Since its founding in 1500 by Portuguese colonists, Brazil, the largest country in South America with over 184 million people, has had a strong immigrant presence. The composition of the population has been greatly influenced by distinct waves of immigrants at different moments in history. Much of this immigration, in turn, has been tied to economic factors.

Over time, Brazil's governments have encouraged migration flows to fill its vast territory and boost agricultural production. The first wave, coordinated by Portugal, brought Portuguese migrants and slaves from Africa.

Colonialism

The Portuguese "discovery" of Brazil was preceded by a series of treaties between the kings of Portugal and Castile, following Portuguese sailings down the coast of Africa to India and the voyages to the Caribbean of the Genoese mariner sailing for Castile, Christopher Columbus. The most decisive of these treaties was the Treaty of Tordesillas, signed in 1494, which created the Tordesillas Meridian, dividing the world between the two kingdoms. All land discovered or to be discovered east of that meridian was to be the property of Portugal, and everything to the west of it went to Spain.

The Tordesillas Meridian divided South America into two parts, leaving a large chunk of land to be exploited by the Spaniards. The Treaty of Tordesillas was arguably the most decisive event in all Brazilian history, since it determined that part of South America would be settled by Portugal instead of Spain.

Portugal pioneered the European charting of sea routes that were the first and only channels of interaction between all of the world's continents, thus beginning the process of globalization. In addition to the imperial and economic undertaking of discovery and colonization of lands distant from Europe, these years were filled with pronounced advancements in cartography, shipbuilding and navigational instruments, of which the Portuguese explorers took advantage. Portuguese seafarers in the early fifteenth century, as an extension of the Portuguese Reconquista, began to expand from a small area of the Iberian Peninsula, to seizing the Muslim fortress of Ceuta in North Africa. Its maritime exploration then proceeded down the coast of West Africa and across the Indian Ocean to the south Asian subcontinent, as well as the Atlantic islands off the coast of Africa on the way. They sought sources of gold, ivory, and African slaves, high value goods in the African trade.

The Portuguese colonizationof islands off of West Africa such as São Tomé and Príncipe, were the first examples of the Portuguese monarchy beginning to move from a crusading and looting-centric attitude, to a trade-centric attitude when approaching new lands. The latter attitude required communication and cooperation with indigenous people, thus, interpreters.

Although long inhabited by prehistoric tribes and settlements, Brazil underwent an entirely new kind of habitation during the 16th century. In April 1500, the Portuguese arrived on the Bahian shores of Rio Buranhém, under the direction of Pedro Alvares Cabral. These ones documented seeing indigenous inhabitants upon landing on the beach, who greeted them with peace offerings of headdresses made from parrot feathers.

The Portuguese sailors stayed for nine days during which the indigenous people soon became fascinated by the iron tools used, and the Catholic mass service observance and the alcoholic beverages that they observed. Because of this perceived interest in the Roman Catholic religion, the Portuguese assumed that these ones would quickly convert to Christianity once educated.

Cabral left two degredados (criminal exiles) in Brazil to learn the native languages and to serve as interpreters in the future. The practice of leaving degredados in new lands to serve as interpreters in the future came straight from the colonization of the islands off of the West African coast. These men, otherwise bound for execution, were then given the opportunity to learn the local language and live with the indigenous people, procreating with them and introducing the Portuguese culture to the gene pool. In this early stage of the colonization of Brazil, and also later, the Portuguese frequently relied on the help of Europeans who lived together with the indigenous people and knew their languages and culture.

The brazilwood tree, which gives Brazil its name, has dark, valuable wood and provides a rich red dye. In Europe, this wood was used to produce a valuable dye to give color to luxury textiles and clothing. To extract brazilwood from the tropical rainforest, the Portuguese and other Europeans relied on the work of the natives, who initially worked in exchange for European goods like mirrors, scissors, knives and axes.

