White Brazilian
Encyclopedia
White Brazilians make up 48.4% of Brazil's population, or around 92 million people, according to the IBGE
's 2008 PNAD (National Research by Sample of Dwellings). Whites are present in the entire territory of Brazil, although the main concentrations are found in the South and Southeastern parts of the country. Brazil
has the 3rd largest white population in the world, after Russia with 125 million and USA with 229 million.
Another autosomal study carried out by the geneticist Sergio Pena showed that the overwhelming ancestry of "white" Brazilians is European, but there is Native American and African ancestries as well (an average of 80% European ancestry).
According to another autosomal DNA study (from 2009) conducted on a school in the poor periphery of Rio de Janeiro the "whites" (who thought of themselves as "very mixed") were found out to carry very little Amerindian or African admixtures (generally about 90% European in ancestry on average). "The results of the tests of genomic ancestry are quite different from the self-made estimates of European ancestry", say the researchers. In general, the test results showed that European ancestry is far more important than the students thought it would be. The "pardos" were found out to have a European ancestry on average of 80% (autosomal ancestry)
The degree of miscegenation
in Brazil is very high; Brazil was originally colonised only by a few families of Portuguese settlers; instead there were many mostly Portuguese individual male adventurers, who tended to reproduce with Amerindian and African females. The later settlers, however, would tend to reproduce with women who were the product of previous miscigenation in Brazil.
However, social prejudice connected to certain details in the physical appearance of individual is widespread. Those details are related to the concept of "cor". "Cor", Portuguese
for "colour" denotes the Brazilian rough equivalent of the term "race" in English, but is based on a complex phenotypic evaluation that takes into account skin pigmentation, hair type, nose shape, and lip shape. This concept, unlike the English notion of "race", captures the continuous aspects of phenotypes. Thus, it seems there is no racial descent rule operational in Brazil; it is even possible for two siblings to belong to completely diverse "racial" categories. Therefore, a White Brazilian is a person who "looks white" and is socially accepted as "white", regardless of ancestry.
Genes responsible for the features associated with "cor" are a smallish part of human genome. The miscegenation of people of different races in a country like Brazil can therefore result in a population with very different features, varying from those whose features are quite close to African to those whose features are much closer to European. This happens through the association of the processes of miscegenation and "assortative mating": suppose the first generation offspring of European fathers and African mothers. Their genome will be 50% European and 50% African, but the distribution of these genes between those that affect the relevant features (skin colour, hair type, lip shape, nose shape) is random.
Those whose features could be considered closer to the "white" prototype would tend then to procreate with other "whiter" 50-50 mixed individuals, while those whose features would be considered more evidently non-White would conversely tend to procreate among themselves. In the long term, this could produce a white and a black group with surprisingly similar proportions of European and African ancestry.
Therefore, ancestry is quite irrelevant for racial classifications in Brazil. A genetic resource conducted by UFMG on self-identified white Brazilians found that 2.5% of them had African Y chromosomes. 33% had Amerindian mitochondrial DNA and 28% African mitochondrial DNA. That finding reflected centuries of miscegenation
and assortative mating, in which successive waves of Portuguese male colonists mated with Brazilian women who were the product of miscegenation between their Brazilian mothers, who, in turn, ultimately descended from African or Amerindian females and the previous wave of Portuguese colonists.. A survey in Rio de Janeiro
also concluded that "racial-purity" is not important for a person to be classified as white in Brazil. The survey asked respondents if they had any ancestors who were European, African or Amerindian. As much as 52% of those whites reported they have some non-European ancestry: 38% reported to have some Black African ancestry and 29% reported Amerindian ancestry (15% of them reported to have both). Only 48% of those whites did not report any nonwhite ancestry. Thus, in Brazil, one can be white self-identify as white and still have African or Amerindian ancestry, and such a person has no problem admitting to having nonwhite ancestors.
The conception of white in Brazil is based on the skin color of a person, which contrasts with the conception of race and ancestry, as used in the United States. According to the 1991 census, 55% of the children whose mother was white and father was brown were classified as whites. Another 6% of children born to both brown parents were classified as whites, and 2% of children born to black parents were also identified as whites. That analysis shows that the ancestry of a person is quite insignificant to racially classify people in Brazil.
Given this ambiguity and fluidity, there are people who claim that the few racial categories offered by the IBGE are not enough. When Brazilians answer to open-ended questions about race, up to 143 different race-color terms are brought. The most common is "moreno", a category that refers to a wide spectrum of phenotypes. It can mean "dark-haired", "tawny", "suntanned", but it is also used as a euphemism for "pardo" and "black", according to context. It is not a synonym with "pardo", however, since each word refers to widely different sets of people.
An important factor about whiteness in Brazil is the racial stigma of being Amerindian or black, which is undesirable and avoided for a large part of the population. Scientific racism
largely influenced race relations in Brazil since the late 19th century. The predominant nonwhite, mostly Afro-Brazilian population was seen as a problem for Brazil in the eyes of the predominantly White elite of the country. In contrast to some countries, like the United States or South Africa, which tried to avoid miscegenation, even imposing anti-miscegenation laws, in Brazil, miscegenation was always legal. What was expected was that miscegenation would eventually turn all Brazilians into Whites.
As a result of that desire of whitening its own population, the Brazilian ruling classes encouraged the arrival of massive European immigration to the country. In the 1890s 1.2 million European immigrants were added to the country's 5 million whites. Today the Brazilian areas with larger proportions of whites tend to have been destinations of massive European immigration between 1880 and 1930.
Even though expectations of the Brazilian elite to whiten its own population through European immigration came to an end in the 1930s, the whitening ideology still influences racial relations in Brazil today. In general, the population still expects that blacks must biologically whiten themselves by marriage with lighter skinned people, or culturally through the assimilation of the traditions of the dominant white population. That leads mixed-race people to be perceived as whites, and this is more evident when a nonwhite person becomes wealthier and is incorporated in the ruling classes.
In the past, and still today, people of mixed-race ancestry who became wealthier were treated as whites, even though in some cases their African ancestry was remembered when opponents wanted to offend them, as happened with many mulatto politicians . That way, the light mulatto is often seen as white in Brazil, especially when the person becomes part of the elite.
For example, the greatest Brazilian writer, Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
, was a mulatto. However, once he gained fame and prestige, people started to accept him as a white man, and on his death certificate
he was classified as a "white man". Better educated and wealthier Brazilians usually see themselves as whites (a strict association between wealth and whiteness). A study showed that when mixed-race Brazilians get wealthier they start to be perceived as whites by others, who usually avoid associating a wealthy person with a non-white racial category. But only mixed-race people can "become white" when they get richer, while typically black people will always be perceived as blacks, no matter how rich they get.
It showed that less educated black Brazilians avoid being associated as Black (usually choosing the word "Moreno": literally "tanned", "brunette", "with an olive complexion". - to classify themselves). Better-educated black Brazilians, however, are more than eight times more likely as persons of a low level of education to identify themselves as blacks, while better educated mixed-race people usually jump to the white category. Research published by the American Sociological Review found that the growth of the pardo
population would be in part due to large numbers of blacks
"whitening" themselves by reporting to be brown (mulatto). Studies have found a large trend in reclassification (whitening) from black to brown in the 1950 to 1980 period, a much smaller one from white
to pardo
, and a similar but less pronounced pattern between 1980 and 1990. Academics attribute this switch from black
to pardo
to high rates of black
upward mobility during the 1970s, consistent with a “money whitens” hypothesis, that is blacks
would whiten themselves by reporting as pardo
the more wealthy they become. These results would demonstrate a tendency for what is called branqueamento, that means that blacks
would tend to self-classify as whiter. In this case, differences found in the share of blacks between census results would demonstrate that blacks
tend to self-classify as pardos
. Some researchers suggested to merge the two into a single Afro-Brazilian
category (e.g., Lovell 1994; Wood and Carvalho 1988; Wood and Lovell 1992). Brazilian geneticist Sérgio Pena has criticised American scholar Edward Telles for lumping "pretos" and "pardos" in the same category. According to him, "the autosomal genetic analysis that we have performed in non-related individuals [...] shows that it does not make any sense to put "pretos" and "pardos" in the same category".
The conception of white also varies from region to region. In the North and Northeastern regions, predominantly nonwhite, there may be some ambiguity on racial classifications, considering the long period of racial miscegenation in them. They contrast with the South, predominantly white, where the white population did not mix so much with the nonwhite one. A study found that people from the predominantly non-White state of Bahia
have some difficulty in discerning who is a White person. On the other hand, in the predominantly white state of São Paulo
people more easily define who is a white person.
The integration of races in Brazil did not build a racial democracy
, where racism
would not exist because all Brazilians saw themselves as equal because of their common multiracial
heritage. Even though this theory was dominant in Brazil for decades, although it is still followed by some today, most scholars now think that miscegenation in Brazil created not an egalitarian society but a society where lighter-skinned people are found mostly on the top and the darker-skinned are mostly found on the bottom.
American women contract `mixed' unions, as against about half of the women of Latino or Asian origin): a caste division that one strives to conceal by submerging it within the universe of differentiating visions `revisioned' through US lenses by means of `globalization'. How are we to account for the fact that 'theories' of 'race relations' which are but thinly conceptualized transfigurations, endlessly refurbished and updated to suit current concerns, of the most commonly used racial stereotypes that are themselves only primary justifications of the domination of whites over blacks in one society, could be tacitly (and sometimes
explicitly) raised to the status of universal standard whereby every situation of ethnic domination must be analysed and measured?The fact that this racial (or racist) sociodicy was able to `globalize' itself over the recent period, thereby losing its outer characteristics of legitimating discourse for domestic or local usage, is undoubtedly one of the most striking proofs of the
symbolic dominion and influence exercised by the USA over every kind scholarly and, especially, semi-scholarly production, notably through the power of consecration they possess and through the material and symbolic profits that researchers in the dominated countries reap from a more or less assumed or ashamed adherence to the model derived from the USA.
But all these mechanisms which have the effect of facilitating the actual `globalization' of American problems, thereby verifying the Americano-centric belief in `globalization' understood, quite simply, as the Americanization of the Western world and, through outward expansion, of the entire universe, these mechanisms are not enough to explain the tendency of the American worldview, scholarly or semi-scholarly, to impose itself as a universal point of view, especially when it comes to issues, such as that of 'race', where the particularity of the American situation is particularly flagrant and particularly far from being exemplary.
One would obviously need to invoke here also the driving role played by the major American philanthropic and research foundations in the diffusion of the US racial doxa within the Brazilian academic field at the level of both representations
and practices. Thus, the Rockefeller Foundation and similar organizations fund a programme on `Race and Ethnicity' at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro as well as the Centre for Afro-Asiatic Studies of the Candido Mendes University (and its journal Estudos Afro-Asiaticos) so as to encourage exchanges of researchers and students. But the intellectual current flows in one direction only. And, as a condition for its aid, the Rockefeller Foundation requires that research teams meet US criteria of `affirmative action', which poses insuperable problems since, as we have seen, the application of the white/black dichotomy in Brazilian society is, to say the least, hazardous. Alongside the role of philanthropic foundations, we must finally include the internationalization of academic publishing among the factors that have contributed to the diffusion of `US thought' in the social sciences. The growing integration of the publishing of English-language academicbooks (nowadays sold, often by the same houses, in the USA, in the different countries of the former British Commonwealth, but also in the smaller, polyglot, nations of the European Union such as Sweden and the Netherlands, and in the societies most directly exposed to American cultural domination) and the erosion of the boundary between academic and trade publishing have helped encourage the putting into circulation of terms, themes and tropes with strong (real or hoped for) market appeal which, in turn, owe their power of attraction simply to the fact of their very wide diffusion. For example, Basil Blackwell, the large, half-commercial and half-academic publishing house (what the Anglo-Saxons call a `crossover press'), does not hesitate to impose titles on its authors which are in accord with this new planetary common sense which it contributes to forging under the guise of echoing it.
Practically all European coming to Brazil before 1818 were Portuguese. Available data seems to point that most Portuguese settlers in Brazil came from northern Portugal, especially from Minho
(in 1801, 45% of the Portuguese established in São Paulo were "minhotos", 20% from the Azores Islands, 16% from Lisbon
and 19% from other parts). Another significant portion came from the Portuguese Atlantic Islands, Azores and Madeira.
An important feature of the Portuguese colonization was the overwhelming predominance of males. This disproportion was a problem during much of the colonial period. The Portuguese Crown even sent orphaned women for marriage with the settlers, but a large part of the settlers were involved in relationships with indigenous women and with their African slaves. It is remarkable that most Portuguese settlers arrived in Brazil in the 18th century: 600,000 in a period of only 60 years. The exploitation of gold
and diamond
s in the region of Minas Gerais
has been a crucial factor in the arrival of this contingent of colonists.
, 1555–60; Maranhão
, 1612–15); In 1630, the Dutch made the most significant attempt to seize Brazil from Portuguese control. At the time, Portugal was in a dynastic union with Spain, and the Dutch hostility against Spain was transferred to Portugal. The Dutch were able to control most of the Brazilian Northeast - then the most dynamic part of Brazil - for about a quarter century, but were unable to change the ethnic makeup of the colonizing population, which remained overwhelmingly Portuguese by origin and culture. Sephardic Jews of Portuguese origin moved from Amsterdam to New Holland
; but in 1654, when the Portuguese regained control of Brazil, most of them were expelled, as well as most of the Dutch settlers.
Aside these military attempts, a very small number of non-Portuguese people appear to have managed to enter Brazil from European countries other than Portugal.
However, in the Southern Brazilian areas disputed between Portugal and Spain, Spanish colonists largely contributed for the ethnic formation of the local population, denominated Gaúcho
s. A genetic research conducted by FAPESP (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo) on Gaúchos from Bagé and Alegrete, in Rio Grande do Sul, Southern Brazil, revealed that they are mostly descended from Spanish ancestors, and less from Portuguese, with 52% of them having Amerindian MtDNA (similar to that found in people who live in the area of the Amazon rainforest
, and significantly higher than the national average - 33% - among Brazilian Whites) and 11% African MtDNA. Another study also concluded that for the formation of the Gaúcho there was a predominance of Iberians, particularly Spaniards. The genetic finding matches with the explanation of sociologist Darcy Ribeiro
about the ethnic formation of the Brazilian Gaúchos: they are mostly the result of the miscegenation of Spanish and Portuguese males with Amerindian females.
Another genetic study found possible relics of the 17th-century Dutch invasion
in Northeastern Brazil.
arrived to settle in an inhospitable area near Rio de Janeiro that would later be renamed Nova Friburgo
.
The arrival of German immigrants had great importance for the demographics of Southern Brazil. They founded rural communities that later became prosperous cities, as was the case of São Leopoldo
, Joinville
and Blumenau
.
