Editing Creole peoples (section)

== Africa ==
=== Southern Africa ===
Unlike the Americas, the term coloured is preferred in Southern Africa to refer to mixed people of African and European descent. The colonisation of the [[Cape Colony]] by the [[Dutch East India Company]] led to the importation of Indonesian, East African and Southeast Asian slaves, who intermingled with Dutch settlers and the indigenous population leading to the development of a creolized population in the early 1700s. Additionally, Portuguese traders mixed with African communities, in what is now present day Mozambique and Zimbabwe, to create the [[Prazeros]] and [[Luso-Africans]], who were loyal to the Portuguese crown and served to advance its interests in [[southeastern Africa]]. A legacy of this era are the numerous Portuguese words that have entered [[Shona language|Shona]], [[Tsonga language|
Tsonga]] and Makonde. Today, mixed race communities exist across the region, notably so in South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe. In colonial era Zambia, the term ''Eurafrican'' was often used though it has largely fallen out of use in the modern era and is no longer recognized at the national level.<ref name="Markey 1982 169–207"/> Today, South African [[Coloureds]] and [[Cape Malays|Cape Malay]] form the majority of the population in the [[Western Cape]] and a plurality in the [[Northern Cape]].

In addition to Coloured people, the term [[mestiço]] is used in Angola and Mozambique to refer to mixed race people, who enjoyed a certain privilege during the Portuguese era.

=== West Africa ===

[[File:SierraLeone Hofstra 043.jpg|thumb|upright|Portrait of a Creole family in [[Sierra Leone]], early 1900s.]]
In [[Sierra Leone]], the mingling of newly freed Africans and [[Multiracial people|mixed heritage]] [[Nova Scotian settlers|Nova Scotians]] and [[Jamaican Maroons in Sierra Leone|Jamaican Maroons]] from the Western hemisphere and [[Liberated Africans in Sierra Leone|Liberated Africans]] - such as the [[Akan people|Akan]], [[Igbo people]], and [[Yoruba people]] - over several generations in the late 18th and early 19th centuries led to the eventual creation of the 
[[aristocratic]] [[ethnic group]] now known as the ''[[Sierra Leone Creole people|Creoles]]''. Thoroughly [[Western culture|westernized]] in their manners and [[bourgeois]] in their methods, the Creoles established a comfortable dominance in the country through a combination of [[British colonialism|British colonial]] favouritism and political and economic activity. Their influence in the modern republic remains considerable, and their language [[Sierra Leone Krio language|Krio]] - an [[English-based creole language]] - is the [[lingua franca]] and [[de facto]] [[national language]] spoken throughout the country.

The extension of these Sierra Leoneans' business and religious activities to neighbouring [[Nigeria]] in the late 19th and early 20th centuries - where many of them had ancestral ties - subsequently caused the creation of an offshoot in that country, the ''[[Saro people|Saros]]''. Now often considered to be part of the wider Yoruba ethnicity, the Saros have been prominent in politics, the law, religion, the arts, and journalism.

=== Portuguese Africa ===

[[Atlantic Creole]] is a term coined by historian [[Ira Berlin]] to describe a group of people from Angola and Central Africa in the 16th and 17th centuries with cultural or ethnic ties to [[Africa]], [[Europe]], and sometimes the [[Caribbean]]. They often had Portuguese names and were sometimes mixed race. Their knowledge of different cultures made them skilled traders and negotiators, but some were enslaved and arrived in the Chesapeake Colonies as the Charter Generation of [[Slavery|slaves]] during the [[Atlantic slave trade|Transatlantic Slave Trade]] before 1660.<ref name="Berlin"/>

The ''Crioulos'' of mixed Portuguese and African descent eventually gave rise to several major ethnic groups in Africa, especially in [[Cape Verde]], [[Guinea-Bissau]], [[São Tomé e Príncipe]], [[Equatorial Guinea]] (especially [[Annobón|Annobón Province]]), [[Ziguinchor]] ([[Casamance]]), [[Angola]], [[Mozambique]]. Only a few of these groups have retained the name ''crioulo'' or variations of it:

* [[Cape Verde]]
: the dominant ethnic group, called ''Kriolus'' or ''Kriols'' in the local language; the language itself is also called "[[Cape Verdean Creole|Creole]]";
* [[Guinea-Bissau]]
: ''Crioulos''
* [[São Tomé and Príncipe]]
: ''Crioulos''

===Indian Ocean===
[[File:Seychelles Creole Festival Victoria.jpg|thumb|right|Women at the Seychelles Creole Festival in [[Victoria, Seychelles|Victoria]] celebrate their heritage.]]
{{Main|Mauritian Creole people|Seychellois Creole people}}
{{See also|Mauritian Creole |Réunion Creole|Seychellois Creole}}

The usage of creole in the islands of the southwest of the Indian Ocean varies according to the island. In [[Mauritius]], Mauritian Creoles will be identified based on both ethnicity and religion. Mauritian Creoles being either [[people of color|people]] who are of Mauritian ancestry or those who are both racially mixed and Christian. The Mauritian Constitution identifies four communities namely, Hindu, Muslim, Chinese and the General Population. Creoles are included in the General Population category along with white Christians.

The term also indicates the same to the people of [[Seychelles]]. On [[Réunion]] the term creole applies to all people born on the island.<ref name="chaudenson"/>

In all three societies, creole also refers to the new [[French-based creole languages|languages derived from French]] and incorporating other languages.