During Portugal's early rule, immigration to Brazil (from countries other than Portugal) was prohibited because the Portuguese wanted to prevent other European countries from establishing claims to territory. Because Brazil was not home to complex civilizations like the Aztec and the Inca in Mexico and Peru, the Portuguese could not place themselves on an established social structure. This, coupled with the fact that tangible material wealth was not found until the 18th century, made the relationship between the Portuguese and the Brazilian colony very different from the relationship of the Spanish to their land in the Americas. For example, the Brazilian colony was at first thought of as a commercial asset that would facilitate trade between the Portuguese and India and not a place to be settled to develop a society. The social model of conquest in Brazil was one geared toward commerce and entrepreneurial ideals rather than conquest as was the case in the Spanish realm. As time progressed, the Portuguese crown found that having the colony serve as a trading post was not ideal for regulating land claims in the Americas, so they decided that the best way to keep control of their land was to settle it.

Slave labor demands varied based on region and on the type of harvest crop. In the Bahia region, where sugar was the principle crop, conditions for enslaved peoples were extremely harsh. It was often cheaper for slaveowners to literally work enslaved peoples to death over the course of a few years and replace them with newly imported enslaved people.

The Portuguese attempted to severely restrict colonial trade, meaning that Brazil was only allowed to export and import goods from Portugal and other Portuguese colonies. Brazil exported sugar, tobacco, cotton and native products and imported from Portugal wine, olive oil, textiles and luxury goods – the latter imported by Portugal from other European countries. Africa played an essential role as the supplier of slaves, and Brazilian slave traders in Africa frequently exchanged cachaça, a distilled spirit derived from sugarcane, and shells, for slaves. This comprised what is now known as the Triangular trade between Europe, Africa and the Americas during the colonial period.

People of Brazil

Initially, the Portuguese relied on Amerindian slaves to work on sugarcane harvesting and processing, but they soon began importing black African slaves though the enslavement of indigenous people continued. Portugal owned several commercial facilities in Western Africa, where slaves were bought from African merchants. Enslaved Africans were more desirable and practical because many came from sedentary, agriculture-based societies and did not require as much training in how to farm as did members of Amerindian societies, which tended to not be primarily agricultural. Africans were also less vulnerable to disease than were Amerindians. The fact that Africans had been removed from their homelands made it more difficult for them to flee. The idea of using enslaved Africans in colonial farms based on monoculture was also adopted by other European colonial powers when colonizing tropical regions of America (Spain in Cuba, France in Haiti, the Netherlands in the Dutch Antilles and England in Jamaica).

When white fugitives fleeing tax collectors, military enlistment, and the law entered the backlands of Atlantic Forest, they formed racially-mixed settlements that became sites of "cultural and genetic exchange".

Portuguese Settlers: (Lusitanians, Azoreans, Madeirans)

During the 17th century, most Portuguese settlers in Brazil, who throughout the entire colonial period tended to originate from Northern Portugal, moved to the northeastern part of the country to establish the first sugar plantations. Some of the new arrivals were New Christians, that is, descendants of Portuguese Jews who had been induced to convert to Catholicism and remained in Portugal, yet were often targeted by the Inquisition under the accusation of being crypto-Jews.

The Portuguese migration was strongly marked by the predominance of men (colonial reports from the 16th and 17th centuries almost always report the absence or rarity of Portuguese women). This lack of women worried the Jesuits, who asked the Portuguese King to send any kind of Portuguese woman to Brazil, even the socially undesirable (e.g. prostitutes or women with mental maladies such as Down Syndrome) if necessary. The Crown responded by sending groups of Iberian orphan maidens to marry both cohorts of marriageable men, the nobles and the peasants. Some of which were even primarily studying to be nuns.

The Crown also shipped over many Órfãs d'El-Rei of what was considered "good birth" to colonial Brazil to marry Portuguese settlers of high rank. Órfãs d'El-Rei (modern Portuguese órfãs do rei) literally translates to "Orphans of the King", and they were Portuguese female orphans in nubile age. There were noble and non-noble maidens and they were daughters of military compatriots who died in battle for the king or noblemen who died overseas and whose upbringing was paid by the Crown.

The lack of European women facilitated assimilation and acculturation with the Indians. The multiplication of descendants of Portuguese settlers also happened to a large degree through miscegenation with black and Amerindian women. In fact, in colonial Brazil the Portuguese men competed for the women, because among the African slaves the female component was also a small minority.