The end of the slave trade (1850) and the abolition of slavery (1888) prompted the Brazilian State to promote European immigration to Brazil. The production of coffee
, the main product of Brazil at the time, began to suffer a shortage of workers. From 1876, Italian immigrants began to enter Brazil in huge numbers. From 1884 to 1933, 1.4 million Italians immigrated to Brazil, 70% of whom settled in São Paulo
.
The period of the Great Immigration, between 1876 and 1930, brought to the country more than 5 million Europeans. Most were Italians or Portuguese, followed by Spaniards, Germans, Poles, and Ukrainians
. It is notable that most of these immigrants settled in Southern and Southeastern Brazil.
However, according to Clevelário, Mortara failed to properly take into account the full endogenous growth of the population of immigrant origin, due to the predominantly rural settlement of the immigrants (rural regions tend to have higher natality rates than cities). Clevelário, then, besides extending the calculations up to 1980, remade them, reaching somewhat different conclusions.
One of the problems of calculating the impact of immigration in Brazilian demography is that the return rates of immigrants are unknown. Clevelário, thence, supposed four different hypothesis concerning the return rates. The first, that he deems unrealistic high, is that 50% of the immigrants to Brazil returned to their countries of origin. The second is based on the work of Arthur Neiva, who supposes the return rate for Brazil was higher than that of USA (30%) but lower than that of Argentina (47%). The third hypothesis is taken from Mortara, who postulates a rate of 20% for the 19th century, 35% for the first two decades of the 20th century, and 25% for 1920 on. Although Mortara himself considered this hypothesis underestimated, Clevelário thinks it is closest to reality. The last hypothesis, also admittedly unrealistic is that of a 0% rate of return, which is known to be false.
Clevelário's conclusions are as following: considering hypothesis 1 (unrealistically high), the Population of Immigrant Origin in 1980 would be of 14,730,710 people, or 12.38% of the total population. Considering hypothesis 2 (based on Neiva), it would be of 17,609,052 people, or 14.60% of the total population. Considering hypothesis 3 (based on Mortara, and considered most realistic), it would be of 22,088,829 people, or 18.56% of the total population. Considering hypothesis 4 (no return at all), the Population of Immigrant origin would be of 29,348,423 people, or 24.66% of the total population
Clevelário believes the most probable number to be close to 18%, higher than Mortara's previous estimate of 1947.
According to the Census of 1872, Black and "Brown" people made up the majority (58%) of Brazil's population. The White population grew faster than the non-White population due to the subsidized immigration of Europeans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As of 1890, the African-descended population was reduced to 47% and the Amerindian to 9%. The disproportionally fast growth of the White population, due to mass immigration, lasted up to 1940, when its proportion in the Brazilian population peaked at 63.5%.
According to a genetic study, the European immigration to Brazil in the 19th and 20th centuries left a "strong imprint" in the genetics of the Brazilian population, leading to the "whitening" of Brazil. The massive European immigration promoted by the Brazilian government after 1872 that brought nearly 6 million Europeans in order to "whiten" the country's population had an important effect, and it manifests in a predominant (over 70%) of European ancestry in White Brazilian, as well as a large European admixture (37.1%) in Black Brazilians. The scholars divided the formation of the Brazilian population in three periods: the first when the country was inhabited only by Amerindians, who contributed for the early formation of the population; the second was during the large influx of slaves from Africa until 1850 and the third was during the large influx of European immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In fact, until the mid-19th century, White people never exceeded 30% of the population in Brazil, while Amerindians, Blacks and Mulattoes always predominated.
Another study has pointed out that the European ancestry is dominant throughout Brazil at 80%, which means that even in the states not hit by the most recent waves of immigration, even there European ancestry dominates in the population as a whole. "A new portrayal of each ethnicity contribution to the DNA of Brazilians, obtained with samples from the five regions of the country, has indicated that, on average, European ancestors are responsible for nearly 80% of the genetic heritage of the population. The variation between the regions is small, with the possible exception of the South, where the European contribution reaches nearly 90%. The results, published by the scientific magazine 'American Journal of Human Biology' by a team of the Catholic University of Brasília, show that, in Brazil, physical indicators such as skin colour, colour of the eyes and colour of the hair have little to do with the genetic ancestry of each person, which has been shown in previous studies".
.
Different from the colonists who settled in North America, who brought their entire families, the Portuguese colonization was almost exclusively composed of men, with a limited presence of women. This lack of women worried the Jesuits, who asked the Portuguese King to send any kind of Portuguese women to Brazil, even prostitutes if necessary. Most of the first Portuguese settlers procreated with native Amerindians
or African slave
women. Over time, the number of Portuguese women immigrating to Brazil grew, but the gender imbalance was never significantly reduced. This male predominance prevailed throughout the colonial
period. Historically, the male Portuguese settler preferred to marry a Portuguese born female. But, since their number in Brazil was very small, the second option was to marry a white Brazilian, born to Portuguese parents. The third option was a white Brazilian female of distant Portuguese origin. The scarce presence of white women, either Portuguese or Brazilian, caused the high degree of miscegenation
in colonial Brazil (and recent genetic studies found a high degree of Amerindian and African ancestries in white Brazilians, that confirms this early integration).
Even though the immigration of non-Portuguese was allowed from 1818 on, the Portuguese predominance continued way up to the 1870 years. A consistent flux of German immigrants started to arrive to Southern Brazil, briefly interrupted by the War of Tatters
, but the amount of Portuguese immigrants was much bigger during this period.
The census of 1872 counted 3,787,289 Whites in Brazil. Given the history described above, practically all these Whites were of Portuguese ancestry. Despite the largest arrivals of European immigrants, particularly between 1880 and 1930, the nowadays white Brazilian population is still mainly descended from whites of colonial extraction.
Latin American oligarchies, which remained predominantly of European origin, believed - in syntony with the racialist theories then widespread in Europe - that the large numbers of Blacks and mixed Amerindians that made up the majority of the population were a handicap to the development of their countries. As a result, countries such as Argentina
, Uruguay
and Brazil started to encourage the arrival of European immigrants, in order to make the White population grow and to dilute the African and Amerindian blood in their population. Argentina even had an article in its Constitution prohibiting any attempt to prevent the entry of European immigrants in the country. In the case of Brazil, the immigrants started arriving in huge numbers during the 1880s. From 1886 to 1900, almost 1.4 million Europeans arrived, of whom over 900,000 were Italians. During this period of 14 years, Brazil received more Europeans than during the over 300 years of colonization.
According to Darcy Ribeiro
before 1850 no more than 500,000 Europeans settled in Brazil IBGE
estimated that the number was close to 700,000 Portuguese. The mass European immigration to Brazil only started in the second half of the 19th century, from 1850 to 1970 some 5 million Europeans arrived, because of three main reasons:
These immigrants had a larger and more visible impact in the state of São Paulo, along with the three southern states of Rio Grande do Sul
, Santa Catarina
and Paraná
. In the southern states there were entire regions (such as the Serra Gaúcha and Vale do Jacuí) populated by German and Italian-speaking inhabitants. The immigrants remained closed in ethnic communities for decades. The Portuguese language only started to be used by these communities many decades after their arrival, as a result of their contact with Brazilians and with immigrants from other countries, but also because of the forced assimilation during the Getúlio Vargas
's government, mostly inside the German community. In contrast to the early Portuguese colonists, these immigrants arrived with their entire families in Brazil, with large numbers of women and children. As a result, the areas where they were concentrated, most remarkably the central parts of Southern Brazil, became predominantly white.
In São Paulo, paulistas
of Italian descent outnumbered those of earlier extraction. In this region, Italians, Portuguese, Spaniards and Arabs were easily integrated, since they had a close contact with the large local Brazilian population. At first working on coffee
farms, later they moved to cities and participated in the process of industrialization of Brazil.
- was not conducive to an actual occupation of the territory. The establishment of a few "feitorias" that conducted the trade was not enough to populate Brazil. The growing competition from other colonial powers - especially France - led the Portuguese into finding other economic activities that could serve as a base for a permanent and solid integration of Brazil into Portuguese domains. The first such activity to attain success was the cultivation of sugarcane - and the associated extraction of sugar, since sugarcane could not be transported overseas without deteriorating. This activity was also complementary with the slave trade that the Portuguese were starting, at that moment, from their African colonies of Angola and Mozambique. Sugarcane proved very well adapted to the climate of the Northeastern litoral, so the first stable and prosperous Portuguese settlements - and consequently, the first stable and prosperous centers of White population in Brazil - where located in that region.
The economy of sugarcane culture being centered in exporting to Portugal, other economic activities appeared to fulfill the necessities of the region. Remarkably, husbandry spread into the arid hinterland, where it remained the most important economic activity for centuries.
The region around São Vicente, in modern São Paulo state, remained less developed, with a weaker integration to the colonial economy. This probably prompted the inhabitants to explore the hinterland. In theory looking for gold and gems, in practice they engaged in expeditions with the objective of capturing and enslaving Amerindians. These slaves were used in the incipient agriculture around São Paulo
, which, to the end of the 16th century became specialised in wheat, as a commercial crop that could be sold in other parts of Brazil.
Around 1700, the paulistas found gold in the region that is now Minas Gerais. Together with the growing competition of Caribbean sugar, this made the center of the Brazilian economy move to the Southwest. The administrative center of the colony was moved from Salvador to Rio de Janeiro. The discovery of mineral wealth caused the influx of Portuguese settlers to redirect from the Northeast to the mining region, and the number of Portuguese leaving for Brazil to increase greatly; also there was a change in the social profile of those coming to Brazil. Agriculture needed substantial investments, but gold mining required much more courage and less initial capital, and the proportion of poor Portuguese among the newcomers increased considerably.
The Southern region was also first settled by the paulistas. Arriving there in search of the Amerindians in the Jesuit reductions, they subsequently raided the region in search of the cattle gone astray with the destruction of the Missões
, first for the leather, then organising a commercial circuit that moved cattle on feet to the mining region (ciclo do gado a pé). As a result, the Portuguese domain extended firmly to the south, threatening the control of the Northern bank of the Plata by the Spanish.
, Minas Gerais
and Rio de Janeiro
or for the Southern region. São Paulo received most of the Italians and Spaniards in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; Rio de Janeiro received most of the Portuguese immigrants; and Minas Gerais reiceived generally Italians, looking for jobs in the 19th centurie, and Portugueses early in the 18th. However, the impact of the European immigration was larger in Southern Brazil. This region received a smaller number of immigrants, mainly Italians and Germans, but since it had a smaller population, the impact of their arrival was greater to its demography. Pernambuco
was also an important place to the arrival of Portuguese immigrants.
After independence in 1822, about 1.6 million Portuguese immigrants arrived in Brazil, most of them in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Most of these immigrants settled in Rio de Janeiro.
.
About 1,600,000 Italians arrived in Brazil, starting in 1875. First they settled as small land owners in rural communities across Southern Brazil. In the late 19th century, the Brazilian State offered land to immigrants, in conditions that made it possible to buy them. Later, their destination were mostly the coffee
plantations in the Southeast, especially São Paulo and Minas Gerais, where they worked for the local landowners, either for a wage or under a contract that allowed them to use a portion of land for subsistency, in exchange for labour in the plantation.
Italians made up the main group of immigrants to Brazil in the late 19th century.
About 980,000 Germans
immigrated to Brazil, starting from 1824. Most of them established themselves in rural communities across Southern Brazil.
descent due to a massive immigration of Luxembourgers to Brazil, mostly during the late 19th an early 20th centuries.
came in significant numbers to Brazil after 1870. Most of them settled in the State of Paraná
, working as small farmers. From 1872 to 1919, 110,243 "Russian" citizens entered Brazil. In fact, the vast majority of them were Poles, since, up to 1917, Poland was under Russian rule and ethnic Poles immigrated with Russian passport
s.
came to Brazil between 1895 and 1897, settling mostly in state of Paraná
and working as small farmers.
s and Lebanese people
. About 1 500 000 Arabs, mainly Syrians and Lebanese, came to Brazil between 1884 and 1939.
, São Paulo
, and Porto Alegre
.
, Rio Grande do Sul
and Paraná
. These states, along with São Paulo
, received an important influx of European immigrants in the period of the Great Immigration (1876–1914).
The Brazilian states with the lowest percentages of Whites are located in the North
, where there is a strong Amerindian
influence to the population's racial composition, and in part of the Northeast
, notably in Bahia
and Maranhão
, where African
influence is stronger.
or Santa Catarina
. All these towns are settled predominantly by Brazilians of German
and Italian descent and are very small. It is important to note that, in the late 19th century, many German and Italian immigrants created small communities across Southern Brazil. These communities were settled, in many cases, exclusivily by European immigrants and their descendants.
The Brazilian towns with the largest percentages of Whites are:
The Brazilian towns with the lowest percentages of Whites are located in Northern and Northeastern Brazil, and are also small.
(mtDNA) is present in all human beings and passed down through the maternal line, i.e. the mother of a mother of a mother etc. The Y chromosome
is present only in males and passed down through the paternal line, i.e., the father of a father of a father etc. The mitochondrial DNA
and Y chromosome
suffer only minor mutations through centuries, thus can be used to establish the paternal line in males (because only males have the Y chromosome) and the maternal line in both males and females.
According to a genetic study about Brazilians (based upon about 200 samples), on the paternal side, 98% of the White Brazilian Y Chromosome
comes from a European male ancestor, only 2% from an African ancestor and there is a complete absence of Amerindian contributions. On the maternal side, 39% have European Mitochondrial DNA
, 33% Amerindian and 28% African female ancestry. This, considering the facts that the slave trade was effectively suppressed in 1850, and that the Amerindian population had been reduced to small numbers even earlier, shows that at least 61% of White Brazilians had at least one ancestor living in Brazil before the beginning of the Great Immigration. This analysis, however, only shows a small fraction of a person's ancestry (the Y Chromosome comes from a single male ancestor and the mtDNA from a single female ancestor, while the contributions of the many other ancestors is not specified).
According to another genetic research (based upon about 200 samples again) over 75% of caucasians from North, Northeast and Southeast Brazil would have over 10% Sub-Saharan Africa
n genes, and that this would also be the case with Southern Brazil for 49% of the caucasian population. According to this study, in all United States 11% of Caucasians have over 10% African genes. Thus, 86% of Brazilians would have at least 10% of genes that came from Africa. The researchers however were cautious about its conclusions: "Obviously these estimates were made by extrapolation of experimental results with relatively small samples and, therefore, their confidence limits are very ample". A new autosomal study from 2011, also led by Sérgio Pena, but with nearly 1000 samples this time, from all over the country, shows that in most Brazilian regions most Brazilians "whites" are less than 10% African in ancestry, and it also shows that the "pardos" are predominantly European in ancestry, the European ancestry being therefore the main component in the Brazilian population, in spite of a very high degree of African ancestry and significant Native American contribution. Other autosomal studies (see some of them below) show a European predominance in the Brazilian population. Some researchers have found that the average European American type has approximately 10% to 12% non-White genetic material.
