The Barbadoes Mulatto Girl, late 1770s.

Source: Engraved print from painting by Agostino Brunias.

Barbados

From the Brooklyn Museum:

Brunias became popular among the plantation owners of the West Indies and he eventually settled in Dominica. What is unique about Brunias is that his work gained popularity in the region through the dissemination of prints, some of which ended up in Haiti, where these images of racially mixed scenes became a “call to arms” of sorts, Estes says. One craftsman turned some of the images into buttons, and the leader of the Haitian Revolution, Toussaint Louverture, wore on his waistcoat 18 buttons decorated with reproductions of Brunias’s paintings.

The central figure is identified by her ethnicity and her location. Brunias also codifies her ethnicity through her clothing, jewelry, and headdress. She is placed in the middle of two darker skinned women, and as they are not also mentioned in the title, we can assume they are not mulatto women, but rather, enslaved vendors. Her posture and pointed finger suggest that she bears some sort of power over these enslaved skinned women. Brunias’s social commentary is not subtle, for he positioned these women to illustrate the unique socio-ethnic hierarchy that pertained to the Caribbean.

 

**The term mulatto dates from 1593 and comes from the Spanish or Portuguese word mulato, meaning “of mixed breed,” referring to individuals of both African and European descent. The word is literally translated as “young mule,” from mulo, “mule,” possibly in allusion to the hybrid origin of mules.