Mulatto in Latin hybris for the male, hybryda for the female, term derived from mule , animal engendered from two different species. The Spanish give in the Indies the name of mulatto to a son or daughter born of a black man and of an Indian woman, or of an Indian man and a negress. With regard to those who are born of an Indian man and a Spanish woman, or the reverse, and similarly in Portugal, with regard to those who are born of an Indian man and a Portuguese woman, or the other way around, they ordinarily give them the name mixed , and named sambos , those who are born of a savage man and a mixed woman: they all differ in color and in hair. The Spanish also call mulatas , the children born of a Moorish man and a Spanish woman, or a Spanish man and a Mooress.

In the French islands, mulatto signifies a child born of a black mother and a white father; or of a black father and of a white mother. This latter case is rare, the first very common due to the libertinism of the whites with the negresses. Louis XIV, to stop this disorder, made a law which condemned to a fine of two thousand pounds of sugar he who is convicted of being a father of a mulatto ; [he] orders besides, that if it is a master who has debauched his slave, who then had a child, the negress and the child will be confiscated to the profit of the hospital of the brothers of Charity, without the possibility of ever being redeemed, under any pretext. This law has some faults: the principal is, that in looking to remedy a scandal, it opens the door to all sorts of crimes, and in particular to that of frequent abortions. The master to avoid the loss all at the same time of his child and his negress, gives them the advice himself; and the mother trembling at becoming a slave for life, executes it at the peril of her life.