Another genetic research suggested that the White Brazilian population is not genetically homogenous, as its genomic ancestry varies in different regions. Samples of White males from Rio Grande do Sul
have showed significant differences between Whites of different localities of state. In a sample from the town of Veranópolis
, heavily settled by people of Italian descent, the results from the maternal and paternal sides showed almost complete European ancestry. On the other hand, a sample of Whites from several other regions of Rio Grande do Sul showed significant fractions of Native American (36%) and African (16%) mtDNA haplogroups.
Another study (based on blood polymorphisms, from 1981) carried out in one thousand individuals from Porto Alegre
city, Southern Brazil, and 760 from Natal
city, Northeastern Brazil, found whites of Porto Alegre had 8% of African alleles and in Natal the ancestry of the samples total was characterized as 58% White, 25% Black, and 17% Amerindian". This study found that persons identified as White or Pardo in Natal have similar ancestries, a dominant European ancestry, while persons identified as White in Porto Alegre have an overwhelming majority of European ancestry.
According to an autosomal DNA genetic study from 2011, both "whites" and "pardos" from Fortaleza
have a predominantly degree of European ancestry (>70%), with minor but important African and Native American contributions. "Whites" and "pardos" from Belém
and Ilhéus
also were found to be pred. European in ancestry, with minor Native American and African contributions.
According to another study, autosomal DNA study (see table), those who identified as Whites in Rio de Janeiro turned out to have 86.4% - and self identified pardos 68.1% - European ancestry on average. Blacks were found out to have on average 41.8% European ancestry.
According to another study (from 1965, and based on blood groups and electrophoretic markers) carried out on whites of Northeastern Brazilian origin living in São Paulo the ancestries would be 70% European, 18% African and 12% Amerindian admixture.
Another study (autosomal DNA study, from 2010) found out that European ancestry predominates in the Brazilian population as a whole ("whites", "pardos" and "blacks" altogether). European ancestry is dominant throughout Brazil at nearly 80%, except for the Southern part of Brazil, where the European heritage reaches 90%. "A new portrayal of each ethnicity contribution to the DNA of Brazilians, obtained with samples from the five regions of the country, has indicated that, on average, European ancestors are responsible for nearly 80% of the genetic heritage of the population. The variation between the regions is small, with the possible exception of the South, where the European contribution reaches nearly 90%. The results, published by the scientific magazine 'American Journal of Human Biology' by a team of the Catholic University of Brasília, show that, in Brazil, physical indicators such as skin colour, colour of the eyes and colour of the hair have little to do with the genetic ancestry of each person, which has been shown in previous studies"(regardless of census classification)."Ancestry informative SNPs can be useful to estimate individual and population biogeographical ancestry. Brazilian population is characterized by a genetic background of three parental populations (European, African, and Brazilian Native Amerindians) with a wide degree and diverse patterns of admixture. In this work we analyzed the information content of 28 ancestry-informative SNPs into multiplexed panels using three parental population sources (African, Amerindian, and European) to infer the genetic admixture in an urban sample of the five Brazilian geopolitical regions. The SNPs assigned apart the parental populations from each other and thus can be applied for ancestry estimation in a three hybrid admixed population. Data was used to infer genetic ancestry in Brazilians with an admixture model. Pairwise estimates of F(st) among the five Brazilian geopolitical regions suggested little genetic differentiation only between the South and the remaining regions. Estimates of ancestry results are consistent with the heterogeneous genetic profile of Brazilian population, with a major contribution of European ancestry (0.771) followed by African (0.143) and Amerindian contributions (0.085). The described multiplexed SNP panels can be useful tool for bioanthropological studies but it can be mainly valuable to control for spurious results in genetic association studies in admixed populations."
It is important to note that "the samples came from free of charge paternity test takers, thus as the researchers made it explicit: "the paternity tests were free of charge, the population samples involved people of variable socioeconomic strata, although likely to be leaning slightly
towards the ‘‘pardo’’ group". According to it the total European, African and Native American contributions to the Brazilian population are:
In support of the dominant European heritage of Brazil, according to another autosomal DNA study (from 2009) conducted on a school in the poor periphery of Rio de Janeiro the "pardos" there were found to be on average over 80% European, and the "whites" (who thought of themselves as "very mixed") were found out to carry very little Amerindian or African admixtures. "The results of the tests of genomic ancestry are quite different from the self made estimates of European ancestry", say the researchers. In general, the test results showed that European ancestry is far more important than the students thought it would be. The "pardos" for example thought of themselves as 1/3 European, 1/3 African and 1/3 Amerindian before the tests, and yet their ancestry was determined to be at over 80% European. The "blacks" (pretos) of the periphery of Rio de Janeiro, according to this study, thought of themselves as predominantly African before the study and yet they turned out predominantly European (at 52%), the African contribution at 41% and the Native American 7%.
According to another autosomal DNA study from 2009, the Brazilian population, in all regions of the country, was also found out to be predominantly European: "all the Brazilian samples (regions) lie more closely to the European group than to the African populations or to the Mestizos from Mexico". According to it the total European, African and Native American contributions to the Brazilian population are:
According to another autosomal study from 2008, by the University of Brasília (UnB), European ancestry dominates in the whole of Brazil (in all regions), accounting for 65,90% of heritage of the population, followed by the African contribution (24,80%) and the Native American (9,3%).
An autosomal study from 2011 (with nearly almost 1000 samples from all over the country, "whites", "pardos" and "blacks" included) has also concluded that European ancestry is the predominant ancestry in Brazil, accounting for nearly 70% of the ancestry of the population: "In all regions studied, the European ancestry was predominant, with proportions ranging from 60.6% in the Northeast to 77.7% in the South". The 2011 autosomal study samples came from blood donors (the lowest classes constitute the great majority of blood donors in Brazil ), and also public health institutions personnel and health students. In all Brazilian regions European, African and Amerindian genetic markers are found in the local populations, even though the proportion of each varies from region to region and from individual to individual. However most regions showed basically the same structure, a greater European contribution to the population, followed by African and Native American contributions: “Some people had the vision Brazil was a heterogeneous mosaic [...] Our study proves Brazil is a lot more integrated than some expected". Brazilian homogeneity is, therefore, greater within regions than between them:
According to an autosomal DNA study (from 2003) focused on the composition of the Brazilian population as a whole, "European contribution [...] is highest in the South (81% to 82%), and lowest in the North (68% to 71%). The African component is lowest in the South (11%), while the highest values are found in the Southeast (18%-20%). Extreme values for the Amerindian fraction were found in the South and Southeast (7%-8%) and North (17%-18%)". The researchers were cautious with the results as their samples came from paternity test takers which may have skewed the results partly.
Several other older studies have suggested that European ancestry is the main component in all Brazilian regions. A study from 1965, Methods of Analysis of a Hybrid Population (Human Biology, vol 37, number 1), led by the geneticists D. F. Roberts e R. W. Hiorns, found out the average the Northeastern Brazilian to be predominantly European in ancestry (65%), with minor but important African and Native American contributions (25% and 9%). A study from 2002 quoted previous and older studies (28. Salzano F M. Interciêência. 1997;22:221––227. 29. Santos S E B, Guerreiro J F. Braz J Genet. 1995;18:311––315. 30. Dornelles C L, Callegari-Jacques S M, Robinson W M, Weimer T A, Franco M H L P, Hickmann A C, Geiger C J, Salzamo F M. Genet Mol Biol. 1999;22:151––161. 31. Krieger H, Morton N E, Mi M P, Azevedo E, Freire-Maia A, Yasuda N. Ann Hum Genet. 1965;29:113––125. [PubMed]), saying that: "Salzano (28, a study from 1997) calculated for the Northeastern population as a whole, 51% European, 36% African, and 13% Amerindian ancestries whereas in the north, Santos and Guerreiro (29, a study from 1995) obtained 47% European, 12% African, and 41% Amerindian descent, and in the southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul, Dornelles et al. (30, a study from 1999) calculated 82% European, 7% African, and 11% Amerindian ancestries. Krieger et al. (31, a study from 1965) studied a population of Brazilian northeastern origin living in São Paulo with blood groups and electrophoretic markers and showed that whites presented 18% of African and 12% of Amerindian genetic contribution and that blacks presented 28% of European and 5% of Amerindian genetic contribution (31). Of course, all of these Amerindian admixture estimates are subject to the caveat mentioned in the previous paragraph. At any rate, compared with these previous studies, our estimates showed higher levels of bidirectional admixture between Africans and non-Africans."
IBGE
The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics or IBGE , is the agency responsible for statistical, geographic, cartographic, geodetic and environmental information in Brazil...
's 2008 PNAD (National Research by Sample of Dwellings). Whites are present in the entire territory of Brazil, although the main concentrations are found in the South and Southeastern parts of the country. Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
has the 3rd largest white population in the world, after Russia with 125 million and USA with 229 million.
Conception of White
Brazil, like most other countries, permits citizens to self-identify their racial categorization. Therefore, what is understood as "race" in one particular society is not the same that is understood as such in another society. The Brazilian social construct of "white race" is different from the concept of "white race" in other countries. However, that is not to say that the social construct does not have a genetic foundation. A comprehensive study presented by the Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research found that on average, white Brazilians are (>70%) European.Another autosomal study carried out by the geneticist Sergio Pena showed that the overwhelming ancestry of "white" Brazilians is European, but there is Native American and African ancestries as well (an average of 80% European ancestry).
According to another autosomal DNA study (from 2009) conducted on a school in the poor periphery of Rio de Janeiro the "whites" (who thought of themselves as "very mixed") were found out to carry very little Amerindian or African admixtures (generally about 90% European in ancestry on average). "The results of the tests of genomic ancestry are quite different from the self-made estimates of European ancestry", say the researchers. In general, the test results showed that European ancestry is far more important than the students thought it would be. The "pardos" were found out to have a European ancestry on average of 80% (autosomal ancestry)
The degree of miscegenation
Miscegenation
Miscegenation is the mixing of different racial groups through marriage, cohabitation, sexual relations, and procreation....
in Brazil is very high; Brazil was originally colonised only by a few families of Portuguese settlers; instead there were many mostly Portuguese individual male adventurers, who tended to reproduce with Amerindian and African females. The later settlers, however, would tend to reproduce with women who were the product of previous miscigenation in Brazil.
However, social prejudice connected to certain details in the physical appearance of individual is widespread. Those details are related to the concept of "cor". "Cor", Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
for "colour" denotes the Brazilian rough equivalent of the term "race" in English, but is based on a complex phenotypic evaluation that takes into account skin pigmentation, hair type, nose shape, and lip shape. This concept, unlike the English notion of "race", captures the continuous aspects of phenotypes. Thus, it seems there is no racial descent rule operational in Brazil; it is even possible for two siblings to belong to completely diverse "racial" categories. Therefore, a White Brazilian is a person who "looks white" and is socially accepted as "white", regardless of ancestry.
Genes responsible for the features associated with "cor" are a smallish part of human genome. The miscegenation of people of different races in a country like Brazil can therefore result in a population with very different features, varying from those whose features are quite close to African to those whose features are much closer to European. This happens through the association of the processes of miscegenation and "assortative mating": suppose the first generation offspring of European fathers and African mothers. Their genome will be 50% European and 50% African, but the distribution of these genes between those that affect the relevant features (skin colour, hair type, lip shape, nose shape) is random.
Those whose features could be considered closer to the "white" prototype would tend then to procreate with other "whiter" 50-50 mixed individuals, while those whose features would be considered more evidently non-White would conversely tend to procreate among themselves. In the long term, this could produce a white and a black group with surprisingly similar proportions of European and African ancestry.
Therefore, ancestry is quite irrelevant for racial classifications in Brazil. A genetic resource conducted by UFMG on self-identified white Brazilians found that 2.5% of them had African Y chromosomes. 33% had Amerindian mitochondrial DNA and 28% African mitochondrial DNA. That finding reflected centuries of miscegenation
Miscegenation
Miscegenation is the mixing of different racial groups through marriage, cohabitation, sexual relations, and procreation....
and assortative mating, in which successive waves of Portuguese male colonists mated with Brazilian women who were the product of miscegenation between their Brazilian mothers, who, in turn, ultimately descended from African or Amerindian females and the previous wave of Portuguese colonists.. A survey in Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
also concluded that "racial-purity" is not important for a person to be classified as white in Brazil. The survey asked respondents if they had any ancestors who were European, African or Amerindian. As much as 52% of those whites reported they have some non-European ancestry: 38% reported to have some Black African ancestry and 29% reported Amerindian ancestry (15% of them reported to have both). Only 48% of those whites did not report any nonwhite ancestry. Thus, in Brazil, one can be white self-identify as white and still have African or Amerindian ancestry, and such a person has no problem admitting to having nonwhite ancestors.
| Self-reported ancestry of whites from Rio de Janeiro (2000 survey) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ancestry | ||||
| Percentage | ||||
| European only | 48% | |||
| European and African | 25% | |||
| European, African and Amerindian | 15% | |||
| European and Amerindian | 14% | |||
The conception of white in Brazil is based on the skin color of a person, which contrasts with the conception of race and ancestry, as used in the United States. According to the 1991 census, 55% of the children whose mother was white and father was brown were classified as whites. Another 6% of children born to both brown parents were classified as whites, and 2% of children born to black parents were also identified as whites. That analysis shows that the ancestry of a person is quite insignificant to racially classify people in Brazil.
Given this ambiguity and fluidity, there are people who claim that the few racial categories offered by the IBGE are not enough. When Brazilians answer to open-ended questions about race, up to 143 different race-color terms are brought. The most common is "moreno", a category that refers to a wide spectrum of phenotypes. It can mean "dark-haired", "tawny", "suntanned", but it is also used as a euphemism for "pardo" and "black", according to context. It is not a synonym with "pardo", however, since each word refers to widely different sets of people.
An important factor about whiteness in Brazil is the racial stigma of being Amerindian or black, which is undesirable and avoided for a large part of the population. Scientific racism
Scientific racism
Scientific racism is the use of scientific techniques and hypotheses to sanction the belief in racial superiority or racism.This is not the same as using scientific findings and the scientific method to investigate differences among the humans and argue that there are races...
largely influenced race relations in Brazil since the late 19th century. The predominant nonwhite, mostly Afro-Brazilian population was seen as a problem for Brazil in the eyes of the predominantly White elite of the country. In contrast to some countries, like the United States or South Africa, which tried to avoid miscegenation, even imposing anti-miscegenation laws, in Brazil, miscegenation was always legal. What was expected was that miscegenation would eventually turn all Brazilians into Whites.
As a result of that desire of whitening its own population, the Brazilian ruling classes encouraged the arrival of massive European immigration to the country. In the 1890s 1.2 million European immigrants were added to the country's 5 million whites. Today the Brazilian areas with larger proportions of whites tend to have been destinations of massive European immigration between 1880 and 1930.
