>Is there anything more vile than black slaves, of less good and more evil than they'? As for the mulatto, if you show kindness to one of them all your life and in every way, he will not be grateful; and it will be as if you had done nothing for him. The better you treat him, the more insolent he will he; the worse you treat him, the more humble and submissive. I have tried this many times, and how well the poet says: ‘If you honor the honorable you possess him / If you honor the ignoble, he will be insolent.’ It is said that when the [black] slave is sated, he fornicates, when he is hungry, he steals. My grandfather on my mother's side used to say: The worst use of money is bringing up slaves, and mulattoes are even worse and wickeder than Zanj, for the mulatto does not know his father, while the Zanji often knows both parents. It is said of the mulatto that he is like a mule, because he is a mongrel. . . . Do not trust a mulatto, for there is rarely any good in him
Shihab al-Din al-Ibshihi (1388–1446)