Exam 3 - Ethnicity & Race

Question 1

Historical population patterns – comparing Spanish & Portuguese areas

Answer 1

In the Spanish colonies: 17M total; 7.5M indigenous, 5.3M
mestizos, 3.2M whites, 1M blacks and mulattos

In Brazil: blacks and mulattos 2.5M, whites 1M,indigenous
and mestizos 500,000

Question 2

 Spanish asiento

Answer 2

Spanish asiento was the licensing system which contracted with British,
Dutch, Portuguese, or French to supply labor from Africa

Question 3

 Diversity of African populations in Americas

Answer 3

The populations of Africans brought to the New World were very diverse like the sending regions they were from; ½ died on way to coast
 West Africa (Senegal & Gambia), central African coast, Congo & Angola, East Africa (Mozambique)
 About 9M total in Latin America

Question 4

 Middle Passage, Tumbieros

Answer 4

The Middle Passage – the harsh voyage from Africa to the New World – many died from the conditions on board
 Tumbeiros: “slavers” or “coffin ships” were used to
transport the captives
 Designed for maximum occupancy
 Captives were only brought above deck for
about one hour a day during the 6-8 week journey

Question 5

 Colonial powers & the rights of enslaved

Answer 5

Circumstances of slaves was based on the colonial power – Spanish/Portuguese: guaranteed rights based on Roman legal codes
 Right to life, could not be legally killed
 Protection of women & children from their masters
 Right to own personal property
 Right to enter into personal contracts
 Right to purchase their personal freedom
 Catholic Church – slaves possess immortal souls; should have Sundays and religious holidays off

Question 6

 Manumission/other freedoms, Free Black populations

Answer 6

 Manumission (granting freedom) & other forms of freedom
(purchasing freedom)
 Free Black populations grew so that by the end of the colonial era they outnumber slaves
 Mexico & Panama by 9:1; Brazil 3:1

Question 7

 Slave resistance (forms of), quilombos

Answer 7

 Passive—feigning illness or laziness; sabotaging crops and property
 Violent—rebellions/revolts occurred less frequently; also took form of suicide
 Escape—individual acts of short duration; groups to physically isolated backlands
 Maroon/cimarrones/quilombos – communities of free blacks/escaped slaves
 NE Brazil, British & Dutch Guyana, Colombia, Mexico, Jamaica

Question 8

 Abolition (when/where) and migration (rural to urban)

Answer 8

Slavery was abolished in British and French empires in
1830s, by mid-1800s in independent countries, Brazil in
1888
 The freed Black populations tended to relocate from
rural areas to urban areas

Question 9

 Asian populations (where & why)

Answer 9

 Indentured workers
 800,000 came as contract laborers in sugar zones (recall that Black populations migrated away from rural areas after slavery is abolished)
 Chinese (Peru/Cuba), South Asians (French/English colonies), Javanese (Suriname)
 Terms of service
 Passage for committed period of work on plantation
 Generally low wages/bad living conditions
 After service
 Reenlist, remain, return
 Less than 1/3 returned
 Became farmers, tradesmen, and (later) white-collar professionals

Question 10

 Miscegenation

Answer 10

Miscegenation—racial mixing
 Few women migrated to Americas
 Tradition from Moorish Iberia

Question 11

 Castas

Answer 11

Castas—categories created to define mixed groups (meztizo, mulattos, etc.)
     Race correlated to socioeconomic class in colonial era
     Became almost infinite—lost meaning—meant different things to different people

Question 12

 Social race

Answer 12

 Confusion over the infinite number of castas lead to the
construction of social races—determined by lifestyle over physical
features
 Social vs. biological markers
 Occupation, language, dress, diet, religion
 Made it possible for people to change their racial classification by
altering their lifestyle
 EX: dressing like a European or wearing traditional indigenous
dress

Question 13

 “whitening” of populations

Answer 13

Physical “whitening” or “bleaching” of Latin American populations
 Population becoming more European-like—declining numbers of Indigenous & Blacks
 Fewer Black women than men; they tended to marry later; miscegenation
 Black men died in military campaigns in Argentina; Indigenous were targeted in wars of extermination (“Indian Wars”)
 Blacks: 30% (early 1800s) to 1.8% (1887)
 Indigenous: 5% (1869) to 0.7% (1895)

Question 14

 Social Darwinism

Answer 14

Social Darwinism – theory that human societies could be compared to competing natural species
 Led to racist immigration policies—encouraging white indentured and non-indentured migration
 Argentine immigration – btw 1880 and 1930 added 3,225,000 – mostly from Italy (43%) & Spain (34%)

Question 15

 Social racial prejudice

Answer 15

Social racial prejudice vs. physical racial prejudice

Question 16

 Internalized racism

Answer 16

Internalized racism—repudiation of culture & self – “denial of the self”

Question 17

 Indigenismo

Answer 17

Indigenismo – exaltation of indigenaity, preservation of culture; anti-Columbus campaign in 1992, Zapatista uprising, MAS movement in Bolivia
 ‘To the Indian, the Spaniard is only a tenant. And we have to hit him, complain about him and tell him to
leave, because we are the owners and we are going
to return.’

Question 18

 Pan Africanism/Negritude

Answer 18

Negritude/Pan-Africanism— celebrated Black culture and challenged notions of race constructed as part of the colonial project of domination; influential in anti-colonial,
nationalist struggles