungeons. The term 'Redbone' became disfavored as it was a pejorative nickname applied by others; however, in the past 30 years the term has begun to be used as the preferred description for some creole groups, including the Louisiana Redbones.

The Louisiana Redbones historically lived in geographically and socially isolated communities in the southwestern Louisiana parishes, ranging from Sabine Parish in the northwest and Rapides Parish near the center of the state down to Calcasieu Parish in the southwest, including parts of Orange County, Texas and Newton County, Texas. This area is roughly coextensive with what was once known as the Neutral Ground or Sabine Free State, an area of disputed sovereignty from 1806 to 1821 that was primarily bound on the east by the Calcasieu River and the Sabine River on the west. Most families ancestral to the Louisiana Redbones came from South Carolina (where they were at times classified in some census records as "other free persons"), although some families came from other Southeastern states. A review of newspaper articles, land grants, census records and other documents referring to the Redbones indicates that the main settlements of Redbones to southwestern and south central Louisiana and southeastern Texas took place over the course of many years, although some members of Redbone families are noted as settling in the Neutral Ground before 1818 when the land was finally and officially considered part of the United States.

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