Even though expectations of the Brazilian elite to whiten its own population through European immigration came to an end in the 1930s, the whitening ideology still influences racial relations in Brazil today. In general, the population still expects that blacks must biologically whiten themselves by marriage with lighter skinned people, or culturally through the assimilation of the traditions of the dominant white population. That leads mixed-race people to be perceived as whites, and this is more evident when a nonwhite person becomes wealthier and is incorporated in the ruling classes.
In the past, and still today, people of mixed-race ancestry who became wealthier were treated as whites, even though in some cases their African ancestry was remembered when opponents wanted to offend them, as happened with many mulatto politicians . That way, the light mulatto is often seen as white in Brazil, especially when the person becomes part of the elite.
For example, the greatest Brazilian writer, Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis , often known as Machado de Assis, Machado, or Bruxo do Cosme Velho , was a Brazilian novelist, poet, playwright and short story writer. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer of Brazilian literature, but he did not gain widespread popularity outside Brazil in...
, was a mulatto. However, once he gained fame and prestige, people started to accept him as a white man, and on his death certificate
Death certificate
The phrase death certificate can describe either a document issued by a medical practitioner certifying the deceased state of a person or popularly to a document issued by a person such as a registrar of vital statistics that declares the date, location and cause of a person's death as later...
he was classified as a "white man". Better educated and wealthier Brazilians usually see themselves as whites (a strict association between wealth and whiteness). A study showed that when mixed-race Brazilians get wealthier they start to be perceived as whites by others, who usually avoid associating a wealthy person with a non-white racial category. But only mixed-race people can "become white" when they get richer, while typically black people will always be perceived as blacks, no matter how rich they get.
It showed that less educated black Brazilians avoid being associated as Black (usually choosing the word "Moreno": literally "tanned", "brunette", "with an olive complexion". - to classify themselves). Better-educated black Brazilians, however, are more than eight times more likely as persons of a low level of education to identify themselves as blacks, while better educated mixed-race people usually jump to the white category. Research published by the American Sociological Review found that the growth of the pardo
Pardo
In Brazil, Pardo is a race/colour category used by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics in Brazilian censuses. It is a Portuguese word that encompasses various shades of brown, but is usually translated as "grayish-brown"...
population would be in part due to large numbers of blacks
Blacks
Blacks may refer to:* All Blacks, New Zealand rugby union team* Black people* Blacks Leisure Group, owner of Blacks and Millets in the United Kingdom* The Blacks , a play by Jean Genet* Zamora, California, formerly called Blacks...
"whitening" themselves by reporting to be brown (mulatto). Studies have found a large trend in reclassification (whitening) from black to brown in the 1950 to 1980 period, a much smaller one from white
White
White is a color, the perception of which is evoked by light that stimulates all three types of color sensitive cone cells in the human eye in nearly equal amounts and with high brightness compared to the surroundings. A white visual stimulation will be void of hue and grayness.White light can be...
to pardo
Pardo
In Brazil, Pardo is a race/colour category used by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics in Brazilian censuses. It is a Portuguese word that encompasses various shades of brown, but is usually translated as "grayish-brown"...
, and a similar but less pronounced pattern between 1980 and 1990. Academics attribute this switch from black
Black
Black is the color of objects that do not emit or reflect light in any part of the visible spectrum; they absorb all such frequencies of light...
to pardo
Pardo
In Brazil, Pardo is a race/colour category used by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics in Brazilian censuses. It is a Portuguese word that encompasses various shades of brown, but is usually translated as "grayish-brown"...
to high rates of black
Black
Black is the color of objects that do not emit or reflect light in any part of the visible spectrum; they absorb all such frequencies of light...
upward mobility during the 1970s, consistent with a “money whitens” hypothesis, that is blacks
Blacks
Blacks may refer to:* All Blacks, New Zealand rugby union team* Black people* Blacks Leisure Group, owner of Blacks and Millets in the United Kingdom* The Blacks , a play by Jean Genet* Zamora, California, formerly called Blacks...
would whiten themselves by reporting as pardo
Pardo
In Brazil, Pardo is a race/colour category used by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics in Brazilian censuses. It is a Portuguese word that encompasses various shades of brown, but is usually translated as "grayish-brown"...
the more wealthy they become. These results would demonstrate a tendency for what is called branqueamento, that means that blacks
Blacks
Blacks may refer to:* All Blacks, New Zealand rugby union team* Black people* Blacks Leisure Group, owner of Blacks and Millets in the United Kingdom* The Blacks , a play by Jean Genet* Zamora, California, formerly called Blacks...
would tend to self-classify as whiter. In this case, differences found in the share of blacks between census results would demonstrate that blacks
Blacks
Blacks may refer to:* All Blacks, New Zealand rugby union team* Black people* Blacks Leisure Group, owner of Blacks and Millets in the United Kingdom* The Blacks , a play by Jean Genet* Zamora, California, formerly called Blacks...
tend to self-classify as pardos
Pardos
Pardos was the catepan of Italy briefly in 1042 following the short term of George Maniakes.In July 1042, Maniakes was disgraced and recalled by Constantine IX Monomachos at the behest of Romanus Sclerus, brother of the emperor's mistress. According to Johannes Skylitzes, Romanus had even raped...
. Some researchers suggested to merge the two into a single Afro-Brazilian
Afro-Brazilian
In Brazil, the term "preto" is one of the five categories used by the Brazilian Census, along with "branco" , "pardo" , "amarelo" and "indígena"...
category (e.g., Lovell 1994; Wood and Carvalho 1988; Wood and Lovell 1992). Brazilian geneticist Sérgio Pena has criticised American scholar Edward Telles for lumping "pretos" and "pardos" in the same category. According to him, "the autosomal genetic analysis that we have performed in non-related individuals [...] shows that it does not make any sense to put "pretos" and "pardos" in the same category".
The conception of white also varies from region to region. In the North and Northeastern regions, predominantly nonwhite, there may be some ambiguity on racial classifications, considering the long period of racial miscegenation in them. They contrast with the South, predominantly white, where the white population did not mix so much with the nonwhite one. A study found that people from the predominantly non-White state of Bahia
Bahia
Bahia is one of the 26 states of Brazil, and is located in the northeastern part of the country on the Atlantic coast. It is the fourth most populous Brazilian state after São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro, and the fifth-largest in size...
have some difficulty in discerning who is a White person. On the other hand, in the predominantly white state of São Paulo
São Paulo
São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...
people more easily define who is a white person.
The integration of races in Brazil did not build a racial democracy
Racial democracy
Racial democracy is a term used by some to describe race relations in Brazil. The term denotes some scholars' belief that Brazil has escaped racism and racial discrimination. Those researchers contend that Brazilians do not view each other through the lens of race and do not harbor racial...
, where racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
would not exist because all Brazilians saw themselves as equal because of their common multiracial
Multiracial
The terms multiracial and mixed-race describe people whose ancestries come from multiple races. Unlike the term biracial, which often is only used to refer to having parents or grandparents of two different races, the term multiracial may encompass biracial people but can also include people with...
heritage. Even though this theory was dominant in Brazil for decades, although it is still followed by some today, most scholars now think that miscegenation in Brazil created not an egalitarian society but a society where lighter-skinned people are found mostly on the top and the darker-skinned are mostly found on the bottom.
The American impact on the study of race relations in Brazil
In a classic article published 30 years ago, the anthropologist Charles Wagley (1965) showed that the conception of 'race' in the Americas admits of several definitions according to the weight granted to descent, physical appearance (itself not confined to skin colour), and to sociocultural status (occupation, income, education, region of origin, etc.), depending on the history of intergroup relations and conflicts in the different geographic zones. In Brazil, racial identity is defined by reference to a continuum of `colour', that is, by use of a flexible or fuzzy principle which, taking account of physical traits such as skin colour, the texture of hair, and the shape of lips and nose, and of class position (notably income and education), generates a large number of intermediate and partly overlapping categories (over a hundred of them were recorded by the 1980 Census). Evidence for this is provided by the segregation indices sported by Brazilian cities, strikingly lower than those for US metropolitan areas, and the virtual absence of the two typically US forms of ethnoracial violence: lynching and urban rioting (see Telles, 1995; Reid, 1992). Quite the opposite in the USA where there exists no socially and legally recognized category of 'métis' (people of mixed-race) (Davis, 1991; Williamson, 1980). In this case we are faced with a division that is closer to that between definitively defined and delimited castes (proof is the exceptionally low rate of intermarriage: fewer than 2 percent of African-American women contract `mixed' unions, as against about half of the women of Latino or Asian origin): a caste division that one strives to conceal by submerging it within the universe of differentiating visions `revisioned' through US lenses by means of `globalization'. How are we to account for the fact that 'theories' of 'race relations' which are but thinly conceptualized transfigurations, endlessly refurbished and updated to suit current concerns, of the most commonly used racial stereotypes that are themselves only primary justifications of the domination of whites over blacks in one society, could be tacitly (and sometimes
explicitly) raised to the status of universal standard whereby every situation of ethnic domination must be analysed and measured?The fact that this racial (or racist) sociodicy was able to `globalize' itself over the recent period, thereby losing its outer characteristics of legitimating discourse for domestic or local usage, is undoubtedly one of the most striking proofs of the
symbolic dominion and influence exercised by the USA over every kind scholarly and, especially, semi-scholarly production, notably through the power of consecration they possess and through the material and symbolic profits that researchers in the dominated countries reap from a more or less assumed or ashamed adherence to the model derived from the USA.
But all these mechanisms which have the effect of facilitating the actual `globalization' of American problems, thereby verifying the Americano-centric belief in `globalization' understood, quite simply, as the Americanization of the Western world and, through outward expansion, of the entire universe, these mechanisms are not enough to explain the tendency of the American worldview, scholarly or semi-scholarly, to impose itself as a universal point of view, especially when it comes to issues, such as that of 'race', where the particularity of the American situation is particularly flagrant and particularly far from being exemplary.
One would obviously need to invoke here also the driving role played by the major American philanthropic and research foundations in the diffusion of the US racial doxa within the Brazilian academic field at the level of both representations
and practices. Thus, the Rockefeller Foundation and similar organizations fund a programme on `Race and Ethnicity' at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro as well as the Centre for Afro-Asiatic Studies of the Candido Mendes University (and its journal Estudos Afro-Asiaticos) so as to encourage exchanges of researchers and students. But the intellectual current flows in one direction only. And, as a condition for its aid, the Rockefeller Foundation requires that research teams meet US criteria of `affirmative action', which poses insuperable problems since, as we have seen, the application of the white/black dichotomy in Brazilian society is, to say the least, hazardous. Alongside the role of philanthropic foundations, we must finally include the internationalization of academic publishing among the factors that have contributed to the diffusion of `US thought' in the social sciences. The growing integration of the publishing of English-language academicbooks (nowadays sold, often by the same houses, in the USA, in the different countries of the former British Commonwealth, but also in the smaller, polyglot, nations of the European Union such as Sweden and the Netherlands, and in the societies most directly exposed to American cultural domination) and the erosion of the boundary between academic and trade publishing have helped encourage the putting into circulation of terms, themes and tropes with strong (real or hoped for) market appeal which, in turn, owe their power of attraction simply to the fact of their very wide diffusion. For example, Basil Blackwell, the large, half-commercial and half-academic publishing house (what the Anglo-Saxons call a `crossover press'), does not hesitate to impose titles on its authors which are in accord with this new planetary common sense which it contributes to forging under the guise of echoing it.
History
Brazil received more European settlers during its colonial era than any other country in the Americas. Between 1500 and 1760, about 700,000 European settled in Brazil, compared to 530,000 European settlers in the United States.Practically all European coming to Brazil before 1818 were Portuguese. Available data seems to point that most Portuguese settlers in Brazil came from northern Portugal, especially from Minho
Minho (province)
Minho is an historical province of Portugal. It was established as an official province in 1936 and dissolved in 1976. It consisted of 23 municipalities, with its capital in the city of Braga. Today, the area would include the districts of Braga and Viana do Castelo. Minho has substantial Celtic...
(in 1801, 45% of the Portuguese established in São Paulo were "minhotos", 20% from the Azores Islands, 16% from Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
and 19% from other parts). Another significant portion came from the Portuguese Atlantic Islands, Azores and Madeira.
An important feature of the Portuguese colonization was the overwhelming predominance of males. This disproportion was a problem during much of the colonial period. The Portuguese Crown even sent orphaned women for marriage with the settlers, but a large part of the settlers were involved in relationships with indigenous women and with their African slaves. It is remarkable that most Portuguese settlers arrived in Brazil in the 18th century: 600,000 in a period of only 60 years. The exploitation of gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
and diamond
Diamond
In mineralogy, diamond is an allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice. Diamond is less stable than graphite, but the conversion rate from diamond to graphite is negligible at ambient conditions...
s in the region of Minas Gerais
Minas Gerais
Minas Gerais is one of the 26 states of Brazil, of which it is the second most populous, the third richest, and the fourth largest in area. Minas Gerais is the Brazilian state with the largest number of Presidents of Brazil, the current one, Dilma Rousseff, being one of them. The capital is the...
has been a crucial factor in the arrival of this contingent of colonists.
Non-Portuguese presence in colonial Brazil
Before the 19th century, the French invaded twice, establishing brief and minor settlements (Rio de JaneiroRio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
, 1555–60; Maranhão
Maranhão
Maranhão is a northeastern state of Brazil. To the north lies the Atlantic Ocean. Maranhão is neighbored by the states of Piauí, Tocantins and Pará. The people of Maranhão have a distinctive accent...
, 1612–15); In 1630, the Dutch made the most significant attempt to seize Brazil from Portuguese control. At the time, Portugal was in a dynastic union with Spain, and the Dutch hostility against Spain was transferred to Portugal. The Dutch were able to control most of the Brazilian Northeast - then the most dynamic part of Brazil - for about a quarter century, but were unable to change the ethnic makeup of the colonizing population, which remained overwhelmingly Portuguese by origin and culture. Sephardic Jews of Portuguese origin moved from Amsterdam to New Holland
Dutch Brazil
Dutch Brazil, also known as New Holland, was the northern portion of Brazil, ruled by the Dutch during the Dutch colonization of the Americas between 1630 and 1654...
; but in 1654, when the Portuguese regained control of Brazil, most of them were expelled, as well as most of the Dutch settlers.
Aside these military attempts, a very small number of non-Portuguese people appear to have managed to enter Brazil from European countries other than Portugal.