This explained why the Portuguese men left more descendants in Brazil than the Amerindian or African men did. The Indian and African women were "dominated" by the Portuguese men, preventing men of color to find partners with whom they could have children. Added to this, White people had a much better quality of life and therefore a lower mortality rate than the black and indigenous population.

Degredados

Degredados played an important role in the era of Portuguese discoveries and were of outsized importance in the establishment of Portuguese colonies overseas, particularly in Africa and Brazil.

While most Portuguese (and predominantly male) settlers came willingly, some were forced exiles or degredados. The term degredado (etymologically, a 'decreed one', from Latin decretum) is a traditional Portuguese legal term used to refer to anyone who was subject to legal restrictions on their movement, speech or labor. Exile is only one of several forms of legal impairment. But with the development of the Portuguese penal transportation system, the term degredado became synonymous with convict exiles, and exile itself referred to as degredo.

Such convicts were sentenced for a variety of crimes, which included common theft, attempted murder and adultery. Most degredados were common criminals, although many were political or religious prisoners (e.g. 'backsliding' New Christians), who had been sentenced to be exiled from the Kingdom of Portugal. The sentence was not always direct - many had been given long sentences of imprisonment (sometimes death), but took the option to have their sentences commuted to a shorter period of exile overseas, in service of the crown.

Eventually, most degredados would be dropped off at a colony or abandoned on an unfamiliar shore, where they would remain for the duration of their sentence. Many were given specific instructions on behalf of the crown, and if they fulfilled them well, might earn them commutation or pardon. Common instructions included helping establish staging posts and warehouses, serving as laborers in a new colony, or garrisoning a fledgling fort. Degradados abandoned on unfamiliar shores (known as lançados, 'the launched ones') were often instructed to conduct exploratory work inland, searching for rumored cities, making contact with unknown peoples.

While many degredados performed well enough to have their sentences reduced or pardoned as a reward, probably as many just ignored the terms of their exile. Some jumped ship along the way, usually at a relatively safe port, rather than allowing themselves to be dropped off at some distant and dangerous shore. Others sneaked onto ships returning to Portugal (or some other European country) at their first chance. Some went off and formed 'outlaw' degredado colonies, away from the supervisory eye of crown officials. Others 'went native', building up a new life of their own among the local inhabitants, obliterating their past altogether.

In the early years of Portuguese discoveries and empire-building in the 15th and 16th centuries, outbound ships usually carried a small number of degredados, to assist in tasks deemed too hazardous or onerous for ordinary crewmen; e.g. upon reaching an unfamiliar shore, a degredado or two were usually landed first to test if the native inhabitants were hostile. After opening contact was made, degredados were often assigned to spend the nights in the native town or village (while the rest of the crew slept aboard ships), to build up trust and collect information. If relations turned hostile, it was degredados who were charged with the dangerous job of carrying negotiating terms between the ships and local rulers.

The overwhelming majority of these men were single, were married and widowers. Most were thieves, trouble-makers or vagrants; the remainder were volunteers or listed as in the infantry or artillery. When not enlisted in the military, the other overriding function of convicts was as settlers in a colony. Their professions are given for less than half the group but when stated are modest: carpenters, millers, street sweepers, herb sellers, cobblers, apprentice sailors, servants and the occasional soldier.

Since female convicts in early modern times were few. Women were normally sent to internal exile for minor crimes and to Brazil for serious or unpardonable crimes.

Jesuits

Jesuit priests arrived in Brazil as clerical assistants to the colonists, with the intention of converting the indigenous people to Catholicism. They presented arguments in support of the notion that the indigenous people should be considered human, and extracted a Papal bull (Sublimis Deus) proclaiming that, irrespective of their beliefs, they should be considered fully rational human beings, with rights to freedom and private property, who must not be enslaved.

Europeanization was overcome by a sort of Brazilianization, as the Jesuits blended Indian songs, dances, and language into the liturgy and as the colonists adopted native foods, women, language, and customs. Jesuits also began to establish more remote villages populated only by "civilized" Indians, called Missions, or reductions. Jesuit missionaries, determined men who marched inland in search of Indian souls to "save," and the infamous bandeirantes (flag bearers), tough men who marched inland in search of Indians to enslave. (Later they hunted escaped Indian and African slaves.) Because of a complex diplomatic web between Portugal, Spain and the Vatican, the Jesuits were expelled from Brazil and the missions confiscated and sold.

