Countries with the highest percentages of multi-racials who specifically have equally high European and African ancestry — Mulatto — are the Dominican Republic (74%)[8][9] and Cape Verde (71%).

Other countries and territories with notable mulatto populations in percentage or total number include Cuba,[15] Puerto Rico,[16] Venezuela,[17] Panama,[18] Colombia,[19] South Africa,[20] and the United States.

These sources specify that mulato would have been derived directly from muwallad independently of the related word muladí, a term that was applied to Iberian Christians who had converted to Islam during the Moorish governance of Iberia in the Middle Ages.

In the early years, mestiços began to form a third-class between the Portuguese colonists and African slaves, as they were usually bilingual and often served as interpreters between the populations.

[36] In Namibia, an ethnic group known as Rehoboth Basters, descend from historic liaisons between the Cape Colony Dutch and indigenous African women.

In the early 19th century some immigrants from Brazil arrived in South Africa as sailors, traders or refugees, and some intermarried with local mixed race (Coloured) communities.

With territories beyond the Dutch East India Company administration, Kok provided refuge to deserting soldiers, refugee slaves, and remaining members of various Khoikhoi tribes.

In colonial Latin America, mulato could also refer to an individual of mixed African and Native American ancestry, but the term zambo was more consistently used for that racial mixture.

[43] Dominican friar Thomas Gage spent over a decade in the Viceroyalty of New Spain in the early 17th century; he converted to Anglicanism and later wrote of his travels, often disparaging Spanish colonial society and culture.

"[44] In the late 18th century, some mixed-race persons sought legal "certificates of whiteness" (cédulas de gracias al sacar), in order to rise socially and practice professions.

Royal laws and decrees prevented pardos and mulattoes from serving as a public notary, lawyer, pharmacist, ordination to the priesthood, or graduation from university.

The people of color have retained their elite position, based on education and social capital, that is apparent in the political, economic and cultural hierarchy in present-day Haiti.

With reinforcements from France and Poland, Rochambeau began a bloody campaign against the mulattoes and intensified operations against the blacks, importing bloodhounds to track and kill them.

Haitian President Jean-Pierre Boyer, the son of a Frenchman and a former African slave, managed to unify a divided Haiti but excluded blacks from power.

The black soldiers began a general massacre in Port-au-Prince, which ceased only after the French consul, Charles Reybaud, threatened to order the landing of marines from the men-of-war in the harbor.

[59] He invaded the Dominican Republic in March 1849, but was defeated at the Battle of Las Carreras by Pedro Santana[nb 2] near Ocoa on 21 April and compelled to retreat.

Haitian strategy was ridiculed by the American press: [At the first encounter] ... a division of negro troops of Faustin ran, and their commander, Gen. Garat, was killed.

The main body, eighteen thousand troops, under the Emperor, encountered four hundred Dominicans with a field piece, and notwithstanding the disparity of force, the latter charged and caused the Haytiens to flee in every direction ... Faustin came very near falling into the enemy's hands.

The Dominicans pursued the retreating Haytiens some miles until they were checked and driven back by the Garde Nationale of Port-au-Prince, commanded by Robert Gateau, the auctioneer.

Many of its rulers and famous figures were mulattoes, such as Gregorio Luperón, Ulises Heureaux, José Joaquín Puello, Matías Ramón Mella,[63] Buenaventura Báez,[64] and Rafael Trujillo.

[66] Pervasive Dominican racism, based on rejection of African ancestry, has led to many assaults against the large Haitian immigrant community,[66] the most lethal of which was the 1937 parsley massacre.

Approximately 5,000–67,000[citation needed] men, women, children, babies and elderly, who were selected by their skin color, were massacred with machetes, or were thrown to sharks.

From the start of the colonial period in the 1500s, Miscegenation (Mestizaje), intermixing of races particularly Spanish settlers, native Tainos, and imported Africans (free or enslaved), was very strong.

According to recent genealogical DNA studies of the Dominican population, the genetic makeup is predominantly European and Sub-Saharan African, with a lesser degree of Native American ancestry.

According to the National Geographic Genographic Project, "the average Puerto Rican individual carries 12% Native American, 65% West Eurasian (Mediterranean, Northern European and/or Middle Eastern) and 20% Sub-Saharan African DNA.

[89][90][91] Many Spaniard men took indigenous Taino and West African wives and in the first centuries of the Spanish colonial period the island was overwhelmingly racially mixed.

[101] Prior to the 20th century, majority of the Cuban population was of mixed race descent to varying degrees, with pure Spaniards or criollos being a significant minority.

[106] A daughter born to a South Asian father and Irish mother in Maryland in 1680, both of whom probably came to the colony as indentured servants, was classified as a "mulatto" and sold into slavery.

[107] Historian F. James Davis says, Rapes occurred, and many slave women were forced to submit regularly to white males or suffer harsh consequences.

"[110]However, southern colonies began to prohibit Indian slavery in the eighteenth century, so, according to their own laws, even mixed-race children born to Native American women should be considered free.