However, in the Southern Brazilian areas disputed between Portugal and Spain, Spanish colonists largely contributed for the ethnic formation of the local population, denominated Gaúcho
Gaucho
Gaucho is a term commonly used to describe residents of the South American pampas, chacos, or Patagonian grasslands, found principally in parts of Argentina, Uruguay, Southern Chile, and Southern Brazil...
s. A genetic research conducted by FAPESP (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo) on Gaúchos from Bagé and Alegrete, in Rio Grande do Sul, Southern Brazil, revealed that they are mostly descended from Spanish ancestors, and less from Portuguese, with 52% of them having Amerindian MtDNA (similar to that found in people who live in the area of the Amazon rainforest
Amazon Rainforest
The Amazon Rainforest , also known in English as Amazonia or the Amazon Jungle, is a moist broadleaf forest that covers most of the Amazon Basin of South America...
, and significantly higher than the national average - 33% - among Brazilian Whites) and 11% African MtDNA. Another study also concluded that for the formation of the Gaúcho there was a predominance of Iberians, particularly Spaniards. The genetic finding matches with the explanation of sociologist Darcy Ribeiro
Darcy Ribeiro
Darcy Ribeiro was a Brazilian anthropologist, author and politician. Darcy Ribeiro's ideas of Latin American identity have influenced several later scholars of Latin American studies...
about the ethnic formation of the Brazilian Gaúchos: they are mostly the result of the miscegenation of Spanish and Portuguese males with Amerindian females.
Another genetic study found possible relics of the 17th-century Dutch invasion
Dutch Brazil
Dutch Brazil, also known as New Holland, was the northern portion of Brazil, ruled by the Dutch during the Dutch colonization of the Americas between 1630 and 1654...
in Northeastern Brazil.
Immigration
It was only in 1818 that the Portuguese rulers abandoned the principle of restricting settling in Brazil to Portuguese nationals. In that year over two thousand Swiss migrants from the Canton of FribourgCanton of Fribourg
The Canton of Fribourg is a canton of Switzerland. It is located in the west of the country. The capital of the canton is Fribourg. The name Fribourg is French, whereas is the German name for both the canton and the town.-History:...
arrived to settle in an inhospitable area near Rio de Janeiro that would later be renamed Nova Friburgo
Nova Friburgo
Nova Friburgo is a municipality in the state of Rio de Janeiro in southeastern Brazil. It is located in the northern mountainous region of the state, 136 km from its capital Rio de Janeiro...
.
The arrival of German immigrants had great importance for the demographics of Southern Brazil. They founded rural communities that later became prosperous cities, as was the case of São Leopoldo
São Leopoldo
São Leopoldo is an important Brazilian industrial city located in the south state of Rio Grande do Sul. It occupies a total area of 103.9 km² at circa 30 km from the State Capital, Porto Alegre. Climate is sub-tropical, with temperatures varying from 2°C minimum at Winter to more than...
, Joinville
Joinville
Joinville is a city in Santa Catarina State, in the Southern Region of Brazil. Joinville is Santa Catarina's largest city. In 2010, its population has reached approximately 520,000, many of whom are of German descent....
and Blumenau
Blumenau
Blumenau is a city in Vale do Itajaí, state of Santa Catarina, in southern Brazil. It was founded on September 2, 1850 by Dr. Hermann Bruno Otto Blumenau along with 17 German immigrants. A few years later Fritz Müller migrated to Blumenau as well....
.
The end of the slave trade (1850) and the abolition of slavery (1888) prompted the Brazilian State to promote European immigration to Brazil. The production of coffee
Coffee
Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...
, the main product of Brazil at the time, began to suffer a shortage of workers. From 1876, Italian immigrants began to enter Brazil in huge numbers. From 1884 to 1933, 1.4 million Italians immigrated to Brazil, 70% of whom settled in São Paulo
São Paulo (state)
São Paulo is a state in Brazil. It is the major industrial and economic powerhouse of the Brazilian economy. Named after Saint Paul, São Paulo has the largest population, industrial complex, and economic production in the country. It is the richest state in Brazil...
.
The period of the Great Immigration, between 1876 and 1930, brought to the country more than 5 million Europeans. Most were Italians or Portuguese, followed by Spaniards, Germans, Poles, and Ukrainians
Ukrainians of Brazil
Ukrainians of Brazil are Brazilian citizens born in Ukraine, or Brazilians of Ukrainian descent who remain connected, in some degree, to Ukrainian culture...
. It is notable that most of these immigrants settled in Southern and Southeastern Brazil.
| Brazilian Population, by Race, from 1872 to 1991 (Census Data) | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ethnic group | White | Black | Brown | Yellow (Asian) | Undeclared | Total | |
| 1872 | 3,787,289 | 1,954,452 | 4,188,737 | - | - | 9,930,478 | |
| 1890 | 6,302,198 | 2,097,426 | 5,934,291 | - | - | 14,333,915 | |
| 1940 | 26,171,778 | 6,035,869 | 8,744,365 | 242,320 | 41,983 | 41,236,315 | |
| 1950 | 32,027,661 | 5,692,657 | 13,786,742 | 329,082 | 108,255 | 51,944,397 | |
| 1960 | 42,838,639 | 6,116,848 | 20,706,431 | 482,848 | 46,604 | 70,191,370 | |
| 1980 | 64,540,467 | 7,046,906 | 46,233,531 | 672,251 | 517,897 | 119,011,052 | |
| 1991 | 75,704,927 | 7,335,136 | 62,316,064 | 630,656 | 534,878 | 146,521,661 | |
The impact of immigration
Brazilian demographers have long discussed the demographic impact of the wave of emigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. According to Judicael Clevelário, most studies about the impact of immigration have followed Giorgio Mortara's conclusions in the 40's and 50's. Mortara concluded that only about 15% of the demographic growth of Brazil, from 1840 and 1940 was due to immigration, and that the population of immigrant origin was of 16% of the total population of Brazil.However, according to Clevelário, Mortara failed to properly take into account the full endogenous growth of the population of immigrant origin, due to the predominantly rural settlement of the immigrants (rural regions tend to have higher natality rates than cities). Clevelário, then, besides extending the calculations up to 1980, remade them, reaching somewhat different conclusions.
One of the problems of calculating the impact of immigration in Brazilian demography is that the return rates of immigrants are unknown. Clevelário, thence, supposed four different hypothesis concerning the return rates. The first, that he deems unrealistic high, is that 50% of the immigrants to Brazil returned to their countries of origin. The second is based on the work of Arthur Neiva, who supposes the return rate for Brazil was higher than that of USA (30%) but lower than that of Argentina (47%). The third hypothesis is taken from Mortara, who postulates a rate of 20% for the 19th century, 35% for the first two decades of the 20th century, and 25% for 1920 on. Although Mortara himself considered this hypothesis underestimated, Clevelário thinks it is closest to reality. The last hypothesis, also admittedly unrealistic is that of a 0% rate of return, which is known to be false.
Clevelário's conclusions are as following: considering hypothesis 1 (unrealistically high), the Population of Immigrant Origin in 1980 would be of 14,730,710 people, or 12.38% of the total population. Considering hypothesis 2 (based on Neiva), it would be of 17,609,052 people, or 14.60% of the total population. Considering hypothesis 3 (based on Mortara, and considered most realistic), it would be of 22,088,829 people, or 18.56% of the total population. Considering hypothesis 4 (no return at all), the Population of Immigrant origin would be of 29,348,423 people, or 24.66% of the total population
Clevelário believes the most probable number to be close to 18%, higher than Mortara's previous estimate of 1947.
According to the Census of 1872, Black and "Brown" people made up the majority (58%) of Brazil's population. The White population grew faster than the non-White population due to the subsidized immigration of Europeans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As of 1890, the African-descended population was reduced to 47% and the Amerindian to 9%. The disproportionally fast growth of the White population, due to mass immigration, lasted up to 1940, when its proportion in the Brazilian population peaked at 63.5%.
According to a genetic study, the European immigration to Brazil in the 19th and 20th centuries left a "strong imprint" in the genetics of the Brazilian population, leading to the "whitening" of Brazil. The massive European immigration promoted by the Brazilian government after 1872 that brought nearly 6 million Europeans in order to "whiten" the country's population had an important effect, and it manifests in a predominant (over 70%) of European ancestry in White Brazilian, as well as a large European admixture (37.1%) in Black Brazilians. The scholars divided the formation of the Brazilian population in three periods: the first when the country was inhabited only by Amerindians, who contributed for the early formation of the population; the second was during the large influx of slaves from Africa until 1850 and the third was during the large influx of European immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In fact, until the mid-19th century, White people never exceeded 30% of the population in Brazil, while Amerindians, Blacks and Mulattoes always predominated.
Another study has pointed out that the European ancestry is dominant throughout Brazil at 80%, which means that even in the states not hit by the most recent waves of immigration, even there European ancestry dominates in the population as a whole. "A new portrayal of each ethnicity contribution to the DNA of Brazilians, obtained with samples from the five regions of the country, has indicated that, on average, European ancestors are responsible for nearly 80% of the genetic heritage of the population. The variation between the regions is small, with the possible exception of the South, where the European contribution reaches nearly 90%. The results, published by the scientific magazine 'American Journal of Human Biology' by a team of the Catholic University of Brasília, show that, in Brazil, physical indicators such as skin colour, colour of the eyes and colour of the hair have little to do with the genetic ancestry of each person, which has been shown in previous studies".
Origins
White Brazilians are descended either from colonial settlers, who came from Portugal from 1500 to 1822, or from the diverse groups of immigrants who arrived after independence. The latter had a greater impact in the demography of the Southern states and of São PauloSão Paulo (state)
São Paulo is a state in Brazil. It is the major industrial and economic powerhouse of the Brazilian economy. Named after Saint Paul, São Paulo has the largest population, industrial complex, and economic production in the country. It is the richest state in Brazil...
.
Different from the colonists who settled in North America, who brought their entire families, the Portuguese colonization was almost exclusively composed of men, with a limited presence of women. This lack of women worried the Jesuits, who asked the Portuguese King to send any kind of Portuguese women to Brazil, even prostitutes if necessary. Most of the first Portuguese settlers procreated with native Amerindians
Indigenous peoples in Brazil
The Indigenous peoples in Brazil comprise a large number of distinct ethnic groups who inhabited the country prior to the European invasion around 1500...
or African slave
Afro-Brazilian
In Brazil, the term "preto" is one of the five categories used by the Brazilian Census, along with "branco" , "pardo" , "amarelo" and "indígena"...
women. Over time, the number of Portuguese women immigrating to Brazil grew, but the gender imbalance was never significantly reduced. This male predominance prevailed throughout the colonial
Colonial Brazil
In the history of Brazil, Colonial Brazil, officially the Viceroyalty of Brazil comprises the period from 1500, with the arrival of the Portuguese, until 1815, when Brazil was elevated to kingdom alongside Portugal as the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves.During the over 300 years...
period. Historically, the male Portuguese settler preferred to marry a Portuguese born female. But, since their number in Brazil was very small, the second option was to marry a white Brazilian, born to Portuguese parents. The third option was a white Brazilian female of distant Portuguese origin. The scarce presence of white women, either Portuguese or Brazilian, caused the high degree of miscegenation
Miscegenation
Miscegenation is the mixing of different racial groups through marriage, cohabitation, sexual relations, and procreation....
in colonial Brazil (and recent genetic studies found a high degree of Amerindian and African ancestries in white Brazilians, that confirms this early integration).
Even though the immigration of non-Portuguese was allowed from 1818 on, the Portuguese predominance continued way up to the 1870 years. A consistent flux of German immigrants started to arrive to Southern Brazil, briefly interrupted by the War of Tatters
War of Tatters
The War of the Ragamuffins was a Republican uprising that began in southern Brazil, in the states of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina in 1835...
, but the amount of Portuguese immigrants was much bigger during this period.
The census of 1872 counted 3,787,289 Whites in Brazil. Given the history described above, practically all these Whites were of Portuguese ancestry. Despite the largest arrivals of European immigrants, particularly between 1880 and 1930, the nowadays white Brazilian population is still mainly descended from whites of colonial extraction.
Latin American oligarchies, which remained predominantly of European origin, believed - in syntony with the racialist theories then widespread in Europe - that the large numbers of Blacks and mixed Amerindians that made up the majority of the population were a handicap to the development of their countries. As a result, countries such as Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
, Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
and Brazil started to encourage the arrival of European immigrants, in order to make the White population grow and to dilute the African and Amerindian blood in their population. Argentina even had an article in its Constitution prohibiting any attempt to prevent the entry of European immigrants in the country. In the case of Brazil, the immigrants started arriving in huge numbers during the 1880s. From 1886 to 1900, almost 1.4 million Europeans arrived, of whom over 900,000 were Italians. During this period of 14 years, Brazil received more Europeans than during the over 300 years of colonization.
According to Darcy Ribeiro
Darcy Ribeiro
Darcy Ribeiro was a Brazilian anthropologist, author and politician. Darcy Ribeiro's ideas of Latin American identity have influenced several later scholars of Latin American studies...
before 1850 no more than 500,000 Europeans settled in Brazil IBGE
IBGE
The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics or IBGE , is the agency responsible for statistical, geographic, cartographic, geodetic and environmental information in Brazil...
estimated that the number was close to 700,000 Portuguese. The mass European immigration to Brazil only started in the second half of the 19th century, from 1850 to 1970 some 5 million Europeans arrived, because of three main reasons:
- to "whiten" Brazil, since the Amerindian and African elements predominated in the population, a fact that was considered a problem by the local elite, that considered these races inferior. Bringing European immigrants was seen as a way to "improve" the racial composition of the local population;
- to populate inhospitable areas of Brazil, mostly the Southern provinces;
- to replace African manpower, since the Atlantic slave tradeAtlantic slave tradeThe Atlantic slave trade, also known as the trans-atlantic slave trade, refers to the trade in slaves that took place across the Atlantic ocean from the sixteenth through to the nineteenth centuries...
was effectively suppressed in 1850 and coffee plantations were spreading in the region of São Paulo.
These immigrants had a larger and more visible impact in the state of São Paulo, along with the three southern states of Rio Grande do Sul
Rio Grande do Sul
Rio Grande do Sul is the southernmost state in Brazil, and the state with the fifth highest Human Development Index in the country. In this state is located the southernmost city in the country, Chuí, on the border with Uruguay. In the region of Bento Gonçalves and Caxias do Sul, the largest wine...
, Santa Catarina
Santa Catarina (state)
Santa Catarina is a state in southern Brazil with one of the highest standards of living in Latin America. Its capital is Florianópolis, which mostly lies on the Santa Catarina Island. Neighbouring states are Rio Grande do Sul to the south and Paraná to the north. It is bounded on the east by...
and Paraná
Paraná (state)
Paraná is one of the states of Brazil, located in the South of the country, bordered on the north by São Paulo state, on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, on the south by Santa Catarina state and the Misiones Province of Argentina, and on the west by Mato Grosso do Sul and the republic of Paraguay,...
