Historical Roots of the “Whitening” of Brazil

Abstract

Historical Roots of the "Whitening" of Brazil by Sales Augusto dos Santos Translated by Laurence HallewellIt has been estimated that, over a 300-year period from the second half of the sixteenth century until the first half of the nineteenth, some 3.5-3.6 million black slaves were brought to Brazil from Africa (Goulart, 1950: 272; Mattoso, 1981: 53). This enormous number of black Africans transformed the racial makeup of Brazil. We do not know exactly when it happened, but by the end of the eighteenth century these blacks and their descendants already formed the majority of the Brazilian population (Malheiro, 1976: 30). This demographic circumstance persisted into the following century. In 1872, the year of Brazil's first national census, whites constituted 38.1 percent of the population, while blacks, mulattoes, and Indians accounted for the remaining 61.9 percent. In the second census, carried out in 1890, the white population, although it had proportionately increased by 5.9 percent to 44 percent, was still in the minority, as the other racial categories together still accounted for 56 percent of the total (Santos, 1997).The available statistics show that, in the final years of Brazilian slavery, the slave population was concentrated in the southeast, excluding the province of Espírito Santo and the city of Rio de Janeiro. Although the statistics show that between 1884 and 1887 slave numbers fell sharply, by some 41.69 percent, in every province, the concentration of the slave population in this region-the provinces of Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, and São Pauloactually increased during the last decade of slavery (Santos, 1997).After the abolition of the slave trade in 1850 and well before there was any obvious decline in the supply of slaves, their owners and the rulers of Brazil "discovered" that the offer of blacks from Africa was not unlimited. This realization gave rise to the first concern with the labor supply question, based on a probable future shortage of hands for agricultural work.Realizing that slave labor was inevitably doomed, the Brazilian ruling elites began to stress the need to develop free labor as a substitute, although they meanwhile did their utmost to delay the abolition of slavery. Since slave 61 Sales Augusto dos Santos is a sociologist at the University of Brasília, specializing in race relations. Laurence Hallewell, until his retirement, was Latin American librarian at Columbia University.

DNA tests probe the genomic ancestry of Brazilians

“…These were, in decreasing order, 34% Italians, 29% Portuguese, 14% Spanish, 5% Japanese, 4% Germans, 2% Lebanese and Syrians, and 12% others. This phenomenon, which has been denominated the "whitening of Brazil", had complex economic and sociological causes, was tinged with racist ideology, and has been well discussed in the literature (4,5).…”

“…The subsequent decrease in the number of Amerindians by the combined effect of guns, germs and steel (8) and the large influx of Africans from the slave trade led to a second phase that lasted until 1850. The third period occurred after 1850 when African immigration stopped and the very prominent entry of Europeans occurred, leading to the "whitening" of Brazil (4,5).…”

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“…Mulattos and some blacks from various classes had reached prominence during the Imperial period and dealt with the Eurocentric conception of Brazil very differently. However, most of the Brazilian elite harbored enormous anxiety and shame about Brazil's African heritage, and their solution was to whiten the country (Santos & Hallewell, ; Skidmore, , pp. 64–69).…”

“…The answer as to why this mattered to Nabuco is that he believed and acknowledged that Brazil was a multiracial society and that slavery was wrong, but he thought that race was a malleable concept and that, through proper education and training, people of non-European heritage could also be "civilized" and escape their black racial identity. Mulattos and some blacks from African heritage, and their solution was to whiten the country (Santos & Hallewell, 2002;Skidmore, 1993, pp. 64-69).…”

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“…Among them, one could name as the most important the fall of the Empire and proclamation of the Republic; the substitution of slave with paid labor (Silva, 2006); the consolidation of capitalism as well as the development of the secondary and tertiary sectors of the economy. Rio further underwent significant urbanization and demographic growth due to first international (Silva, 2006) but since the 1930s especially national immigration (Perlman, 1976), the former subsidized by the state in order to attract desirable, mostly European and white paid labor (Santos, 2002). With the installation of public services, such as of transport and sanitation, the resulting accelerated urbanization led to a housing crisis.…”