White Brazilians ( ) refers to Brazilian citizens who are considered or self-identify as "white" due to their phenotype, often because of European or Levantine ancestry.
The main ancestry of current white Brazilians is Portuguese. Historically, the Portuguese were the Europeans who mostly immigrated to Brazil: it is estimated that, between 1500 and 1808, 500,000 of them went to live in Brazil, and the Portuguese were practically the only European group to have definitively settled in colonial Brazil.
Furthermore, even after independence, the Portuguese were among the nationalities that mostly immigrated to Brazil. Between 1884 and 1973, 4,734,494-7 million immigrants entered Brazil, mostly from Portugal and Italy, but also from Spain, Germany, Poland and other countries; nowadays millions of Brazilians are also descended from these immigrants.
The white Brazilian population is spread throughout Brazil's territory, but its highest percentage is found in the three southernmost states, where 72.6% of the population claims to be White in the censuses, whereas the Southeast region has the largest absolute numbers.
According to the 2022 Census, the states with the highest percentage of white Brazilians are: Rio Grande do Sul (78.4%), Santa Catarina (76.3%), Paraná (64.6%), and São Paulo (57.8%). Other states with significant percentages are: Mato Grosso do Sul (42.4%), Rio de Janeiro (42%), Minas Gerais (41.1%), and Espírito Santo (38.6%). São Paulo has the largest population in absolute numbers with over 25 million whites.
Conception of "white" in Brazil
The conception of "white" in Brazil is similar to other Latin American countries yet different to the United States, where historically only people of entirely or (almost entirely) European ancestry have been considered white, due to the one drop rule. In Brazil and in Latin America in general, this conception does not exist. A 2000 survey conducted in Rio de Janeiro concluded that "racial purity" is not important for a person to be classified as white in Brazil. The survey asked respondents if they had any ancestors who were European, African or Amerindian. As much as 52% of those whites reported they have some non-European ancestry: 25% reported to have some African ancestry and 14% reported Amerindian ancestry (15% of them reported to have both). Only 48% of those whites did not report any non-European ancestry. Thus, in Brazil, one can self-identify as "white" and still have African or Amerindian ancestry, and such a person has no problem admitting to having non-European ancestors.
+ Self-reported ancestry of whites from Rio de Janeiro (2000 survey) AncestryPercentageEuropean only 48%European and African25%European, African and Amerindian15%European and Amerindian14%
In colonial Brazil, the formation of a white population of exclusive European ancestry was not very common. In the first centuries of colonization, almost only Portuguese men immigrated to Brazil, since Portuguese women were often prevented from migrating. Given such gender imbalance, Portuguese male settlers often had relationships with Amerindian or African women, which led to an extremely mixed population.
At the end of the 19th century, when eugenic ideas arrived in Brazil, a severe racial segregation, similar to that of the United States or South Africa, that separated "whites" from "non-whites", was regarded as impractical in Brazil, since this would even exclude many members of the Brazilian elite. Thus, in Brazil, racial classifications are more flexible and based primarily on a person's physical characteristics, such as skin color, hair type and other physical traits, tending to identify as "white" a person with lighter skin color.
In Brazil, social prejudice connected to certain details in the physical appearance of individual is widespread. Those details are related to the concept of "cor". "Cor", Portuguese for "color", denotes the Brazilian rough equivalent of the term "race" in English, but is based on a complex phenotypic evaluation that takes into account skin pigmentation, hair type, nose shape, and lip shape. This concept, unlike the English notion of "race", captures the continuous aspects of phenotypes. Thus, it seems there is no racial descent rule operational in Brazil; it is even possible for two siblings to belong to completely diverse "racial" categories. Second paragraph
An important factor about whiteness in Brazil is the racial stigma of being Amerindian or Black, which is undesirable and avoided for a large part of the population. Scientific racism largely influenced race relations in Brazil since the late 19th century. The predominant non-white, mostly Afro-Brazilian population was seen as a problem for Brazil in the eyes of the predominantly white elite of the country. In contrast to some countries, like the United States or South Africa, which tried to avoid miscegenation, even imposing anti-miscegenation laws, in Brazil miscegenation was always legal. What was expected was that miscegenation would eventually turn all Brazilians into whites. However, the most recent census in 2010 showed a shift in mentality, with a growing number of Brazilians identifying themselves as brown or Black, accompanied by a decrease in the percentage of whites, with affirmative action and identity valorisation being factors.
