La couleur comme maléfice

the long version

"Shows that the whitening of the population that occurred in Les Saintes (Guadeloupe) after 1848 resulted from departure of former slaves and freedmen from the islands, rather than from an influx of French settlers as popularly assumed. Anthropologist with a historical bent reflects on ways in which barriers between whites and blacks based on phenotypic differences have been culturally constructed while at the same time contested and reshaped by miscegenation. Based on fieldwork in La Désirade and Les Saintes"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.