Daily AncestorQuadroon
Quadroon was a race category used only in the 1890 census, for a person the enumerator judged to have one-fourth black ancestry.
The 1890 instructions told enumerators to write white, black, mulatto, quadroon, octoroon, Chinese, Japanese or Indian, and defined quadroon as a person with one-fourth black blood. In 1870 and 1880 such persons were to be counted under mulatto.
1890 was the only census that split the category this finely. The Census Bureau later judged the distinctions unreliable and of little value, and dropped them.
As seen in a recordColor column of the 1890 census (surviving fragments)
Delacroix, Emile | Son | Quadroon | Male | 14
Sources
How to cite this page
Daily Ancestor. "Quadroon." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/census-terms/quadroon. Last checked 2026-10-03.