Editing Miscegenation (section)

==Etymological history==
[[File:Miscegenation 1864.jpg|thumb|upright|Hoax pamphlet "Miscegenation" that coined the term ''miscegenation'']]
''Miscegenation'' comes from the [[Latin]] {{wikt-lang|la|miscere}}, 'to mix' and {{wikt-lang|la|genus}}, 'kind'.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/unabridged/miscegenation|url-access=subscription|title=Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged|publisher=G. & C. Merriam|year=1961|editor-last=Gove|editor-first=Philip B.|location=Springfield, MA}}</ref> The word was coined in an anonymous [[propaganda]] [[pamphlet]] published in [[New York City]] in December 1863, during the [[American Civil War]]. The pamphlet was entitled ''[[Miscegenation hoax|Miscegenation: The Theory of the Blending of the Races, Applied to the American White Man and Negro]]''.<ref name="hoaxes">{{cite web |title=The Miscegenation Hoax |url=http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/archive/permalink/the_miscegenation_hoax/ |work=Museum of Hoaxes |access-date=2 April 2008}}</ref> It purported to advocate the intermarriage of whites and blacks until they were indistinguishably mixed, and further asserted that this was a goal of the [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican Party]]. The pamphlet was a hoax concocted by [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democrats]] to discredit the Republicans by imputing to them what were then radical views that would offend the vast majority of whites, even [[Abolitionism in the United States#Abolitionism during and after the Revolutionary War|those who opposed slavery]]. The issue of miscegenation, raised by opponents of [[Abraham Lincoln]], featured prominently in the [[1864 United States presidential election|election campaign of 1864]]. In his fourth debate with [[Stephen A. Douglas]], Lincoln took great care to emphasize that he supported the law of [[Illinois]], which forbade "the marrying of white people with [[Negro|negroes]]".<ref>{{cite web |last1=Lincoln |first1=Abraham |first2=Stephen A. |last2=Douglas |title=The Lincoln–Douglas Debates 4th Debate Part 1 |url=https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/the-lincoln-douglas-debates-4th-debate-part-i/ |website=Teaching American History |date=September 18, 1858 }}</ref>

The pamphlet and variations on it were reprinted widely in both the [[Northern United States|North]] and [[Confederate States of America|South]] by Democrats and [[Confederate States of America|Confederates]]. Only in November 1864, after Lincoln had won the election, was the pamphlet exposed in the United States as a hoax. It was written by [[David Goodman Croly]], managing editor of the ''[[New York World]]'', a Democratic Party paper, and George Wakeman, a ''World'' reporter. By then, the word ''miscegenation'' had entered the common language of the day as a popular [[buzzword]] in political and social discourse. 

Before the publication of ''Miscegenation'', the words ''racial intermixing'' and ''amalgamation'' were used as general terms for ethnic and racial genetic mixing. Contemporary usage of the ''amalgamation'' metaphor, borrowed from [[metallurgy]], was that of [[Ralph Waldo Emerson]]'s private vision in 1845 of America as an ethnic and racial smelting-pot, a variation on the concept of the [[melting pot]] metaphor.<ref name="hollinger">{{Cite journal |last1=Hollinger |first1=D. A. |title=Amalgamation and Hypodescent: The Question of Ethnoracial Mixture in the History of the United States |doi=10.1086/529971 |journal=[[The American Historical Review]] |volume=108 |issue=5 |pages=1363–1390 |year=2003 }}</ref> Opinions in the United States on the desirability of such intermixing, including that between white [[Protestantism|Protestants]] and [[Irish Catholics|Irish Catholic]] immigrants, were divided. The term ''miscegenation'' was coined to refer specifically to the intermarriage of blacks and whites, with the intent of galvanizing opposition to the war.

In [[Hispanic America|Spanish America]], the term {{lang|es|mestizaje}}, which is derived from {{lang|es|[[mestizo]]}}, is a term used to describe a person who is the offspring of an [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Indigenous American]] and a European. The primary reason why there are so few remaining [[ethnic groups in Central America|indigenous peoples of Central]] and [[Indigenous peoples of South America|South America]]{{clarification needed|date=May 2025}} is because of the persistent and pervasive miscegenation between the [[Iberian Peninsula|Iberian]] colonists and the indigenous American population,{{Citation needed|date=May 2025|reason=Is that really the primary reason? Provide sources to prove it}} which is the most common admixture of ethnicities found in the genetic tests of present-day Latinos.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Bryc |first1=Katarzyna |last2=Durand |first2=Eric Y. |last3=Macpherson|first3=J. Michael |last4=Reich |first4=David |last5=Mountain |first5=Joanna L. |date=8 January 2015 |title=The Genetic Ancestry of African Americans, Latinos, and European Americans across the United States|journal=The American Journal of Human Genetics |language=English |volume=96 |issue=1 |pages=37–53 |doi=10.1016/j.ajhg.2014.11.010 |issn=0002-9297 |pmid=25529636|pmc=4289685}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Genetically, There's No Such Thing as a Mexican |url=https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/genetically-theres-no-such-thing-mexican-n129866 |access-date=2 August 2021 |website=NBC News |date=12 June 2014 |language=en }}</ref> This explains why Latinos in North America, the vast majority of whom are immigrants or descendants of immigrants from Central and South America, carry an average of 18% Native American ancestry, and 65.1% European ancestry (mostly from the [[Iberian Peninsula]]).<ref>{{Cite web |last=Wade |first=Lizzie |date=18 December 2014 |title=Genetic study reveals surprising ancestry of many Americans |url=https://www.science.org/content/article/genetic-study-reveals-surprising-ancestry-many-americans-rev2 |access-date=2 August 2021 |website=Science |publisher=[[American Association for the Advancement of Science]] |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Bonilla |first1=C. |last2=Parra |first2=E. J. |last3=Pfaff |first3=C. L. |last4=Dios |first4=S. |last5=Marshall |first5=J. A. |last6=Hamman |first6=R. F. |last7=Ferrell |first7=R. E. |last8=Hoggart |first8=C. L. |last9=McKeigue |first9=P. M. |last10=Shriver |first10=M. D. |date=2004 |title=Admixture in the Hispanics of the San Luis Valley, Colorado, and its implications for complex trait gene mapping |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1046/j.1529-8817.2003.00084.x |journal=[[Annals of Human Genetics]] |language=en |volume=68 |issue=2 |pages=139–153 |doi=10.1046/j.1529-8817.2003.00084.x |pmid=15008793 |hdl=2027.42/65937 |s2cid=13702953 |issn=1469-1809 |hdl-access=free }}</ref>