In the former Portuguese and Spanish colonies in the Americas, pardos (feminine pardas) are triracial descendants of Europeans, Indigenous Americans and Africans.
In the former Portuguese and Spanish colonies in the Americas, pardos (feminine pardas) are triracial descendants of Europeans, Indigenous Americans and Africans.
In some places they were defined as neither exclusively mestizo (Indigenous American-European descent), nor mulatto (African-European descent), nor zambo (Indigenous American-African descent). [1] In colonial Mexico, pardo "became virtually synonymous with mulatto , thereby losing much of its Indigenous referencing". In the eighteenth century, pardo might have been the preferred label for blackness. Unlike negro , pardo had no association with slavery. [2] Casta paintings from eighteenth-century Mexico use the label negro, never pardo, to identify Africans paired with Spaniards. [3]
In Brazil, the word pardo has had a general meaning since the beginning of the colonisation. In the famous letter by Pero Vaz de Caminha, for example, in which Brazil was first described by the Portuguese, the Indigenous Americans were called "pardo": "Pardo, naked, without clothing". The word has ever since been used to cover: African/European mixes, Asian/European mixes, Indigenous American/European/Asian/African mixes and Indigenous Americans themselves. [4]
For example, Diogo de Vasconcelos, a widely known historian from Minas Gerais, mentions the story of Andresa de Castilhos. According to 18th-century accounts, Andresa de Castilhos was described by the following: "I declare that Andresa de Castilhos, parda woman ... has been freed ... is a descendant of the native gentiles of the land ... I declare that Andresa de Castilhos is the daughter of a white man and a (Christian) neophyte (Indigenous) woman". [5]
The historian Maria Leônia Chaves de Resende says that the word pardo was used to classify people with partial or full Indigenous American ancestry. A Manoel, natural son of Ana carijó, was baptised as a 'pardo'; in Campanha, several Indigenous Americans were classified as 'pardo'; the Indigenous American João Ferreira, Joana Rodriges and Andreza Pedrosa, for example, were described as 'freed pardo'; a Damaso identifies as a 'freed pardo' of the ''native of the land''; etc. [6] According to Chaves de Resende, the growth of the pardo population in Brazil includes the descendants of Indigenous American and not only those of African descent: "the growth of the 'pardo' segment had not only to do with the descendants of Africans, but also with the descendants of the Indigenous American, in particular the carijós and bastards, included in the condition of 'pardo'". [6]
The American historian Muriel Nazzari in 2001 noted that the "pardo" category has absorbed those persons of Indigenous American descent in the records of São Paulo: "This paper seeks to demonstrate that, though many Indians and mestizos did migrate, those who remained in São Paulo came to be classified as pardos." [7]
Most pardos within Caribbean and Northern South America historically inhabited the territories where the Spanish conquistadores imported slaves during colonial times, such as the Captaincies of Cuba, Santo Domingo, Puerto Rico, Venezuela and Ecuador. [8] [9]
Pardos were the children of formerly enslaved black people who were now freed black people in Spanish America. These pardos were able to join the military and had moved up into high political and military roles such as “generals, congressmen, and senators.” [10] Pardos also helped win the fight for Latin American independence by fighting on the patriots' side of the cause.
In Peru, pardos are referred to the mixture of Spanish and Indigenous American with a little African contribution, located exclusively along the coast, in greater proportion between the regions of Tumbes to Ica. [11]
In Brazil, pardo is a race/skin colour category used by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) in Brazilian censuses, with historic roots in the colonial period. [12] The term "pardo" is more commonly used to refer to mixed-race Brazilians, individuals with varied racial ancestries. The other categories are: branco ("white"), preto ("black"), amarelo ("yellow", meaning East Asians) and indígena ("indigene" or "indigenous person", meaning Indigenous Americans).
The term is still popular in Brazil. According to IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics), [12] pardo is a broad classification that encompasses Multiracial Brazilians such as mulatos and cafuzos , as well as assimilated Indigenous Americans known as caboclos , mixed with Europeans or not. The term pardo was first used in a Brazilian census in 1872. The following census, in 1890, replaced the word pardo by mestiço (that of mixed origins). The censuses of 1900 and 1920 did not ask about race, arguing that "the answers largely hid the truth". [13]
Mestizo is a person of mixed European and non-European ancestry in the former Spanish Empire. In certain regions such as Latin America, it may also refer to people who are culturally European even though their ancestors were Indigenous American. The term was used as an ethno-racial exonym for mixed-race castas that evolved during the Spanish Empire. It was a formal label for individuals in official documents, such as censuses, parish registers, Inquisition trials, and others. Priests and royal officials might have classified persons as mestizos, but individuals also used the term in self-identification. With the Bourbon reforms and the independence of the Americas, the caste system disappeared and terms like "mestizo" fell in popularity.
Mulatto is a racial classification that refers to people of mixed African and European ancestry only. When speaking or writing about a singular woman in English, the word is mulatta. The use of this term began in the United States of America shortly after the Atlantic Slave Trade began and its use was widespread, derogatory and disrespectful. After the post Civil Rights Era, the term is now considered to be both outdated and offensive in the United States. In other Anglophone countries such as the British Isles, and English and Dutch-speaking West Indian countries, the word mulatto is still used. The use of this word does not have the same negative associations found among English speakers. Among Latinos in both the US and Latin America, the word is used in every day speech and its meaning is a source of racial and ethnic pride. In four of the Latin-based languages, the default, masculine word ends with the letter "o" and is written as follows: Spanish and Portuguese – mulato; Italian – mulatto. The French equivalent is mulâtre. In English, the masculine plural is written as mulattoes while in Spanish and Portuguese it is mulatos. The masculine plural in Italian is mulatti and in French it is mulâtres. The feminine plurals are: English – mulattas; Spanish and Portuguese – mulatas; Italian – mulatte; French – mulâtresses.
