Daily AncestorOctoroon
Octoroon was a race category used only in the 1890 census, for a person judged to have one-eighth or any trace of black ancestry.
The 1890 instructions defined octoroon as a person with one-eighth or any trace of black blood, and told enumerators to be particularly careful to distinguish blacks, mulattoes, quadroons and octoroons.
In 1870 octoroons were to be counted under mulatto. Because the 1890 schedules were nearly all destroyed by fire in 1921, the entry is rare in surviving records.
As seen in a recordColor column of the 1890 census (surviving fragments)
Rousseau, Marie | Wife | Octoroon | Female | 31
Sources
How to cite this page
Daily Ancestor. "Octoroon." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/census-terms/octoroon. Last checked 2026-10-03.