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White Brazilian
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According to the IBGE's 2006 PNAD (National Research by Sample of Dwellings), White Brazilians make up 49.7% of Brazil's population, or around 93 million people. Whites are present in the entire territory of Brazil, although the main concentrations are found in the South and Southeastern parts of the country. White Brazilians are all people who are full or mainly descended of European and other White immigrants.
Brazil has the largest White population in the Southern Hemisphere, and the third largest in the World, after the United States and Russia.
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Encyclopedia
According to the IBGE's 2006 PNAD (National Research by Sample of Dwellings), White Brazilians make up 49.7% of Brazil's population, or around 93 million people. Whites are present in the entire territory of Brazil, although the main concentrations are found in the South and Southeastern parts of the country. White Brazilians are all people who are full or mainly descended of European and other White immigrants.
Brazil has the largest White population in the Southern Hemisphere, and the third largest in the World, after the United States and Russia. The main ancestries of White Brazilians are Portuguese, Italian, Spanish and German.
History
Brazil received more European immigrants in its colonial era than did the United States of America. Between 1500 and 1760, 700,000 Europeans settled in Brazil, compared to 530,000 in the United States.
One important fact about the European immigration in Brazil is that it was, for three centuries, dominated exclusively by Portuguese. In the 17th century, Netherlands and France conquered parts of the country and established colonies. The Dutch presence in Northeast Brazil lasted 24 years. Many European Jews arrived in that period. However, in 1654, Portugal reconquered the region and most Dutchs were expelled. The hegemony of the Portuguese ethnicity in the White population of Brazil lasted until the 19th century, when in 1818 the first Swiss immigrants settled Nova Friburgo (Rio de Janeiro) and, in 1824, Germans settled São Leopoldo (Rio Grande do Sul).
Most of the immigrants were ethnically Portuguese, but some of the first settlers were, actually, Portuguese Jews. According to some estimates, 45% of colonial Portuguese settlers in Brazil came from Minho, 20% from the Azores Islands, 16% from Lisbon and 19% from other parts. In all Brazil's History, most immigrants came from Northern Portugal.
Another characteristic of the Portuguese colonization is that it was done mostly by males. The lack of European women was a problem faced during much of Brazil's colonization. The Portuguese Crown even sent orphaned women for marriage with the settlers, but a large part of the settlers was involved in relationships with indigenous women and with their African slaves. However, not all Portuguese colonists were in interracial relationships: at the end of the 16th century, Whites made up half of Brazil's population. 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 in the region of Minas Gerais has been a crucial factor in the arrival of this contingent of immigrants.
The hegemony of the white Portuguese ethnicity had its end only in 1818, when Brazil attracted Swiss families to occupy inhospitable regions . The presence of German immigrants had great importance for the occupation 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) were crucial to the entry of millions of Europeans to Brazil. The production of coffee, the main product of Brazil at the time, began to suffer a shortage of workers. The Brazilian Government then opened its doors to immigrants. From 1875, the Italians 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. Brazil is, nowadays, the country with the largest population of Italian descent outside of Italy itself: 25 million Brazilians are of Italian descent.
The period of the great European immigration in Brazil, between 1880 and 1930, brought to the country more than 5 million Europeans. A majority were Italians and Portuguese, followed by Spaniards, Germans, Poles, and Ukrainians. It is notable that most of this more recent wave of immigrants from Europe settled Southern and Southeastern Brazil.
| Brazilian Population, by Race, from 1872 to 1991 (Census Data) |
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| Ethnic group | White | Black | Brown | Yellow (Asian) | Undeclared | Total | |
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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 | |
IBGE's 1998 PME
In 1998, the IBGE, within its preparation for the 2000 Census, experimentally introduced a question about "origem" (ancestry) in its "Pesquisa Mensal de Emprego" (Monthly Employment Research), in order to test the viability of introducing that variable in the Census. This research interviewed about 90,000 people in six metropolitan regions (São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, Belo Horizonte, Salvador, and Recife) .
Here are its results for both the White population and the population in general
| Brazilian Population, by ancestry, 1998 |
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| Ancestry | % of Whites | % of all races |
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Brazilian | 83.11% | 86.09% | Italian | 15.72% | 10.41% | Portuguese | 14.50% | 10.46% | Spanish | 6.42% | 4.40% | German | 5.51% | 3.54% | Indigenous | 4.80% | 6.64% | Black | 1.30% | 5.09% | Arab | 0.72% | 0.48% | Japanese | 0.62% | 1.34% | African | 0.58% | 2.06% | Jewish | 0.25% | 0.20% | Others | 4.05% | 2.81% | Total | 137.58% | 133.52% | | | |
Notice that the total is higher than 100% because of multiple answers.
Regions of settlement
Most European immigrants entered Brazil for the states of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais. Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais received most of the Portuguese settlers since the 16th century. São Paulo received most of the Italians and other immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. However, the impact of the European immigration was larger in Southern Brazil. This region received a smaller number of immigrants, but since it had a low population, the arrival of the Europeans was greater to its demography. Pernambuco was also an important place to the arrival of Portuguese immigrants. In the rest of Brazil, most Europeans and their descendants arrived from other states and had a smaller impact in the population's ethnicity.