. In the southern states there were entire regions (such as the Serra Gaúcha and Vale do Jacuí) populated by German and Italian-speaking inhabitants. The immigrants remained closed in ethnic communities for decades. The Portuguese language only started to be used by these communities many decades after their arrival, as a result of their contact with Brazilians and with immigrants from other countries, but also because of the forced assimilation during the Getúlio Vargas
Getúlio Vargas
Getúlio Dornelles Vargas served as President of Brazil, first as dictator, from 1930 to 1945, and in a democratically elected term from 1951 until his suicide in 1954. Vargas led Brazil for 18 years, the most for any President, and second in Brazilian history to Emperor Pedro II...
's government, mostly inside the German community. In contrast to the early Portuguese colonists, these immigrants arrived with their entire families in Brazil, with large numbers of women and children. As a result, the areas where they were concentrated, most remarkably the central parts of Southern Brazil, became predominantly white.
In São Paulo, paulistas
Paulistas
Paulistas are the inhabitants of the state of São Paulo, Brazil, and of its antecessor the Capitaincy of São Vicente, whose capital early shifted from the village of São Vicente to the one of São Paulo dos Campos de Piratininga....
of Italian descent outnumbered those of earlier extraction. In this region, Italians, Portuguese, Spaniards and Arabs were easily integrated, since they had a close contact with the large local Brazilian population. At first working on coffee
Coffee
Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...
farms, later they moved to cities and participated in the process of industrialization of Brazil.
Regions of settlement
The first economic activity the Portuguese crown devised in Brazil - the collection of BrazilwoodBrazilwood
Caesalpinia echinata is a species of Brazilian timber tree in the pea family, Fabaceae. Common names include Brazilwood, Pau-Brasil, Pau de Pernambuco and Ibirapitanga . This plant has a dense, orange-red heartwood that takes a high shine, and it is the premier wood used for making bows for...
- was not conducive to an actual occupation of the territory. The establishment of a few "feitorias" that conducted the trade was not enough to populate Brazil. The growing competition from other colonial powers - especially France - led the Portuguese into finding other economic activities that could serve as a base for a permanent and solid integration of Brazil into Portuguese domains. The first such activity to attain success was the cultivation of sugarcane - and the associated extraction of sugar, since sugarcane could not be transported overseas without deteriorating. This activity was also complementary with the slave trade that the Portuguese were starting, at that moment, from their African colonies of Angola and Mozambique. Sugarcane proved very well adapted to the climate of the Northeastern litoral, so the first stable and prosperous Portuguese settlements - and consequently, the first stable and prosperous centers of White population in Brazil - where located in that region.
The economy of sugarcane culture being centered in exporting to Portugal, other economic activities appeared to fulfill the necessities of the region. Remarkably, husbandry spread into the arid hinterland, where it remained the most important economic activity for centuries.
The region around São Vicente, in modern São Paulo state, remained less developed, with a weaker integration to the colonial economy. This probably prompted the inhabitants to explore the hinterland. In theory looking for gold and gems, in practice they engaged in expeditions with the objective of capturing and enslaving Amerindians. These slaves were used in the incipient agriculture around São Paulo
São Paulo
São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...
, which, to the end of the 16th century became specialised in wheat, as a commercial crop that could be sold in other parts of Brazil.
Around 1700, the paulistas found gold in the region that is now Minas Gerais. Together with the growing competition of Caribbean sugar, this made the center of the Brazilian economy move to the Southwest. The administrative center of the colony was moved from Salvador to Rio de Janeiro. The discovery of mineral wealth caused the influx of Portuguese settlers to redirect from the Northeast to the mining region, and the number of Portuguese leaving for Brazil to increase greatly; also there was a change in the social profile of those coming to Brazil. Agriculture needed substantial investments, but gold mining required much more courage and less initial capital, and the proportion of poor Portuguese among the newcomers increased considerably.
The Southern region was also first settled by the paulistas. Arriving there in search of the Amerindians in the Jesuit reductions, they subsequently raided the region in search of the cattle gone astray with the destruction of the Missões
Missões
Missões or Missões do Uruguai is the region located in the Northwestern part of the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, close to the border between Brazil and Argentina....
, first for the leather, then organising a commercial circuit that moved cattle on feet to the mining region (ciclo do gado a pé). As a result, the Portuguese domain extended firmly to the south, threatening the control of the Northern bank of the Plata by the Spanish.
Immigrants
Most European immigrants in the 19th and 20th centuries entered Brazil for São PauloSão Paulo (state)
São Paulo is a state in Brazil. It is the major industrial and economic powerhouse of the Brazilian economy. Named after Saint Paul, São Paulo has the largest population, industrial complex, and economic production in the country. It is the richest state in Brazil...
, Minas Gerais
Minas Gerais
Minas Gerais is one of the 26 states of Brazil, of which it is the second most populous, the third richest, and the fourth largest in area. Minas Gerais is the Brazilian state with the largest number of Presidents of Brazil, the current one, Dilma Rousseff, being one of them. The capital is the...
and Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
or for the Southern region. São Paulo received most of the Italians and Spaniards in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; Rio de Janeiro received most of the Portuguese immigrants; and Minas Gerais reiceived generally Italians, looking for jobs in the 19th centurie, and Portugueses early in the 18th. However, the impact of the European immigration was larger in Southern Brazil. This region received a smaller number of immigrants, mainly Italians and Germans, but since it had a smaller population, the impact of their arrival was greater to its demography. Pernambuco
Pernambuco
Pernambuco is a state of Brazil, located in the Northeast region of the country. To the north are the states of Paraíba and Ceará, to the west is Piauí, to the south are Alagoas and Bahia, and to the east is the Atlantic Ocean. There are about of beaches, some of the most beautiful in the...
was also an important place to the arrival of Portuguese immigrants.
Portuguese
Spaniards
About 720,000 Spaniards came to Brazil, starting in the late 19th century. Most of them were attracted to work in the coffee plantations in the State of São PauloSão Paulo (state)
São Paulo is a state in Brazil. It is the major industrial and economic powerhouse of the Brazilian economy. Named after Saint Paul, São Paulo has the largest population, industrial complex, and economic production in the country. It is the richest state in Brazil...
.
Italians
Coffee
Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...
plantations in the Southeast, especially São Paulo and Minas Gerais, where they worked for the local landowners, either for a wage or under a contract that allowed them to use a portion of land for subsistency, in exchange for labour in the plantation.
Italians made up the main group of immigrants to Brazil in the late 19th century.
Germans
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
immigrated to Brazil, starting from 1824. Most of them established themselves in rural communities across Southern Brazil.
Luxembourgers
An estimated 50.000 Brazilians are of LuxembourgianLuxembourgers
Luxembourgers are an ethnic group native to Luxembourg sharing Luxembourgian culture and being of Luxembourgian descent.-Location:Most ethnic Luxembourgers live in the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg, a small country located in Europe between Germany, France and Belgium and are a mixture of Latin and...
descent due to a massive immigration of Luxembourgers to Brazil, mostly during the late 19th an early 20th centuries.
Poles
PolesPoles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
came in significant numbers to Brazil after 1870. Most of them settled in the State of Paraná
Paraná (state)
Paraná is one of the states of Brazil, located in the South of the country, bordered on the north by São Paulo state, on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, on the south by Santa Catarina state and the Misiones Province of Argentina, and on the west by Mato Grosso do Sul and the republic of Paraguay,...
, working as small farmers. From 1872 to 1919, 110,243 "Russian" citizens entered Brazil. In fact, the vast majority of them were Poles, since, up to 1917, Poland was under Russian rule and ethnic Poles immigrated with Russian passport
Passport
A passport is a document, issued by a national government, which certifies, for the purpose of international travel, the identity and nationality of its holder. The elements of identity are name, date of birth, sex, and place of birth....
s.
Ukrainians
More than 20,000 UkrainiansUkrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...
came to Brazil between 1895 and 1897, settling mostly in state of Paraná
Paraná (state)
Paraná is one of the states of Brazil, located in the South of the country, bordered on the north by São Paulo state, on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, on the south by Santa Catarina state and the Misiones Province of Argentina, and on the west by Mato Grosso do Sul and the republic of Paraguay,...
and working as small farmers.
Arabs
Besides the Europeans, many White Brazilians descend from Arabs, mostly SyrianDemographics of Syria
Syrians today are an overall indigenous Levantine people. While modern-day Syrians are commonly described as Arabs by virtue of their modern-day language and bonds to Arab culture and history...
s and Lebanese people
Lebanese people
The Lebanese people are a nation and ethnic group of Levantine people originating in what is today the country of Lebanon, including those who had inhabited Mount Lebanon prior to the creation of the modern Lebanese state....
. About 1 500 000 Arabs, mainly Syrians and Lebanese, came to Brazil between 1884 and 1939.
Jews
Brazilian Jews are concentrated in three cities: Rio de JaneiroRio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
, São Paulo
São Paulo
São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...
, and Porto Alegre
Porto Alegre
Porto Alegre is the tenth most populous municipality in Brazil, with 1,409,939 inhabitants, and the centre of Brazil's fourth largest metropolitan area . It is also the capital city of the southernmost Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. The city is the southernmost capital city of a Brazilian...
.
Scandinavian countries
The relations between Brazil and Sweden are rooted in the family ties of the Brazilian and the Swedish Royal Families and in the Swedish emigration to Brazil in the end of the 19th century. The wife of King Oscar I of Sweden, Queen Josefina av Leuchtenberg, was sister to Amelia de Leuchtenberg, wife of Emperor Pedro I of Brazil. Diplomatic relations between Brazil and Sweden were established in 1826.During the mid to late 19th century many Scandinavians arrived in Brazil, particularly to the southern states as well as Rio de Janeiro, which features a Scandinavian Association, and São Paulo where the Scandinavian church is based.Dutch (Netherlands)
Dutch people first settled in Brazil during the 17th century, with the state of Pernambuco being a colony of the Dutch Republic from 1630 to 1661. During the 19th and 20th century, immigrants from the Netherlands populated the central and southern states of Brazil.Americans (United States)
At the end of the American Civil War in the 1860s, a migration of Confederates to Brazil began, with the total number of immigrants estimated in the thousands. They settled primarily in Southern and Southeastern Brazil: in Americana, Campinas, São Paulo, Santa Bárbara d'Oeste, Juquiá, New Texas, Xiririca, Rio de Janeiro and Rio Doce. But in Santarém, Pará – in the north on the Amazon River – and in the states of Bahia and Pernambuco received a significant number of American immigrants. Altogether, close to 25,000 American immigrants settled in Brazil.Demography
By Brazilian states
The Brazilian states with the highest percentages of Whites are the three located in the South of the country: Santa CatarinaSanta Catarina (state)
Santa Catarina is a state in southern Brazil with one of the highest standards of living in Latin America. Its capital is Florianópolis, which mostly lies on the Santa Catarina Island. Neighbouring states are Rio Grande do Sul to the south and Paraná to the north. It is bounded on the east by...
, Rio Grande do Sul
Rio Grande do Sul
Rio Grande do Sul is the southernmost state in Brazil, and the state with the fifth highest Human Development Index in the country. In this state is located the southernmost city in the country, Chuí, on the border with Uruguay. In the region of Bento Gonçalves and Caxias do Sul, the largest wine...
and Paraná
Paraná (state)
Paraná is one of the states of Brazil, located in the South of the country, bordered on the north by São Paulo state, on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, on the south by Santa Catarina state and the Misiones Province of Argentina, and on the west by Mato Grosso do Sul and the republic of Paraguay,...
. These states, along with São Paulo
São Paulo (state)
São Paulo is a state in Brazil. It is the major industrial and economic powerhouse of the Brazilian economy. Named after Saint Paul, São Paulo has the largest population, industrial complex, and economic production in the country. It is the richest state in Brazil...
, received an important influx of European immigrants in the period of the Great Immigration (1876–1914).
- 1) Santa CatarinaSanta Catarina (state)Santa Catarina is a state in southern Brazil with one of the highest standards of living in Latin America. Its capital is Florianópolis, which mostly lies on the Santa Catarina Island. Neighbouring states are Rio Grande do Sul to the south and Paraná to the north. It is bounded on the east by...
: 85.69% White - 2) Rio Grande do SulRio Grande do SulRio Grande do Sul is the southernmost state in Brazil, and the state with the fifth highest Human Development Index in the country. In this state is located the southernmost city in the country, Chuí, on the border with Uruguay. In the region of Bento Gonçalves and Caxias do Sul, the largest wine...
: 81.40% - 3) ParanáParaná (state)Paraná is one of the states of Brazil, located in the South of the country, bordered on the north by São Paulo state, on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, on the south by Santa Catarina state and the Misiones Province of Argentina, and on the west by Mato Grosso do Sul and the republic of Paraguay,...
: 71.34% - 4) São PauloSão Paulo (state)São Paulo is a state in Brazil. It is the major industrial and economic powerhouse of the Brazilian economy. Named after Saint Paul, São Paulo has the largest population, industrial complex, and economic production in the country. It is the richest state in Brazil...
: 70.38% - 5) Rio de JaneiroRio de Janeiro (state)Rio de Janeiro is one of the 27 states of Brazil.Rio de Janeiro has the second largest economy of Brazil behind only São Paulo state.The state of Rio de Janeiro is located within the Brazilian geopolitical region classified as the Southeast...
: 55.82% - 6) Mato Grosso do SulMato Grosso do SulMato Grosso do Sul is one of the states of Brazil.Neighboring Brazilian states are Mato Grosso, Goiás, Minas Gerais, São Paulo and Paraná. It also borders the countries of Paraguay and Bolivia to the west. The economy of the state is largely based on agriculture and cattle-raising...
: 51.64% - 7) Minas GeraisMinas GeraisMinas Gerais is one of the 26 states of Brazil, of which it is the second most populous, the third richest, and the fourth largest in area. Minas Gerais is the Brazilian state with the largest number of Presidents of Brazil, the current one, Dilma Rousseff, being one of them. The capital is the...
: 44.24% - 8) GoiásGoiásGoiás is a state of Brazil, located in the central part of the country. The name Goiás comes from the name of an indigenous community...
: 40.13%
The Brazilian states with the lowest percentages of Whites are located in the North
North Region, Brazil
The North Region of Brazil is the largest Region of Brazil, corresponding to 45.27% of the national territory. It is the least inhabited of the country, and contributes with a minor percentage in the national GDP and population...
, where there is a strong Amerindian
Indigenous peoples in Brazil
The Indigenous peoples in Brazil comprise a large number of distinct ethnic groups who inhabited the country prior to the European invasion around 1500...
influence to the population's racial composition, and in part of the Northeast
Northeast Region, Brazil
The Northeast Region of Brazil is composed of the following states: Maranhão, Piauí, Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Alagoas, Sergipe and Bahia, and it represents 18.26% of the Brazilian territory....
