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But if mixed-race people in the United States in the late nineteenth century found themselves legally classed as “black,” mixed-race people in the West Indies more often found themselves classed with “whites.” In the 1855 census of Grand Cayman Island, for example, “blacks” constituted one category; “white and coloured” another. “It was found impracticable to distinguish between the white and coloured population,” explained the missionary census takers. “The greater proportion of these…are persons of colour, but, of course, of various shades of complexion.”15
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Martha A. Sandweiss (Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line)