Conversion was essential because Portugal's legal claims to Brazil were based on papal bulls requiring Christianization of the Indians. However, those who resisted conversion were likened to Muslims and could be enslaved. In fact, as historian Sergio Buarque de Holanda showed, by identifying Brazil as a destination of the wandering Apostle St. Thomas the Portuguese settlers were able to argue that all natives had their chance to convert and had rejected it, so they could be conquered and taken captive legitimately. Thus, a distinction was made between peaceful, pliable natives who as wards deserved crown protection and those resisters who wanted to keep their independence and on whom "just war" could be made and slavery imposed.

Bandeirantes

The expeditions to inland Brazil are divided into two types: the entradas and the bandeiras. The entradas were done in the name of the Portuguese crown and were financed by the colonial government. Its main objective was to find mineral riches, as well as to explore and chart unknown territory. The bandeiras, on the other hand, were private initiatives sponsored and carried out mostly by settlers of the São Paulo region (the Paulistas). The expeditions of the bandeirantes, as these adventurers were called, were aimed at obtaining native slaves for trade and finding mineral riches. Banderia expeditions often consisted of a field officer, his slaves, a chaplain, a scribe, a mapmaker, white colonists, livestock, and medical professionals, among others. The Paulistas, who at the time were mostly of mixed Portuguese and native ancestry, knew all the old indigenous pathways (the peabirus) through the Brazilian inland and were acclimated to the harsh conditions of these journeys.

Viceroys

Credit: Ancient American Explorer Magazine

The viceroy was the highest royal official in Brazil, usually military men of noble birth. The viceroys represented the king and embodied royal authority. Called the "shadows of the King," they were similar to but not as powerful as the Spanish American viceroys. They were royal commissioners who enforced the king's justice in his domain in colonial Brazil. They dispensed royal justice, collected taxes, founded towns, oversaw the work of the church, and appointed judges. Under close local and royal scrutiny, the viceroys were subject to an inspection at the end of their term (residencia). As chiefs of state and official royal representatives, the viceroys tried to keep Brazil unified and loyal to the crown while defending the domain from foreign interlopers.

The Indigenous People

Brazil's first colonizers were met by Tupinamba Indians, one group in the vast array of the continent's native population. Lisbon's early goals were simple: monopolize the lucrative trade of pau-brasil, the red wood (valued for making dye) that gave the colony its name, and establish permanent settlements. There's evidence that the Indians and Portuguese initially worked together to harvest trees. Later, the need to head farther inland to find forested areas made the pau-brasil trade less desirable. The interest in establishing plantations on cleared lands increased and so did the need for laborers. The Portuguese tried to enslave Indians, but, unaccustomed to toiling long hours in fields.

The ‘Indians’ fled to the interior parts of Brazils to escape the colonial elements. So, the European settlers imported slaves from Africa. It is largely due to this mass introduction of African men and women that Brazil boasts a culture and heritage based very much on those found in Africa.

As the groups began to intermingle, so did the cultures and genes. Colonists adopted as much of the Brazilian culture as the indigenous ones did the European culture. Smallpox, measles and the flu struck the local people, annihilating huge proportions of their population numbers. This was followed by a famine. The locals were desperate for food and any sort of income, which led them to sell themselves as slaves, rather than to die of starvation.

The tropical forest peoples of Brazil adapted superbly to their environment prior to European contact, although they did not develop empires such as those of the Andes and Mesoamerica. They built dugout canoes and sailing rafts called jangadas (still used along the northeastern coast), slept in hammocks (which many people in Amazonia now use instead of beds), produced pottery and works of art, and cultivated tropical crops, corn (maize), and cassava.

Tupi-Guaranis

The Brasílica language was officially designated as the spoken lingua franca of Portuguese America. The Tupian, or Tupí-Guaraní, language group has especially influenced Brazilian place-names and added perhaps thousands of words and expressions to Brazilian Portuguese. Tupian was the principal language of Brazil’s native peoples before European contact, and it became the lingua franca between Indians and Portuguese traders, missionaries, adventurers, and administrators.

