Spanish America of Spanish parents, as distinguished from one born in Spain but residing in America. Under Spanish colonial rule, Creoles suffered from discrimination; it was consequently Creoles who led the 19th-century revolutions against Spain and became the new ruling class. Today Creole has widely varying meanings. In Louisiana it can mean either French-speaking white descendants of early French and Spanish settlers, or people of mixed descent who speak a form of French and Spanish. In Latin America the term may denote a local-born person of pure Spanish extraction or a member of the urban Europeanized classes as opposed to rural Indians. In the West Indies it refers to all people, regardless of ancestry, who are part of the Caribbean culture.
