High yellow, occasionally simply yellow (dialect: yaller, yeller), is a term for very light-skinned African-Americans and is a reference to the golden yellow skin tone of some mixed-race people. The term was in common use in the United States at the end of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th century, and appears in many popular songs of the era, such as "The Yellow Rose of Texas".
"High" derives from the fact that these individuals are so light skinned, they often pass for white. Many high yellows are as light skinned as Europeans, and even lighter than some Europeans. Their specific skin hue is generally not caused by albinism, contrary to popular belief, but theorized to be caused by a level of a mixture with Europeans and chance inheritance of melanin-production regulating genes from the white ancestors.
The roots of the word Redbone originate in Jamaica where they used the word ‘Red Ibo’ to describe certain fair-skinned people who lived in the harbour areas. Merchant seamen, sailors’ cargo ships and so on bring foreigners who slept with local women and had many mixed race children in these areas. The term ‘Red Ibo’ was used (it is no longer in common use) to describe fairer than average Jamaicans. The term came into use because originally among the slaves taken to Jamaica there were a good number of Igbo’s who were comapratively lighter among dark skinned Igbo. They exist to this day in Africa. Igbo are the lightest population of the Bantu populations, in fact, the term for Whites was Oyibo, which comes from Onye Igbo, Which means "Like an Igbo."
Many use the term "redbone" for African Americans with medium toned skin, adopting the term from the Caribbean. The term also come to identify two separate ethnic classes, one of mixed African, European and Native American ancestry and the other usage is to designate some groups of Native Americans. This still seems to cause controversy and confusion among people. The first ethnic group who were called "Redbones" were groups of multi-ethnic families with similar or the same English surnames who were labeled as Free Persons of Color, Mulatto or Indian by early American census takers. The term was used for these mixed race multi-ethnic groups of families in Louisiana, South Carolina, Mississippi and East Texas.
One crucial part that the information left out was that, do to the fact of that the majority of the Africans brought to the US were Igbo, thus the African-American black population was/is majorly an Igbo population, the term Redbone rather fluidly transgressed into the society as in the early 1800's some Jamaican slaves began being taken to the US to help fuel the rapidly growing Cotton plantations of the Deep south, in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas and Texas, and in in the process passed on some of their unique slangs. :thumbs
![Nairaland [Nigerian Forum] Home](http://www.nairaland.com/Themes/default/images/english/home.gif)
Author