Albert Eckhout, series of eight figures, 1641, oil on canvas (The National Museum of Denmark). (Khan Academy)The pair referred to as “Tapuya” represent native Brazilian tribes with whom Europeans were often engaged in battle. Their nudity, save for … — Albert Eckhout, series of eight figures, 1641, oil on canvas (The National Museum of Denmark). (Khan Academy)
The pair referred to as “Tapuya” represent native Brazilian tribes with whom Europeans were often engaged in battle. Their nudity, save for some leaves, strings, and small adornments, marks them as “uncivilized” in the eyes of the colonialists. The potential eroticism of the woman’s nudity is undermined by the references to cannibalism—in addition to the severed limbs that she carries, the dog at her feet probably alludes to the dog-headed cannibals that the ancient Greeks described as living in distant regions of the world. The Tapuyas’ militarism is highlighted by the man’s weapons, as well as the distant group of armed figures behind the woman. The snake and spider at the man’s feet further emphasize the threat that the Tapuya represented to the Dutch (Europeans).

Albert Eckhout, series of eight figures, 1641, oil on canvas (The National Museum of Denmark). (Khan Academy)In contrast to the Tapuya, the figures referred to as Brazilians are portrayed as having been tamed through their conversion to Christianity… — Albert Eckhout, series of eight figures, 1641, oil on canvas (The National Museum of Denmark). (Khan Academy)
In contrast to the Tapuya, the figures referred to as Brazilians are portrayed as having been tamed through their conversion to Christianity. Missionaries (Catholic under the Portuguese and Protestant under the Dutch) organized converted native Brazilians into aldeias (villages). The European-style building and tidy rows of trees in the orchard demonstrate European notions of the order that have been imposed on the Brazilian land. Both figures are partially clothed, and the woman’s bare breasts emphasize her nurturing role as mother. Unlike the Tapuya man’s club, the Brazilian man’s bow and arrows, not unlike their European equivalents, are meant for hunting animals rather than humans.

The Portuguese had established a management culture of violent domination and abuse originating from its settlement in India. However, this did not go down well with Brazilian locals, who captured and ate their Portuguese ‘owners’ in complex ceremonies. This forced the Portuguese king to listen to the warnings of the indigenous folk and assume direct control.

The letter that announced the Portuguese arrival in Brazil described native inhabitants as complacent and harmless, but later accounts by adventurers and missionaries focus heavily on the practice of ritual cannibalism. Although there is little evidence that indigenous cultures practiced cannibalism, rumors of such actions were viewed as a justification for enslavement.

The Africans

There are more people of mainly African descent in Brazil than in any other nation outside of Africa, and African music, dance, food, and religious practices have become an integral part of Brazilian culture. Between the 16th and 19th centuries, the slave trade brought to Brazil some four million Africans, mainly peoples from West Africa and Angola. Most were taken to the sugarcane plantations of the Northeast during the 16th and 17th centuries. From the 18th century onward, when the mining of gold and diamonds began, more slaves were sent to Minas Gerais. The majority worked as laborers and domestic servants, but some escaped and fled into the interior, where they established independent farming communities or mixed with Indian groups.

Brazil was a slave society from its outset. The African slave trade was inherent to the economic and social structure of the colony. Years before the North American slave trade got underway, more slaves had been brought to Brazil than would ever reach British North America. It can be estimated that around 35% of all Africans captured in the Atlantic slave trade were sent to Brazil. The slave trade in Brazil would continue for nearly two hundred years and last the longest of any country in the Americas. African slaves had a higher monetary value than indigenous slaves largely because many of them came from agricultural societies and thus were already familiar with the work needed to maintain the profitable sugar plantations of Brazil. Also, African slaves were already immune to several of the Old World diseases that killed many indigenous people and were less likely to flee, as compared to indigenous slaves, since their place of origin was inaccessible. However, many African slaves did in fact flee and create their own communities of runaway slaves called quilombos, which often became established political and economic entities.