Portuguese
Many Brazilians are partly of Portuguese ancestry. Before independence, an estimated 700,000 Portuguese came to then Portuguese colony. The census of 1872 counted 3,787,289 White Brazilians, of which the overwhelming majority descended from these Portuguese colonists, given that mass migration only started from 1875.
About 1.5 million Portuguese immigrants arrived in Brazil after independence, most of them in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Most of these immigrants settled in Rio de Janeiro. According to the 1920 census, there were 433,577 Portuguese living in Brazil, of whom 172,238 in the Federal District (nowadays the city of Rio de Janeiro) and 28,661 in other parts of the state, followed by 167,198 in São Paulo, 18,228 in Minas Gerais and 14,211 in Pará.
It was estimated that around 5 million Brazilians can acquire Portuguese citizenship, due to the last Portuguese nationality law that grants citizenship to grandchildren of Portuguese nationals.
Spaniards
About 680,000 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 Paulo. Today, there is an estimated 15 million Brazilians of direct Spanish descent.
Italians
About 1,600,000 Italians arrived in Brazil, starting in 1875. First they settled 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. However, these opportunities came to an end, as the land open to distribution became scarce. In the early 20th century, their destination were mostly the coffee plantations in the Southeast, especially São Paulo, 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 and early 20th centuries (outnumbering the Portuguese, who came in second place). Until 1904, 76.22% of all Italian immigrants had entered São Paulo and, of all immigrants in the period from 1885 to 1889, 81.93% were of Italian origin. They remained as the main immigrant group until the 1940s In the 1920 census, there were 558,405 Italians living in Brazil, the vast majority in the state of São Paulo (398,797) followed by Rio Grande do Sul (49,136), Minas Gerais (42,943) and in the Federal District of Rio de Janeiro (21,929). Today there are close to 25 million Brazilians of Italian origin.
Germans
About 210,000 Germans immigrated to Brazil, starting from 1824. Most of them established themselves in rural communities across Southern Brazil. These communities eventually evolved into cities such as São Leopoldo, Novo Hamburgo, Santa Cruz do Sul, Blumenau, Pomerode, among others. In the southern states of Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul, Germans were 20% of their population in the 1930s. According to the German Consulate in Porto Alegre, there are 3 million people of German descent living in these two states, and 5 million in the entire Brazil, though, according to the German news website Deutsche Welle: "... journalist and historian Dieter Böhnke, from São Paulo, relativises this date, stating that the first Germans arrived in 1500, among them Pedro Álvares Cabral's cook. According to him, more than 10% of the Brazilian population nowadays has at least one German ancestor." If so, then the number would be as high as 18 million.
Poles
Poles came in significant numbers to Brazil after 1870. Most of them settled in the State of Paraná, working as small farmers. From 1872 to 1959, 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 passports.
Ukrainians
Ukrainians came to Brazil primary between 1895 and the Second World War, settling mostly in Parana (state) and working as small farmers. They currently number approximately 400,000.
Arabs
Besides the Europeans, many Brazilians descend from Caucasoid Arabs, mostly Syrians and Lebanese people. About 100,000 Syrians and Lebanese immigrants came to Brazil between 1884 and 1933. The Arab Brazilian population is estimated at about 10 million people. Different sources claim that the Brazilian population of Lebanese descent is about 7 million people while Lebanon has a population of over 4 million people.
Jews
The history of the Jews in Brazil is relatively long and complex as it stretches over many centuries. Jews settled in Brazil during the Dutch rule of the Northeast, setting up the first synagogue in the Americas, in Recife, as early as 1636. Nowadays Brazil has about 196,000 Jews, but most of them are Ashkenazi Jews, descendants of immigrants from Germany, Poland, Russia and Ukraine, and the smaller Sephardic community is mostly composed of immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East.
Demography
The demographics of Brazilian ethinicities is a ticklish issue: in the most recent censuses, the accepeted practice as far as ethnicity was concerned was to leave attribution of ethnicity to the person interviewed her/himself. Census data, therefore, reflect actual genetic ancestry but cultural self-consciousness about ethnicity.
By Brazilian states
The Brazilian states with the highest percentages of (self-acknowledged) Whites are the three located in the South of the country: Santa Catarina, Rio Grande do Sul and Paraná. These states, along with São Paulo, were settled mainly by German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish immigrants. The other states in the list are those whose population is mainly of Portuguese ancestry.
The Brazilian states with the lowest percentages of (self-acknowledged) Whites are those located in the North and Northeast regions of Brazil. Both had a stronger African and Amerindian influence to the population's ethnic composition.
