Jane Eyre

[Rebba]

I was wondering if Bertha and her brother Mason were English?? can anyone help me??? Thanks!

[sciencefan]

I was wondering if Bertha and her brother Mason were English?? can anyone help me??? Thanks!In the films- which can at least be considered a Commentary on a book- Mason is portrayed as a white Englishman.

Their mother was a Creole, remember?

In 1828, according to Webster's 1828 Dictionary, a Creole was:
CREOLE, n. In the West Indies and Spanish America, a native of those countries descended from European ancestors.

So basically, their mother had British parents, but was born and raised in Jamaica (and I think it's implied that consequently, she lacked the "fine breeding" that the wealthier British usually received.)

"Newcomer" might have more to add on that.

[kiki1982]

In the Columbia Encyclopedia it says about the word 'creole'

creole (crē'ōl) , Span. criollo (crēōl'yō) [probably from crío=child], term originally applied in West Indies to the native-born descendants of the Spanish conquerors. The term has since been applied to certain descendants in the West Indies and the American continents of French, Portuguese, and Spanish settlers. The creoles were distinguished from the natives, the blacks, and from people born in Europe. A sharp distinction of interest always lay between the creoles, whose chief devotion was to the colony, and the foreign-born officials, whose devotion was to the mother country. Never precise, the term acquired various meanings in different countries. It has biological and cultural connotations. The term was early adopted in the United States in Louisiana, where it is still used to distinguish the descendants of the original French settlers from the Cajuns, who are at least partially descended from the Acadian exiles. The word is also commonly applied to things native to the New World, such as creole cuisine and creole horses. The term is also used in places distant from the Americas, such as the island of Mauritius, but there it has lost much of its original meaning. The picturesque life of the Louisiana creoles has been ably depicted in the works of Lafcadio Hearn, George Washington Cable, and Grace King.

Bibliography

See F. J. Woods, Marginality and Identity (1972).

more on http://www.answers.com/creole

So probably they were indeed of English descent, but born and raised in Jamaica.

[sciencefan]

...The term was early adopted in the United States in Louisiana, where it is still used to distinguish the descendants of the original French settlers from the Cajuns, who are at least partially descended from the Acadian exiles. ...That's interesting.

My ancestors are Acadian.
My mom went to Louisiana, to sing at a French festival many years ago.
She said it was amazing how much the Cajuns look like they could be her relatives.
The Cajuns have much more of a Spanish influence in their culture than the Acadians who ended up in other places- after they got kicked out of Nova Scotia by the British in 1755.
My mother's Acadian ancestors ended up in the St. John River Valley of northern Maine.

But to get back on topic- I had to check a map.
Jamaica is indeed a part of the West Indies.