Albert Eckhout, series of eight figures, 1641, oil on canvas (The National Museum of Denmark). (Khan Academy)Albert Eckhout’s African woman is shown as displaced from her homeland and forced into a world where Africans, Americans, and Europeans inte… — Albert Eckhout, series of eight figures, 1641, oil on canvas (The National Museum of Denmark). (Khan Academy)
Albert Eckhout’s African woman is shown as displaced from her homeland and forced into a world where Africans, Americans, and Europeans interacted. The American plants and native Brazilians fishing on the shore locate her in Brazil, but her hat and basket are African, while her jewelry and the pipe tucked into her waist are European.
**The child’s lighter complexion may indicate that he is of mixed heritage: European men frequently had sexual relations, often coerced, with enslaved African women.**
The African man literally stands apart from the other figures. He is not situated in Brazil, but in Africa, as indicated by the date palm (which is native to North Africa) and the ivory tusk on the ground, which exemplifies Africa’s trade goods. Although the sword, probably modeled after one in Johan Maurits’s collection, is more appropriate to a nobleman, the loincloth, ivory tusk, and palm tree probably stem from prints of traders in the Guinea coast, a major slave trading region.
This painting is likely intended to portray a merchant involved in the slave trade that brought the woman to Brazil. Both of these representations of African people emphasize their musculature, reinforcing the European conception that Africans were inherently suited to manual labor and, thus, suited to being enslaved.

These enslaved people worked to resist slavery in many ways. Some of the most common forms of resistance involved engaging in sluggishness and sabotage. Other ways these enslaved peoples resisted was by exacting violence upon themselves and their babies, often to the point of death, and by seeking revenge against their masters. Another type of resistance to slavery was flight and, with the dense vegetation of the tropics, runaway slaves fled in numbers and for slave owners, this was an "endemic problem." The realities of being on a frontier that was policed in less than optimal ways fostered the successful escapes of enslaved people.

There are indications of runaway slaves organizing themselves into settlements in the Brazilian hinterland. These settlements, called mocambos and quilombos, were usually small and relatively close to sugar fields, and attracted not only African slaves but also people of indigenous origin. Quilombos were often viewed by Portuguese colonists as “parasitic,” relying upon theft of livestock and crops, “extortion, and sporadic raiding” for sustenance. Often, the victims of this raiding were not white sugar planters but blacks who sold produce grown on their own plots. Other accounts document the actions of members of Quilombos to successfully prospect gold and diamonds and to engage in trade with white-controlled cities.

While the reasons for fugitive settlement are varied, quilombos were rarely wholly self-sufficient and although inhabitants may have engaged in agricultural pursuits, they depended on a kind of parasitic economy where proximity to settled areas were usually prerequisites for their long-term success. Brazilian officials rebuked any kind of agreements to standardize the quilombos out of the fear of drawing even more fugitive slaves to their communities.

The terminology for the settlements and leaders come directly from Angola, with quilombo an Angolan word for military villages of diverse settlers and the nganga a nzumbi "was the priest responsible for the spiritual defense of the community."

Portuguese colonists sought to destroy these fugitive communities because they threatened the economic and social order of the slave regime in Brazil. There was a constant fear among colonists that enslaved peoples would revolt and resist slavery. Two settler objectives were to discourage enslaved peoples from trying to escape and to close down their options for escape. Strategies used by Portuguese colonists to prevent enslaved people from fleeing included apprehending escapees before they had the opportunity to band together. Slave catchers mounted expeditions with the intent to destroy fugitive communities. These expeditions destroyed mocambos and either killed or re-enslaved inhabitants. These expeditions were conducted by soldiers and mercenaries, many of whom were supported by local people or by the government's military. As a result, many fugitive communities were heavily fortified. Amerindians were sometimes utilized as ‘slave catchers’ or as part of a larger set of defenses against slave uprisings that had been orchestrated by cities and towns. At the same time, some Amerindians resisted the colonizers’ efforts to prevent uprisings by surreptitiously incorporating into their villages those who had escaped slavery.

Quilombos were often well fortified, with swampy dikes and false roads leading to "covered traps" and "sharpened stakes," like those used in Africa. The gender imbalance among African slaves was a result of the planters' preference for male labor, and men in quilombos not only raided for crops and goods, but for women; the women taken back to the quilombos were often black or mulatto.

Mameluca and Mulattos

Many Portuguese explorers were sent into the interior of the country to learn about their new habitat, but also to round up many of the native people living there and force them into labor. Many of these explorers, or bandeirantes as they are frequently deemed, met native women and had children with them, known as mamelucos, or mixed-blood children.