- Source: IBGE 2000
By Population
- 1) São Paulo: 28,814,000 Whites
- 2) Minas Gerais: 9,019,164
- 3) Rio Grande do Sul: 8,973,928
- 4) Rio de Janeiro: 8,513,778
- 5) Paraná: 7,620,000
- 6) Santa Catarina: 5,215,000
- 7) Pernambuco: 3,151,000
- 8) Ceará: 2,883,000
- 9) Bahia: 2,864,000
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 Sul or Santa Catarina. Another fact is that all these towns are settled predominantly by Brazilians of German and Italian descent. 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) Montauri (Rio Grande do Sul): 100% White (1,615 inhabitants)
- 2) Leoberto Leal (Santa Catarina): 99.82% (3,348 inhabitants)
- 3) Pedras Grandes (Santa Catarina): 99.81% (4,849 inhabitants)
- 4) Capitão (Rio Grande do Sul): 99.77% (2,751 inhabitants)
- 5) Santa Tereza (Rio Grande do Sul): 99.69% (1,604 inhabitants)
- 6) Cunhataí (Santa Catarina): 99.67% (1,740 inhabitants)
- 7) São Martinho (Santa Catarina): 99.64% (3,221 inhabitants)
- 8) Guabiju (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. Some of the towns are Indian reservations, others are Quilombos (rural areas settled by descendants of escaped African slaves).
- 1) Nossa Senhora das Dores (Sergipe): 0.71% White (23,817 inhabitants)
- 2) Santo Inácio do Piauí (Piauí): 2.25% (3,523 inhabitants)
- 3) Uiramutã (Roraima): 2.33% (6,430 inhabitants)
- 4) Ipixuna (Amazonas): 2.35% (17,258 inhabitants)
- 5) Caapiranga (Amazonas): 2.97% (9,996 inhabitants)
- 6) Fonte Boa (Amazonas): 3.01% (37,595 inhabitants)
- 7) Santa Isabel do Rio Negro (Amazonas): 3.15% (16,622 inhabitants)
- 8) Serrano do Maranhão (Maranhão): 3.30% (5,547 inhabitants)
Immigration
| Immigration to Brazil, by Ethnic groups, periods from 1500 to 1933 |
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| Ethnic group | 1500-1700 | 1701-1760 | 1761-1829 | 1830-1855 | 1856-1883 | 1884-1893 | 1894-1903 | 1904-1913 | 1914-1923 | 1924-1933 |
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Africans | 510,000 | 958,000 | 1,720,000 | 618,000 | - | - | - | - | - | - | Portuguese | 100,000 | 600,000 | 26,000 | 16,737 | 116,000 | 170,621 | 155,542 | 384,672 | 201,252 | 233,650 | Italians | - | - | - | - | 100,000 | 510,533 | 537,784 | 196,521 | 86,320 | 70,177 | Spaniards | - | - | - | - | - | 113,116 | 102,142 | 224,672 | 94,779 | 52,405 | Germans | - | - | 5,003 | 2,008 | 30,000 | 22,778 | 6,698 | 33,859 | 29,339 | 61,723 | Japanese | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 11,868 | 20,398 | 110,191 | Syrians and Lebanese | - | - | - | - | - | 96 | 7,124 | 45,803 | 20,400 | 20,400 | Others | - | - | - | - | - | 66,524 | 42,820 | 109,222 | 51,493 | 164,586 |
Genetic researches
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 DNA (mtDNA) is present in all human beings and passed down through the maternal line, i.e. the mother of the mother of the mother etc. The Y chromosome is present only in males and passed down through the paternal line, i.e., the father of father of 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.
The most important genetic resource about Brazilians found that, on the paternal side, 98% of the White Brazilian Y Chromosome comes from an European male ancestor, only 2% from an African ancestor and a complete absence of Amerindian contributions. On the maternal side, 39% have an European Mitochondrial DNA, 33% Amerindian and 28% African female ancestry. 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)..
The same genetic research concluded that over 75% of caucasians from North, Northeast and Southeast Brazil would have over 10% Sub-Saharan African genes. Even Southern Brazil, that received a large group of European immigration, 49% of the Caucasian population would have over 10% Sub-Saharan African genes. According to this study, in all United States 11% of Caucasians would have over 10% African genes. Some researchers have found that the average European American type has approximately 10% to 12% non-White genetic material.
Another genetic research, however, 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 has showed a huge difference between whites of different localities of Brazil. In a sample from the town of Veranópolis, heavily settled by people of Italian descent, the results from the maternal and paternal sides stated almost complete European ancestry. On the other hand, a sample from another region of Rio Grande do Sul has showed significant fractions of Native American (36%) and African (16%) mtDNA haplogroups. The scholars reported that the Brazilian populations are remarkably heterogeneous, as some samples of white Brazilians indicated a complete European ancestry, while others indicated high degree of both Amerindian and African admixture, mainly on the maternal side.
Another study carried out in one thousand individuals from Porto Alegre city, Southern Brazil, and 760 from Natal city, Northeastern Brazil, found huge differences between the Whites of these two parts of Brazil. The Whites of Porto Alegre had only 8% of African alleles. On the other hand, the Whites of Natal had 58% White, 25% Black, and 17% Indian admixture. This study found that both persons identified as White or Mixed in Natal have similar admixture, while persons identified as White in Porto Alegre have an overwhelming majority of European ancestry. Again, this study also suggested the differences of admixture found in White Brazilians of different regions.
One more research carried out in whites of Northeastern Brazilian origin living in São Paulo found 70% European, 18% African and 12% Amerindian admixture.
See also
Footnotes
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