Pardo Brazilians

For other uses, see Pardo Brazilians (disambiguation).

Pardo-Brazilian

Regions with significant populations
Entire country; highest percents found in the North and Northeast regions of Brazil.
Languages
Predominantly Portuguese
Religion
74% Roman Catholic, 18.2% Protestant, 5.6% non-religious, 2% other denominations (Kardecist, Umbanda, Candomblé)
Related ethnic groups
White Brazilian, Native Brazilian, Black Brazilian

In Brazil, Pardo is a race/colour category used by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) in Brazilian censuses. The word is Portuguese for "brown" or "grey-brown". The other categories are branco ("White"), negro ("Black"), amarelo ("yellow", meaning East Asians), and indígena ("indigenous", meaning Amerindians).

Pardo was also a casta classification used in Colonial Spanish America from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, and was used to classify a racially mixed individual who did not fall within the racially mixed categories (castes) of Mulatto, Zambo, or Mestizo due to the fact that a Pardo is a mixture of all 3 colonial races - White, Black, and Amerindian - and not a mix of just 2 races. The term Pardo was used primarily in small areas of Spanish America whose economy was based on African Slavery during Spain's colonial period.

Definitions of Pardo

According to IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics), Pardo is a broad classification that encompasses Brazilians of mixed race ancestry, mulattos, and assimilated indigenous people ("caboclos"). The term "pardo" was first used in a Brazilian census in 1872. The following census, in 1890, replaced the word "pardo" by mestiço (mixed). The censuses of 1900 and 1920 did not ask about race, arguing that "the answers largely hid the truth". The question about race reappeared in the 1940 census. In this census, "pardo" was not given as an option, but if the answer was different from the options "white", "black", and "yellow", a horizontal line was drawn into the "colour" box. When the census data came to be tabulated, all responses with horizontal lines were collected into the single category of "pardo". The term "pardo" was not used as an option as an assurance to the public that census data would not be used for discriminatory purposes, as a result of rising European racism at the time. In the 1950 census, "pardo" was actually added as a choice of answer. This trend remains, with the exception of the 1970 census, which also did not ask about race.

The 20th century saw a large growth of the "pardo" population. In 1940, 21.2% of Brazilians were classified as "pardos". In 2000, they had increased to 38.5% of the population. This is only partially due to the continuous process of miscegenation in the Brazilian population. Races are molded in accordance with perceptions and ideologies prevalent in each historical moment. In the 20th century, a significant part of Brazilians who used to self-report to be Black in earlier censuses chose to move to the Pardo category. Also a significant part of the population that used to self-report to be White also moved to the Pardo category. Magnoli describes this phenomenon as the "pardização" (pardization) of Brazil.

Ancestry

According to an autosomal DNA study (the autosomal study is about the sum of the ancestors of a person, unlike mtDNA or yDNA haplogroup studies, who cover only one single line), the "pardos" in Rio de Janeiro were found to be predominantly European, at roughly 70% (see table). The geneticist Sérgio Pena criticised foreign scholar Edward Telles for lumping "blacks" and "pardos" in the same category, given the predominant European ancestry of the "pardos" throughout Brazil. According to him, "the autosomal genetic analysis that we have performed in non related individuals from Rio de Janeiro shows that it does not make any sense to put "blacks" and "pardos" in the same category".

Genomic ancestry of non-related individuals in Rio de Janeiro
Cor	Number of individuals	Amerindian	African	European
White	107	6.7%	6.9%	86.4%
"parda"	119	8.3%	23.6%	68.1%
Black	109	7.3%	50.9%	41.8%

However, according to another study, admixture rates in self-declared Brazilian 'pardos' differs by region. From a study in 2002, "Salzano (28) calculated for the population as a whole, 51% European, 36% African, and 13% Amerindian ancestries whereas in the north, Santos and Guerreiro (29) obtained 47% European, 12% African, and 41% Amerindian descent, and in the southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul, Dornelles et al. (30) calculated 82% European, 7% African, and 11% Amerindian ancestries. Krieger et al. (31) studied a population of Brazilian northeastern origin living in São Paulo with blood groups and electrophoretic markers and showed that whites presented 18% of African and 12% of Amerindian genetic contribution and that blacks presented 28% of European and 5% of Amerindian genetic contribution (31). Of course, all of these Amerindian admixture estimates are subject to the caveat mentioned in the previous paragraph. At any rate, compared with these previous studies, our estimates showed higher levels of bidirectional admixture between Africans and non-Africans."

History

The formation of the Brazilian people is marked by a mixture of whites, blacks and Indians. According to geneticist Sérgio Pena "with the exception of immigrants of first or second generation, there is no Brazilian who does not carry a bit of African and Amerindian genetic". The colonization of Brazil was characterised by a small proportion of women among the settlers. As there was a male predominance in the European contingent present in Brazil, most sexual partners of those settlers were, initially, Amerindian or African women, and, later, mixed-race women. This sexual asymmetry is marked on the genetics of the Brazilian people, regardless of skin color: there is a predominance of European Y chromosomes, and of Amerindian and African MtDNA.

In the first century of colonization, there was generalised interbreeding between Portuguese males and Amerindian females in Brazil. However, the Amerindian population was decimated by epidemics, wars and slavery. Since 1550, African slaves began to be brought to Brazil in large numbers. Miscegenation between Portuguese males and African females was common. European and Asiatic immigrants who came to Brazil in the 19th and 20th centuries (Portuguese, Italians, Spaniards, Germans, Arab, Japanese, etc.) also participated in the process. Among many of the immigrant groups in Brazil, there was a large predominance of men.

A genetic study conducted on White Brazilians suggests that the European and African mixture prevailed in Southeastern and Northeastern Brazil, both the most populous regions of Brazil. European and Amerindian mixture prevailed in Northern and Southern Brazil. Central-Western Brazil was not included at this study. Miscegenation between Whites and Blacks predominated in Brazil in general; however, there are regional exceptions where the indigenous element was more remarkable. Northern Brazil in general, Sertão (interior of Northeast) and the Pampa region in the South (Southwest Rio Grande do Sul) are some of the Brazilian areas where the Amerindian element was more important than the African one. However, in all Brazilian regions European, African and Amerindian genetic markers are found on the local populations, even though the proportion of each varies from region to region.

Not all descendants of this mixture of peoples are included in the "parda" category. Since racial classifications in Brazil are based on phenotype, rather than ancestry, a large part of the self-reported White population has African and Amerindian ancestors. Besides skin color, there are social factors that influence the racial classifications in Brazil, such as social class, wealth, racial prejudice and stigma of being Black, Mulatto or Amerindian.

Moreno

In daily usage, Brazilians use the ambiguous term "moreno", a word that means "dark-skinned", "dark-haired", "tawny", "Brown" (when referring to people), "suntanned". "Moreno" is often used as an intermediate colour category, similar to "pardo", but its meaning is significantly broader, including people who self identify as Black, White, Yellow and Indigenous in the IBGE classification system. In a 1995 survey, 32% of the population self-identified as "moreno", with a further 6% self-identifying as "moreno claro" ("light brown"), and 7% self-identified as "pardo". Telles describes both classifications as "biologically invalid", but sociologically significant.