, notably in Bahia
Bahia
Bahia is one of the 26 states of Brazil, and is located in the northeastern part of the country on the Atlantic coast. It is the fourth most populous Brazilian state after São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro, and the fifth-largest in size...
and Maranhão
Maranhão
Maranhão is a northeastern state of Brazil. To the north lies the Atlantic Ocean. Maranhão is neighbored by the states of Piauí, Tocantins and Pará. The people of Maranhão have a distinctive accent...
, where African
Afro-Brazilian
In Brazil, the term "preto" is one of the five categories used by the Brazilian Census, along with "branco" , "pardo" , "amarelo" and "indígena"...
influence is stronger.
- 1) RoraimaRoraimaRoraima is the northernmost and least populated state of Brazil, located in the Amazon region. It borders the states of Amazonas and Pará, as well as the nations of Venezuela and Guyana. The population is 400,000 and the capital is Boa Vista...
: 22.13% White - 2) BahiaBahiaBahia is one of the 26 states of Brazil, and is located in the northeastern part of the country on the Atlantic coast. It is the fourth most populous Brazilian state after São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro, and the fifth-largest in size...
: 20.60% - 3) Amazonas: 22.39%
- 4) ParáParáPará is a state in the north of Brazil. It borders the Brazilian states of Amapá, Maranhão, Tocantins, Mato Grosso, Amazonas and Roraima. To the northwest it also borders Guyana and Suriname, and to the northeast it borders the Atlantic Ocean. The capital is Belém.Pará is the most populous state...
: 20.77% - 5) AmapáAmapáAmapá is one of the states of Brazil, located in the extreme north, bordering French Guiana and Suriname to the north. To the east is the Atlantic Ocean, and to the south and west is the Brazilian state of Pará. Perhaps one of the main features of the state is the River Oiapoque, as it was once...
: 17.64%
- Source: IBGEIBGEThe Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics or IBGE , is the agency responsible for statistical, geographic, cartographic, geodetic and environmental information in Brazil...
2000
- 1) São PauloSão Paulo (state)São Paulo is a state in Brazil. It is the major industrial and economic powerhouse of the Brazilian economy. Named after Saint Paul, São Paulo has the largest population, industrial complex, and economic production in the country. It is the richest state in Brazil...
: 29,945,000 Whites - 2) Minas GeraisMinas GeraisMinas Gerais is one of the 26 states of Brazil, of which it is the second most populous, the third richest, and the fourth largest in area. Minas Gerais is the Brazilian state with the largest number of Presidents of Brazil, the current one, Dilma Rousseff, being one of them. The capital is the...
: 9,019,164 - 3) Rio Grande do SulRio Grande do SulRio Grande do Sul is the southernmost state in Brazil, and the state with the fifth highest Human Development Index in the country. In this state is located the southernmost city in the country, Chuí, on the border with Uruguay. In the region of Bento Gonçalves and Caxias do Sul, the largest wine...
: 8,973,928 - 4) Rio de JaneiroRio de Janeiro (state)Rio de Janeiro is one of the 27 states of Brazil.Rio de Janeiro has the second largest economy of Brazil behind only São Paulo state.The state of Rio de Janeiro is located within the Brazilian geopolitical region classified as the Southeast...
: 8,513,778 - 5) ParanáParaná (state)Paraná is one of the states of Brazil, located in the South of the country, bordered on the north by São Paulo state, on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, on the south by Santa Catarina state and the Misiones Province of Argentina, and on the west by Mato Grosso do Sul and the republic of Paraguay,...
: 7,620,000 - 6) Santa CatarinaSanta Catarina (state)Santa Catarina is a state in southern Brazil with one of the highest standards of living in Latin America. Its capital is Florianópolis, which mostly lies on the Santa Catarina Island. Neighbouring states are Rio Grande do Sul to the south and Paraná to the north. It is bounded on the east by...
: 5,215,000 - 7) PernambucoPernambucoPernambuco is a state of Brazil, located in the Northeast region of the country. To the north are the states of Paraíba and Ceará, to the west is Piauí, to the south are Alagoas and Bahia, and to the east is the Atlantic Ocean. There are about of beaches, some of the most beautiful in the...
: 3,151,000 - 8) CearáCearáCeará is one of the 27 states of Brazil, located in the northeastern part of the country, on the Atlantic coast. It is currently the 8th largest Brazilian State by population and the 17th by area. It is also one of the main touristic destinations in Brazil. The state capital is the city of...
: 2,883,000 - 9) BahiaBahiaBahia is one of the 26 states of Brazil, and is located in the northeastern part of the country on the Atlantic coast. It is the fourth most populous Brazilian state after São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro, and the fifth-largest in size...
: 2,864,000
| Federative Units | White Population 1940(%)http://biblioteca.ibge.gov.br/visualizacao/monografias/GEBIS%20-%20RJ/CD1940/Censo%20Demografico%201940%20VII_Brasil.pdf | White Population 2009(%)http://www.ibge.gov.br/home/estatistica/populacao/condicaodevida/indicadoresminimos/sinteseindicsociais2010/SIS_2010.pdf |
|---|---|---|
| Santa Catarina | 94,4% | 85,7% |
| Rio Grande do Sul | 88,7% | 81,4% |
| Paraná | 86,6% | 71,3% |
| São Paulo | 84,9% | 64,4% |
| Goiás | 72,1% | 40,1% |
| Federal District(Rio de Janeiro City) | 71,1% | |
| Espírito Santo | 61,5% | 41,2% |
| Minas Gerais | 61,2% | 44,2% |
| Rio de Janeiro(State) | 59,8% | 55,8% |
| Alagoas | 56,7% | 26,8% |
| Pernambuco | 54,4% | 36,6% |
| Acre | 54,3% | 26,9% |
| Paraíba | 53,8% | 36,4% |
| Ceará | 52,6% | 31,0% |
| Mato Grosso | 50,8% | 38,9% |
| Maranhão | 46,8% | 23,9% |
| Sergipe | 46,7% | 28,8% |
| Piauí | 45,2% | 24,1% |
| Pará | 44,6% | 21,9% |
| Rio Grande do Norte | 43,5% | 36,3% |
| Amazonas | 31,2% | 20,9% |
| Bahia | 28,7% | 23,0% |
- Doesn´t include the states created after 1940.
By cities and towns
In a list of the 144 Brazilian towns with the highest percentages of White people, all the cities were located in two states: Rio Grande do SulRio Grande do Sul
Rio Grande do Sul is the southernmost state in Brazil, and the state with the fifth highest Human Development Index in the country. In this state is located the southernmost city in the country, Chuí, on the border with Uruguay. In the region of Bento Gonçalves and Caxias do Sul, the largest wine...
or Santa Catarina
Santa Catarina (state)
Santa Catarina is a state in southern Brazil with one of the highest standards of living in Latin America. Its capital is Florianópolis, which mostly lies on the Santa Catarina Island. Neighbouring states are Rio Grande do Sul to the south and Paraná to the north. It is bounded on the east by...
. All these towns are settled predominantly by Brazilians of German
German Brazilian
A German Brazilian is a Brazilian person of ethnic German ancestry or origin...
and Italian descent and are very small. It is important to note that, in the late 19th century, many German and Italian immigrants created small communities across Southern Brazil. These communities were settled, in many cases, exclusivily by European immigrants and their descendants.
The Brazilian towns with the largest percentages of Whites are:
- 1) MontauriMontauriMontauri is a municipality in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. As of 2008, it has a population of 1,615 people.Curiously, it is the only Brazilian town where the entire population reported to be White, according to the 2000 census...
(Rio Grande do Sul): 100% White (1,615 inhabitants) - 2) Leoberto LealLeoberto LealLeoberto Leal is a town and municipality in the state of Santa Catarina in the South region of Brazil.-References:...
(Santa Catarina): 99.82% (3,348 inhabitants) - 3) Pedras GrandesPedras GrandesPedras Grandes is a town and municipality in Brazilian State of Santa Catarina.-History:Pedras Grandes is a town of Italian immigration. In 1877, the first Italian immigrants arrived from Veneto. The town thrived on coal mining .The town was elevated to a municipality in 1961...
(Santa Catarina): 99.81% (4,849 inhabitants) - 4) CapitãoCapitãoCapitão is a municipality in the state Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.-See also:*List of municipalities in Rio Grande do Sul...
(Rio Grande do Sul): 99.77% (2,751 inhabitants) - 5) Santa Tereza (Rio Grande do Sul): 99.69% (1,604 inhabitants)
- 6) CunhataíCunhataíCunhataí is a town and municipality in the state of Santa Catarina in the South region of Brazil.-References:...
(Santa Catarina): 99.67% (1,740 inhabitants) - 7) São MartinhoSão Martinho-In Brazil:*São Martinho, Rio Grande do Sul*São Martinho, Santa Catarina, Santa Catarina-In Portugal:*São Martinho das Amoreiras*São Martinho do Porto*São Martinho , a parish in the municipality of Alcácer do Sal...
(Santa Catarina): 99.64% (3,221 inhabitants) - 8) GuabijuGuabiju-See also:*List of municipalities in Rio Grande do Sul...
(Rio Grande do Sul): 99.62% (1,775 inhabitants)
The Brazilian towns with the lowest percentages of Whites are located in Northern and Northeastern Brazil, and are also small.
- 1) Nossa Senhora das Dores (Sergipe): 0.71% White (23,817 inhabitants, 98.16% "pardos")
- 2) Santo Inácio do PiauíSanto Inácio do PiauíSanto Inácio do Piauí is a town and municipality in the state of Piauí in the Northeast region of Brazil.-References:...
(Piauí): 2.25% (3,523 inhabitants, 96.90% "pardos") - 3) UiramutãUiramutãUiramutã is a municipality located in the northeast of the state of Roraima in Brazil. Its population is 7,742 and its area is 8,066 km². It is the northernmost city in Brazil, with Monte Caburaí being the northernmost point...
(Roraima): 2.33% (6,430 inhabitants, 74.41% Amerindian) - 4) IpixunaIpixunaIpixuna is a municipality located in the Brazilian state of Amazonas. Its population was 17,258 and its area is 13,566 km²....
(Amazonas): 2.35% (17,258 inhabitants, 80.46% "pardos") - 5) CaapirangaCaapirangaCaapiranga is a municipality located in the Brazilian state of Amazonas. Its population was 9,996 and its area is 9,457 km²....
(Amazonas): 2.97% (9,996 inhabitants, 81.68% "pardos") - 6) Fonte BoaFonte BoaFonte Boa is a municipality located in the Brazilian state of Amazonas. Its population was 37,595 and its area is 12,111 km².The city is served by Fonte Boa Airport....
(Amazonas): 3.01% (37,595 inhabitants, 86.46% "pardos") - 7) Santa Isabel do Rio NegroSanta Isabel do Rio NegroSanta Isabel do Rio Negro is a municipality located in the Brazilian state of Amazonas. Its population was 7,617 and its area is . The Municipality was formerly called Tapuruquara....
(Amazonas): 3.15% (16,622 inhabitants, 59.62% "pardos", 34.75% Amerindian) - 8) Serrano do Maranhão (MaranhãoMaranhãoMaranhão is a northeastern state of Brazil. To the north lies the Atlantic Ocean. Maranhão is neighbored by the states of Piauí, Tocantins and Pará. The people of Maranhão have a distinctive accent...
): 3.30% (5,547 inhabitants, 69.08% "pardos", 24.97% Black)
Genetic research
The genes can reveal from what part of the world the oldest ancestors of the paternal and maternal line of a person came from. The mitochondrial DNAMitochondrial DNA
Mitochondrial DNA is the DNA located in organelles called mitochondria, structures within eukaryotic cells that convert the chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, adenosine triphosphate...
(mtDNA) is present in all human beings and passed down through the maternal line, i.e. the mother of a mother of a mother etc. The Y chromosome
Y chromosome
The Y chromosome is one of the two sex-determining chromosomes in most mammals, including humans. In mammals, it contains the gene SRY, which triggers testis development if present. The human Y chromosome is composed of about 60 million base pairs...
is present only in males and passed down through the paternal line, i.e., the father of a father of a father etc. The mitochondrial DNA
Mitochondrial DNA
Mitochondrial DNA is the DNA located in organelles called mitochondria, structures within eukaryotic cells that convert the chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, adenosine triphosphate...
and Y chromosome
Y chromosome
The Y chromosome is one of the two sex-determining chromosomes in most mammals, including humans. In mammals, it contains the gene SRY, which triggers testis development if present. The human Y chromosome is composed of about 60 million base pairs...
suffer only minor mutations through centuries, thus can be used to establish the paternal line in males (because only males have the Y chromosome) and the maternal line in both males and females.
According to a genetic study about Brazilians (based upon about 200 samples), on the paternal side, 98% of the White Brazilian Y Chromosome
Y chromosome
The Y chromosome is one of the two sex-determining chromosomes in most mammals, including humans. In mammals, it contains the gene SRY, which triggers testis development if present. The human Y chromosome is composed of about 60 million base pairs...
comes from a European male ancestor, only 2% from an African ancestor and there is a complete absence of Amerindian contributions. On the maternal side, 39% have European Mitochondrial DNA
Mitochondrial DNA
Mitochondrial DNA is the DNA located in organelles called mitochondria, structures within eukaryotic cells that convert the chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, adenosine triphosphate...
, 33% Amerindian and 28% African female ancestry. This, considering the facts that the slave trade was effectively suppressed in 1850, and that the Amerindian population had been reduced to small numbers even earlier, shows that at least 61% of White Brazilians had at least one ancestor living in Brazil before the beginning of the Great Immigration. This analysis, however, only shows a small fraction of a person's ancestry (the Y Chromosome comes from a single male ancestor and the mtDNA from a single female ancestor, while the contributions of the many other ancestors is not specified).
According to another genetic research (based upon about 200 samples again) over 75% of caucasians from North, Northeast and Southeast Brazil would have over 10% Sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa as a geographical term refers to the area of the African continent which lies south of the Sahara. A political definition of Sub-Saharan Africa, instead, covers all African countries which are fully or partially located south of the Sahara...
n genes, and that this would also be the case with Southern Brazil for 49% of the caucasian population. According to this study, in all United States 11% of Caucasians have over 10% African genes. Thus, 86% of Brazilians would have at least 10% of genes that came from Africa. The researchers however were cautious about its conclusions: "Obviously these estimates were made by extrapolation of experimental results with relatively small samples and, therefore, their confidence limits are very ample". A new autosomal study from 2011, also led by Sérgio Pena, but with nearly 1000 samples this time, from all over the country, shows that in most Brazilian regions most Brazilians "whites" are less than 10% African in ancestry, and it also shows that the "pardos" are predominantly European in ancestry, the European ancestry being therefore the main component in the Brazilian population, in spite of a very high degree of African ancestry and significant Native American contribution. Other autosomal studies (see some of them below) show a European predominance in the Brazilian population. Some researchers have found that the average European American type has approximately 10% to 12% non-White genetic material.
