The Circassians (English equivalent of the ) are peoples of the Northwest Caucasus region.

The term Circassians is a Western term derived from the Turkic Cherkess, and is not the self-designation of any people. It has sometimes been applied indiscriminately to all the peoples of the North Caucasus. More commonly it has referred to all the peoples of the Northwest Caucasus: the Adyghe, the Abkhaz, and the vanished Ubykhs, to the exclusion of the eastern Chechens and the peoples of Dagestan. Most specifically, the name can refer to a group of tribes who inhabited the territory of Circassia, and who call themselves Adyghes.

The Circassians were well-known in the European and American culture of the nineteenth century.

"Circassian beauties"

In 1856 The New York Daily Times reported that a consequence of the Russian conquest of the Caucasus was a glut of beautiful Circassian women on the Constantinople slave market, and that this was causing prices of slaves in general to plummet. At the time, this region was reputed by less reliable sources to be the source of the purest Caucasian stock, producing the most beautiful white women, prized in Turkish harems. The combination of the popular issues of slavery, the Orient, and sexual titilation gave this report some notoriety at the time. Circus leader P. T. Barnum capitalized on this interest, displaying a "Circassian Beauty" at his American Museum in 1865. The trend spread, with supposedly Circassian women featured in dime museums and travelling medicine shows, sometimes known as "Moss-haired girls". Most likely these were local girls hired by the shows.

References

• Amjad Jaimoukha, The Circassians: A Handbook, New York: Palgrave, 2001; London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2001. ISBN 0-312-23994-7

• The Circassian Beauty Archive http://chnm.gmu.edu/lostmuseum/searchlm.php?function=find&exhibit=star&browse=star