Albert Eckhout, series of eight figures, 1641, oil on canvas (The National Museum of Denmark). (Khan Academy)The pair of figures represents people of mixed race. The woman is a mameluca, of indigenous and white ancestry, and the man a mulatto, of bl… — Albert Eckhout, series of eight figures, 1641, oil on canvas (The National Museum of Denmark). (Khan Academy)
The pair of figures represents people of mixed race. The woman is a mameluca, of indigenous and white ancestry, and the man a mulatto, of black and white ancestry. The representation of the mameluca contains no references to agriculture or child-rearing. Instead, she solely provides voyeuristic pleasure to European males as she smiles cheekily at the viewer. The guinea pig reinforces her sexual availability because Europeans associated guinea pigs with rabbits, traditional symbols of fertility. To a European audience, the loose garment and flowers reference Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers and fertility who was adopted as a symbol for prostitutes and courtesans. In a place with few white women, the mameluca’s whiteness made her particularly desirable as a concubine.
In the eyes of Europeans, the so-called mulatto’s white ancestry likewise allowed him to rise above other Afro-Brazilians. He is posed in an authoritative military stance in front of a sugarcane field, the Dutch colony’s most important source of revenue. Likely tasked with protecting the fields and supervising the slaves, his appearance emphasizes his position within the social hierarchy between free and slave, European and non-European. His clothing is an imaginative mixture of European and foreign garments. While the offspring of enslaved women were born into slavery, children of white fathers were sometimes freed. Although bare feet can function as a visual symbol of enslavement, slaves were forbidden from carrying weapons—thus, the rifle and rapier suggest that he is free.

Whitening Brazil: Racial Composition

Today, Brazilians of African descent (referred to as Afro-Brazilians) can be further characterized as pardos (of mixed ethnicities) or pretos (entirely African); the latter term is usually used to refer to those with the darkest skin color. Although skin color is the main basis of the distinction between pardo and preto, this distinction is often subjective and self-attributed. Many Brazilians of color consider it more advantageous to identify themselves as pardos and therefore do so.

Skin color and ethnic background influence social interactions in Brazil. Brazilians with darker skin color account for a disproportionately large number of the country’s poor; nevertheless, racially motivated violence and intolerance are less common in Brazil than in the United States and some parts of Europe. Blatant discrimination is illegal but pervasive, especially in predominantly white middle- and upper-class areas, and racism often takes subtle forms. Interracial marriage does occur; however, the majority of marriages in Brazil are between two people of the same race or color partly because Brazilians tend to interact primarily with people of their own social class and geographic region—two factors that are closely tied to race in Brazil.

With the arrival of the Portuguese in 1500, Brazil began to develop a multiracial system with a very important middle category, “mestiço.” This category was not present in strictly biracial systems, such as that of the United States, where anyone of African descent was automatically deemed black. Racial categories in Brazil were largely based on phenotype, or visible physical characteristics, and, to a lesser extent, wealth and ancestry—hence the saying “Money whitens.”

The theory of “whitening” held that whites, portrayed as naturally stronger, would naturally conquer inferior species. Even at a genetic level, Brazilians believed that white genes would dominate. As opposed to the United States where having any African ancestors made someone black, in Brazil continued miscegenation would lead to a whiter population as “white” blood triumphed over the genes of other races.

“The slow fusion of still imperfect mixtures, the repeated cultural selection, the forced discipline of social organization will make this mass into a strong, happy, and healthy population because the dominant traits are good. Today’s promising beginning will produce a strong-willed, sensitive, and intelligent people worthy of this land and the time in which they live … In another three hundred years, we will all be white.”
- Novelist Afrânio Peixoto, 1911 novel A Esfinge [The Sphinx]

References: Migration Policy Institute, Wikipedia Colonial Brazil, Wikipedia Portuguese Brazilians), Wikipedia Portuguese People, Brittannica, Brown University, NY Times, Brazil, Mother Earth Travel, Wikipedia Degredado, Bloomsbury Collections, Chapman University, Wikiwand, Encyclopedia, NPR, Rebloggy

The "Whitening" of Brazil

The Portuguese Migration: Birthing Brazil