Minas Gerais is one of the 27 federative units of Brazil, being the fourth largest state by area and the second largest in number of inhabitants with a population of 20,539,989 according to the 2022 census. Located in the Southeast Region of the country, it is bordered to south and southwest by São Paulo; Mato Grosso do Sul to the west; Goiás and the Federal District to the northwest; Bahia to the north and northeast; Espírito Santo to the east; and Rio de Janeiro to the southeast. The state's capital and largest city, Belo Horizonte, is a major urban and finance center in Brazil, being the sixth most populous municipality in the country while its metropolitan area ranks as the third largest in Brazil with just over 5.8 million inhabitants, after those of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Minas Gerais' territory is subdivided into 853 municipalities, the largest number among Brazilian states.
The terms multiracial people refer to people who are of multiple races, and the terms multi-ethnic people refer to people who are of more than one ethnicities. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for multiracial people in a variety of contexts, including multiethnic, polyethnic, occasionally bi-ethnic, biracial, mixed-race, Métis, Muwallad, Melezi, Coloured, Dougla, half-caste, ʻafakasi, mulatto, mestizo, mutt, Melungeon, quadroon, octoroon, griffe, sacatra, sambo/zambo, Eurasian, hapa, hāfu, Garifuna, pardo, and Gurans. A number of these once-acceptable terms are now considered offensive, in addition to those that were initially coined for pejorative use.
In Brazil, Pardo is an ethno-racial and skin color category used by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) in the Brazilian censuses. The term "pardo" is a complex one, more commonly used to refer to Brazilians of mixed ethnic ancestries.
Afro-Brazilians, also known as Black Brazilians, are Brazilian citizens of predominantly or total Sub-Saharan African ancestry, these stand out for having dark skin. Most multiracial Brazilians also have a range of degree of African ancestry. Brazilians whose African features are more evident are generally seen by others as Blacks and may identify themselves as such, while the ones with less noticeable African features may not be seen as such. However, Brazilians rarely use the term "Afro-Brazilian" as a term of ethnic identity and never in informal discourse.
Casta is a term which means "lineage" in Spanish and Portuguese and has historically been used as a racial and social identifier. In the context of the Spanish Empire in the Americas, the term also refers to a now-discredited 20th-century theoretical framework which postulated that colonial society operated under a hierarchical race-based "caste system". From the outset, colonial Spanish America resulted in widespread intermarriage: unions of Spaniards, indigenous people, and Africans. Basic mixed-race categories that appeared in official colonial documentation were mestizo, generally offspring of a Spaniard and an Indigenous person; and mulatto, offspring of a Spaniard and an African. A plethora of terms were used for people with mixed Spanish, Indigenous, and African ancestry in 18th-century casta paintings, but they are not known to have been widely used officially or unofficially in the Spanish Empire.
The Brazil socio-geographic division is a slightly different division than the Brazilian division by regions. It separates the country into three different and distinctive regions:
Castizo was a racial category used in 18th-century Spanish America to refer to people who were three-quarters Spanish by descent and one-quarter Amerindian. The category of castizo was widely recognized by the 18th century in colonial Mexico and was a standard category portrayed in eighteenth-century casta paintings.
Pardo is a word used in the Spanish colonies in the Americas to refer to the tri-racial descendants of Europeans, Amerindians, and Africans.
White Brazilians refers to Brazilian citizens who are considered or self-identify as "white", typically because of European or Levantine ancestry.
Brazilians are the citizens of Brazil. A Brazilian can also be a person born abroad to a Brazilian parent or legal guardian as well as a person who acquired Brazilian citizenship. Brazil is a multiethnic society, which means that it is home to people of many ethnic origins, and there is no correlation between one's stock and their Brazilian identity.
Mestiço is a Portuguese term that referred to persons of mixed European and Indigenous non-European ancestry in the former Portuguese Empire.
Francisca da Silva de Oliveira, known in history by the name Chica da Silva and whose romanticized version/character is also known by the spelling Xica da Silva, was a Brazilian woman who became famous for becoming rich and powerful despite having been born into slavery. Her life has been a source of inspiration for many works in television, films, music, theater and literature. She is popularly known as the slave who became a queen. The myth of Chica da Silva is often conflated with the historical accounts of Francisca da Silva de Oliveira.
The Church of Saint Francis of Assisi is a Rococo Catholic church in Ouro Preto, Brazil. Its erection began in 1766 after a design by the Brazilian architect and sculptor Antônio Francisco Lisboa, otherwise known as Aleijadinho. Lisboa designed both the structure of the church and the carved decorations on the interior, which were only finished towards the end of the 19th century. The circular bell towers and the oculus closed by a relief were original features in religious architecture of that time in Brazil. The façade has a single entrance door under a soapstone frontispiece under a relief depicting Saint Francis receiving the stigmata. The interior is richly decorated with golden woodwork, statues and paintings, and the wooden ceiling displays a painting by Manuel da Costa Ataíde.
Brazilian society is made up of a confluence of people of Indigenous, Portuguese, and African descent. Other major significant groups include Italians, Spaniards, Germans, Lebanese, and Japanese.
Brazil had an official resident population of 203 million in 2022, according to IBGE. Brazil is the seventh most populous country in the world and the second most populous in the Americas and Western Hemisphere.
There is no single system of races or ethnicities that covers all modern Latin America, and usage of labels may vary substantially.
Lobo is a racial category for a mixed-race person used in Mexican paintings illustrating the caste (casta) system in 17th- and 18th-century Spanish America.
Chino was a casta term used in colonial Mexico to refer to people of mixed ancestry. In the eighteenth century, individuals of mixed Amerindian and African ancestry came to be called chinos.
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