Mixed-race Brazilian

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Brazil does not have a category for multiracial people, but a Pardo (brown) one, which may include people of mixed European, African and Amerindian ancestry. According to the 2006 census, the Pardos make up 42.6% or 79.782 million people of Brazil's population.^[1]

According to some DNA resources, most Brazilians possess some degree of a mixed-race ancestry, though less than half of the country's population classified themselves as Pardo (which means brown and is understood by some as mixed-race) in the census.^[2]

[edit] History

Before the arrival of the Portuguese in 1500, Brazil was inhabited by nearly five million Amerindians.^[3]The European immigration to Brazil started in the sixteenth century, with the vast majority of them coming from Portugal. In the first two centuries of colonization, 100,000 Portuguese arrived in Brazil (around 500 colonists per year). In the eighteenth century, 600,000 Portuguese arrived (6,000 per year).^[4] Another important ethnic group, Africans, broght as slaves, started arriving in 1550. Many came from Guinea, or from West African countries - by the end of the eighteenth century many had been taken from Congo, Angola and Mozambique (or, in Bahia, from Nigeria). By the time of the end of the slave trade in 1850, around 3.5 million slaves had been brought to Brazil–37% of all slave traffic between Africa and the Americas.^[5]The largest influx of European immigrants to Brazil occurred in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. According to the Memorial do Imigrante statistics data, Brazil attracted nearly 5 million immigrants between 1870 and 1953.^[6][7]Most of the immigrants were Italians and Portuguese, but also significant numbers of Germans, Spaniards, Japanese and Syrian-Lebanese.^[8]

The Portuguese settlers were the ones to start the intensive race-mixing process in Brazil. The miscegenation in Brazil, according to many Historians, was not a pacific process as some used to believe: it was a domination form found from the Portuguese against the Native Brazilian and African populations.^[9]

The White Portuguese population in Brazil never outnumbered the non-White one. The numbers of Indigenous peoples and African slaves were much higher during Colonial Brazil. However, in the 19th century, there were more Brazilians of mixed Portuguese descent than those of pure African or Indian descent.^[10]

Debret: a Guaraní family captured by slave hunters in Brazil.

[edit] White/Amerindian

The first colonists from Portugal who arrived in Brazil were singles or did not bring their wives. For that reason the first interracial marriages in Brazil occurred between Portuguese males and Amerindian females.^[11]

In Brazil, people of White/Indian ancestry are Historically known as caboclos or mamelucos. They predominated in many regions of Brazil. One example are the Bandeirantes (Brazilian colonial scouts who took part in the Bandeiras, exploration expeditions) who operated out of São Paulo, home base for the most famous bandeirantes.

Indians, mostly free men and mamelucos, predominated in the society of São Paulo in the 16th and early 17th centuries and outnumbered Europeans. The influential families generally bore some Indian blood and provided most of the leaders of the bandeiras, with a few notable exceptions such as Antonio Raposo Tavares (1598 - 1658), who was European born.

Genetic studies found more Amerindian admixture in White Brazilians than African one.^[12]

[edit] White/Black

A Brazilian family of the 19th century.

According to some Historians, Portuguese settlers in Brazil used to prefer to marry Portuguese-born females. If not possible, the second option were Brazilian-born females of recent Portuguese background. The third option were Brazilian-born women of distant Lusitanic ancestry. However, the number of White females in Brazil was very low during the Colonial period, causing a large number of interracial relationships in the country.^[13]

White/Black relationships in Brazil started as early as the first Africans were brought as slaves in 1550. The Mulattoes (people of White/Black ancestry) were also enslaved, though some children of rich aristocrats and owners of gold mines were educated and became important people in Colonial Brazil. Probably, the most famous case was Chica da Silva, a mixed-race Brazilian slave who got married to a rich gold mine owner and became one of the richest persons in Brazil.^[14]

Other mulattoes largely contributed to Brazil's culture: Aleijadinho (sculptor and architect), Machado de Assis (writer), Lima Barreto (writer), Chiquinha Gonzaga (composer), etc.

In 1835, Blacks made up the majority of Brazil's population. In 1872, their numbers was largely decreased, outnumbered by Mulattoes and Whites.

According to genetic studies, 86% of Brazilians have, at least, 10% of Black African genes.^[16]

[edit] Black/Amerindian

People of Black African and Native Brazilian ancestry are known as Cafuzos and are Historically the less numerous group, though they were essential to the tri-racial composition of Brazilians.

[edit] Japanese/non-Japanese

A more recent phenomenon in Brazil are intermarriages between Japanese Brazilians and non-Japanese. Though people of Japanese descent make up only 0.7% of the country's population, they are the largest Japanese community outside of Japan, with over 1.5 million people. In the areas with large numbers of Japanese, such as São Paulo and Paraná, since the 1970s large numbers of Japanese-descendants started marrying people of other ethnic groups. Although interracial relationships are not well accepted in Japan, they are accepted and often celebrated in Brazil's multicultural society.

Nowadays, among the 1.5 million Brazilians of Japanese descent, 40% have some non-Japanese ancestry. The number reaches only 6% among the children of Japanese immigrants, but 61% among the great-grandchildren of Japanese immigrants.

[edit] The Pardo group

In Brazil, pardo is the formal racial classification of brown people, as used by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) in censuses since 1950. It is a broad classification that encompasses people of mixed race, mulattos, and assimilated indigenous people (caboclos).

[edit] Famous mixed-race Brazilians

Model Juliana Imai: Japanese and Portuguese ancestry.	Soccer player Ronaldo: Black and White ancestry.	Writer Machado de Assis: African and Portuguese ancestry.	Actress Giselle Etiè: Native Mexican and French ancestry.
Composer Chiquinha Gonzaga: Portuguese and African ancestry.	Actress Juliana Paes: African and Amerindian ancestry.

[edit] References

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