Another genetic research suggested that the White Brazilian population is not genetically homogenous, as its genomic ancestry varies in different regions. Samples of White males from Rio Grande do Sul
Rio Grande do Sul
Rio Grande do Sul is the southernmost state in Brazil, and the state with the fifth highest Human Development Index in the country. In this state is located the southernmost city in the country, Chuí, on the border with Uruguay. In the region of Bento Gonçalves and Caxias do Sul, the largest wine...
have showed significant differences between Whites of different localities of state. In a sample from the town of Veranópolis
Veranópolis
Veranópolis is a municipality in the state Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.Veranópolis, like most of its neighbouring towns, is known as one of the cities with highest standards of living in Brazil. The city is also known for being home to one of the largest gun exporters in Brazil, E.R...
, heavily settled by people of Italian descent, the results from the maternal and paternal sides showed almost complete European ancestry. On the other hand, a sample of Whites from several other regions of Rio Grande do Sul showed significant fractions of Native American (36%) and African (16%) mtDNA haplogroups.
Another study (based on blood polymorphisms, from 1981) carried out in one thousand individuals from Porto Alegre
Porto Alegre
Porto Alegre is the tenth most populous municipality in Brazil, with 1,409,939 inhabitants, and the centre of Brazil's fourth largest metropolitan area . It is also the capital city of the southernmost Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. The city is the southernmost capital city of a Brazilian...
city, Southern Brazil, and 760 from Natal
Natal, Rio Grande do Norte
-History:The northeastern tip of South America, Cabo São Roque, to the north of Natal and the closest point to Europe from Latin America, was first visited by European navigators in 1501, in the 1501–1502 Portuguese expedition led by Amerigo Vespucci, who named the spot after the saint of the day...
city, Northeastern Brazil, found whites of Porto Alegre had 8% of African alleles and in Natal the ancestry of the samples total was characterized as 58% White, 25% Black, and 17% Amerindian". This study found that persons identified as White or Pardo in Natal have similar ancestries, a dominant European ancestry, while persons identified as White in Porto Alegre have an overwhelming majority of European ancestry.
According to an autosomal DNA genetic study from 2011, both "whites" and "pardos" from Fortaleza
Fortaleza
Fortaleza is the state capital of Ceará, located in Northeastern Brazil. With a population close to 2.5 million , Fortaleza is the 5th largest city in Brazil. It has an area of and one of the highest demographic densities in the country...
have a predominantly degree of European ancestry (>70%), with minor but important African and Native American contributions. "Whites" and "pardos" from Belém
Belém
Belém is a Brazilian city, the capital and largest city of state of Pará, in the country's north region. It is the entrance gate to the Amazon with a busy port, airport and bus/coach station...
and Ilhéus
Ilhéus
Ilhéus is a major city located in the southern coastal region of Bahia, Brazil, 430 km south of Salvador, the state's capital. The city was originally founded in 1534 as Vila de São Jorge dos Ilhéus and is known as one of the most important tourism centers of the northeast of Brazil.The...
also were found to be pred. European in ancestry, with minor Native American and African contributions.
| Genomic ancestry of individuals in Porto Alegre Porto Alegre Porto Alegre is the tenth most populous municipality in Brazil, with 1,409,939 inhabitants, and the centre of Brazil's fourth largest metropolitan area . It is also the capital city of the southernmost Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. The city is the southernmost capital city of a Brazilian... Sérgio Pena et al. 2011 . |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| colour | amerindian | African | European | |
| white | 9.3% | 5.3% | 85.5% | |
| pardo | 11.4% | 44.4% | 44.2% | |
| black | 11% | 45.9% | 43.1% | |
| total | 9.6% | 12.7% | 77.7% | |
| Genomic ancestry of individuals in Fortaleza Fortaleza Fortaleza is the state capital of Ceará, located in Northeastern Brazil. With a population close to 2.5 million , Fortaleza is the 5th largest city in Brazil. It has an area of and one of the highest demographic densities in the country... Sérgio Pena et al. 2011 . |
||||
| colour | amerindian | African | European | |
| white | 10.9% | 13.3% | 75.8% | |
| pardo | 12.8% | 14.4% | 72.8% | |
| black | N.S. | N.S. | N.S | |
| Genomic ancestry of non-related individuals in Rio de Janeiro Sérgio Pena et al. 2009 | ||||
| Cor | Number of individuals | Amerindian | African | European |
| White | 107 | 6.7% | 6.9% | 86.4% |
| "parda" | 119 | 8.3% | 23.6% | 68.1% |
| "preta" | 109 | 7.3% | 50.9% | 41.8% |
According to another study, autosomal DNA study (see table), those who identified as Whites in Rio de Janeiro turned out to have 86.4% - and self identified pardos 68.1% - European ancestry on average. Blacks were found out to have on average 41.8% European ancestry.
According to another study (from 1965, and based on blood groups and electrophoretic markers) carried out on whites of Northeastern Brazilian origin living in São Paulo the ancestries would be 70% European, 18% African and 12% Amerindian admixture.
Another study (autosomal DNA study, from 2010) found out that European ancestry predominates in the Brazilian population as a whole ("whites", "pardos" and "blacks" altogether). European ancestry is dominant throughout Brazil at nearly 80%, except for the Southern part of Brazil, where the European heritage reaches 90%. "A new portrayal of each ethnicity contribution to the DNA of Brazilians, obtained with samples from the five regions of the country, has indicated that, on average, European ancestors are responsible for nearly 80% of the genetic heritage of the population. The variation between the regions is small, with the possible exception of the South, where the European contribution reaches nearly 90%. The results, published by the scientific magazine 'American Journal of Human Biology' by a team of the Catholic University of Brasília, show that, in Brazil, physical indicators such as skin colour, colour of the eyes and colour of the hair have little to do with the genetic ancestry of each person, which has been shown in previous studies"(regardless of census classification)."Ancestry informative SNPs can be useful to estimate individual and population biogeographical ancestry. Brazilian population is characterized by a genetic background of three parental populations (European, African, and Brazilian Native Amerindians) with a wide degree and diverse patterns of admixture. In this work we analyzed the information content of 28 ancestry-informative SNPs into multiplexed panels using three parental population sources (African, Amerindian, and European) to infer the genetic admixture in an urban sample of the five Brazilian geopolitical regions. The SNPs assigned apart the parental populations from each other and thus can be applied for ancestry estimation in a three hybrid admixed population. Data was used to infer genetic ancestry in Brazilians with an admixture model. Pairwise estimates of F(st) among the five Brazilian geopolitical regions suggested little genetic differentiation only between the South and the remaining regions. Estimates of ancestry results are consistent with the heterogeneous genetic profile of Brazilian population, with a major contribution of European ancestry (0.771) followed by African (0.143) and Amerindian contributions (0.085). The described multiplexed SNP panels can be useful tool for bioanthropological studies but it can be mainly valuable to control for spurious results in genetic association studies in admixed populations."
It is important to note that "the samples came from free of charge paternity test takers, thus as the researchers made it explicit: "the paternity tests were free of charge, the population samples involved people of variable socioeconomic strata, although likely to be leaning slightly
towards the ‘‘pardo’’ group". According to it the total European, African and Native American contributions to the Brazilian population are:
| Region | European | African | Native American |
|---|---|---|---|
| North Region North Region, Brazil The North Region of Brazil is the largest Region of Brazil, corresponding to 45.27% of the national territory. It is the least inhabited of the country, and contributes with a minor percentage in the national GDP and population... |
71,10% | 18,20% | 10,70% |
| Northeast Region Northeast Region, Brazil The Northeast Region of Brazil is composed of the following states: Maranhão, Piauí, Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Alagoas, Sergipe and Bahia, and it represents 18.26% of the Brazilian territory.... |
77,40% | 13,60% | 8,90% |
| Central-West Region | 65,90% | 18,70% | 11,80% |
| Southeast Region Southeast Region, Brazil The Southeast Region of Brazil is composed by the states of Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. It is the richest region of the country, responsible for approximately 60% of the Brazilian GDP. São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais are three richest states of Brazil,... |
79,90% | 14,10% | 6,10% |
| South Region | 87,70% | 7,70% | 5,20% |
In support of the dominant European heritage of Brazil, according to another autosomal DNA study (from 2009) conducted on a school in the poor periphery of Rio de Janeiro the "pardos" there were found to be on average over 80% European, and the "whites" (who thought of themselves as "very mixed") were found out to carry very little Amerindian or African admixtures. "The results of the tests of genomic ancestry are quite different from the self made estimates of European ancestry", say the researchers. In general, the test results showed that European ancestry is far more important than the students thought it would be. The "pardos" for example thought of themselves as 1/3 European, 1/3 African and 1/3 Amerindian before the tests, and yet their ancestry was determined to be at over 80% European. The "blacks" (pretos) of the periphery of Rio de Janeiro, according to this study, thought of themselves as predominantly African before the study and yet they turned out predominantly European (at 52%), the African contribution at 41% and the Native American 7%.
According to another autosomal DNA study from 2009, the Brazilian population, in all regions of the country, was also found out to be predominantly European: "all the Brazilian samples (regions) lie more closely to the European group than to the African populations or to the Mestizos from Mexico". According to it the total European, African and Native American contributions to the Brazilian population are:
| Region | European | African | Native American |
|---|---|---|---|
| North Region North Region, Brazil The North Region of Brazil is the largest Region of Brazil, corresponding to 45.27% of the national territory. It is the least inhabited of the country, and contributes with a minor percentage in the national GDP and population... |
60,6% | 21,3% | 18,1% |
| Northeast Region Northeast Region, Brazil The Northeast Region of Brazil is composed of the following states: Maranhão, Piauí, Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Alagoas, Sergipe and Bahia, and it represents 18.26% of the Brazilian territory.... |
66,7% | 23,3% | 10,0% |
| Central-West Region | 66,3% | 21,7% | 12,0% |
| Southeast Region Southeast Region, Brazil The Southeast Region of Brazil is composed by the states of Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. It is the richest region of the country, responsible for approximately 60% of the Brazilian GDP. São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais are three richest states of Brazil,... |
60,7% | 32,0% | 7,3% |
| South Region | 81,5% | 9,3% | 9,2% |
According to another autosomal study from 2008, by the University of Brasília (UnB), European ancestry dominates in the whole of Brazil (in all regions), accounting for 65,90% of heritage of the population, followed by the African contribution (24,80%) and the Native American (9,3%).
An autosomal study from 2011 (with nearly almost 1000 samples from all over the country, "whites", "pardos" and "blacks" included) has also concluded that European ancestry is the predominant ancestry in Brazil, accounting for nearly 70% of the ancestry of the population: "In all regions studied, the European ancestry was predominant, with proportions ranging from 60.6% in the Northeast to 77.7% in the South". The 2011 autosomal study samples came from blood donors (the lowest classes constitute the great majority of blood donors in Brazil ), and also public health institutions personnel and health students. In all Brazilian regions European, African and Amerindian genetic markers are found in the local populations, even though the proportion of each varies from region to region and from individual to individual. However most regions showed basically the same structure, a greater European contribution to the population, followed by African and Native American contributions: “Some people had the vision Brazil was a heterogeneous mosaic [...] Our study proves Brazil is a lot more integrated than some expected". Brazilian homogeneity is, therefore, greater within regions than between them:
| Region | European | African | Native American |
|---|---|---|---|
| Northern Brazil | 68,80% | 10,50% | 18,50% |
| Northeast of Brazil | 60,10% | 29,30% | 8,90% |
| Southeast Brazil | 74,20% | 17,30% | 7,30% |
| Southern Brazil | 79,50% | 10,30% | 9,40% |
According to an autosomal DNA study (from 2003) focused on the composition of the Brazilian population as a whole, "European contribution [...] is highest in the South (81% to 82%), and lowest in the North (68% to 71%). The African component is lowest in the South (11%), while the highest values are found in the Southeast (18%-20%). Extreme values for the Amerindian fraction were found in the South and Southeast (7%-8%) and North (17%-18%)". The researchers were cautious with the results as their samples came from paternity test takers which may have skewed the results partly.
Several other older studies have suggested that European ancestry is the main component in all Brazilian regions. A study from 1965, Methods of Analysis of a Hybrid Population (Human Biology, vol 37, number 1), led by the geneticists D. F. Roberts e R. W. Hiorns, found out the average the Northeastern Brazilian to be predominantly European in ancestry (65%), with minor but important African and Native American contributions (25% and 9%). A study from 2002 quoted previous and older studies (28. Salzano F M. Interciêência. 1997;22:221––227. 29. Santos S E B, Guerreiro J F. Braz J Genet. 1995;18:311––315. 30. Dornelles C L, Callegari-Jacques S M, Robinson W M, Weimer T A, Franco M H L P, Hickmann A C, Geiger C J, Salzamo F M. Genet Mol Biol. 1999;22:151––161. 31. Krieger H, Morton N E, Mi M P, Azevedo E, Freire-Maia A, Yasuda N. Ann Hum Genet. 1965;29:113––125. [PubMed]), saying that: "Salzano (28, a study from 1997) calculated for the Northeastern population as a whole, 51% European, 36% African, and 13% Amerindian ancestries whereas in the north, Santos and Guerreiro (29, a study from 1995) obtained 47% European, 12% African, and 41% Amerindian descent, and in the southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul, Dornelles et al. (30, a study from 1999) calculated 82% European, 7% African, and 11% Amerindian ancestries. Krieger et al. (31, a study from 1965) studied a population of Brazilian northeastern origin living in São Paulo with blood groups and electrophoretic markers and showed that whites presented 18% of African and 12% of Amerindian genetic contribution and that blacks presented 28% of European and 5% of Amerindian genetic contribution (31). Of course, all of these Amerindian admixture estimates are subject to the caveat mentioned in the previous paragraph. At any rate, compared with these previous studies, our estimates showed higher levels of bidirectional admixture between Africans and non-Africans."
See also
- Immigration to BrazilImmigration to BrazilImmigration to Brazil is the movement to Brazil of foreign persons to reside permanently. It should not be confused with the colonisation of the country by the Portuguese, or with the forcible bringing of people from Africa as slaves....
- White Latin AmericanWhite Latin AmericanWhite Latin Americans are the people of Latin America who are white in the racial classification systems used in individual Latin American countries. Persons who are classified as White in one Latin American country may be classified differently in another country...
s - Argentines of European descentArgentines of European descentArgentine people of European descent belongs to several communities that has migrated to Argentina from Europe, contributing to the country's cultural and demographic variety...
- White CubanCubansCubans or Cuban people are the inhabitants or citizens of Cuba. Cuba is a multi-ethnic nation, home to people of different ethnic and national backgrounds...
- White MexicanWhite MexicanMexicans of European descent, often called "güeros" or blancos in Mexican Spanish, are generally those of light skin and predominantly European features which are most often associated with Mexico's upper and middle socioeconomic classes...