As a result of that desire of whitening its own population, the Brazilian ruling classes encouraged the arrival of massive European immigration to the country. In the 1890s, 1.2 million European immigrants were added to the country's 5 million whites. Today the Brazilian areas with larger proportions of whites tend to have been destinations of massive European immigration between 1880 and 1930.
The following are the results for the different Brazilian censuses, since 1872:
History Portuguese colonization
Brazil received more European settlers during its colonial era than any other country in the Americas. Between 1500 and 1760, about 700,000 Europeans immigrated to Brazil.
In the first two centuries of colonization (16th and 17th centuries), it is estimated that no more than 100,000 Portuguese people migrated to Brazil. They were more affluent immigrants, who settled mainly in the captaincies of Pernambuco and Bahia, to explore sugar production, which was the most profitable activity in the colony at that time. At the end of the 16th century, the white population (the vast majority Portuguese) was of over 30,000 people, mainly concentrated in the captaincies of Pernambuco, Bahia and São Vicente. The colonization process continued throughout the 17th century and by the end of the century, the white population was of nearly 100,000 people.
It is notable that most Portuguese settlers arrived in Brazil in the 18th century: 600,000 in a period of only sixty years. Initially unattractive during the first two centuries of colonization, as it concentrated sugar production, which required high investments, by the end of the 17th and in the beginning of the 18th centuries, due to the retreat of the Portuguese Empire in Asia and the discoveries of gold in the Brazilian region of Minas Gerais, there were more favorable conditions for the arrival of Portuguese immigrants in Brazil. There was no need for major investments for mining activity. Mining in these regions was a crucial factor in the arrival of this contingent of Portuguese immigrants.
A characteristic of the Portuguese colonization is that it was predominantly male. Portuguese immigration to Brazil in the 16th and 17th centuries was made up almost exclusively of men. The typical Portuguese settler in Brazil was a young man in his late teens or in his early twenties, coming from the provinces of Northern Portugal, most notably Minho and Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, or from the Atlantic islands. White women of marriageable age were rare throughout the Portuguese maritime Empire. The few Portuguese families that immigrated to Brazil tended to stay on the coast, rarely penetrating the interior. The situation changed slightly in the 18th century, when the migration of families and women from the Azores and Madeira islands increased.Escravos e Libertos no Brasil Colonial. A.J.R RUSSEL-WOOD.
In addition to the fact that marriageable Portuguese women who arrived in Brazil were rare, the few remaining white women often remained celibate, as it was a tradition among aristocratic or richer white families to send their daughters to Catholic convents, where they would follow a religious life. Given this absence of white women available for marriage, it was inevitable for Portuguese colonists to take as a lover a woman of African or indigenous origin. The Portuguese Crown's concern about the scarcity of marriages among whites in the colony became evident in 1732, when John V of Portugal prohibited women from leaving Brazil, with some exceptions. In order to curb miscegenation, in a royal decree of 1726, the king demanded that all candidates for positions in the municipal councils of Minas Gerais had to be whites and husbands or widowers of white women. Restrictive measures like this, however, would not be able to restrict the natural tendency to miscegenation in colonial Brazil.
Thus, the "white" population of colonial Brazil was not formed by the multiplication of European families in the colony, as occurred, for example, in the United States, but often by the miscegenation between European men and African or indigenous women, giving rise to a population defined as "white", but which was, to a greater or lesser degree, of mixed-race heritage. This population, speaking Portuguese and completely integrated with the "neo-Brazilian" culture, has assisted the Portuguese colonizers to impose their dominant characteristics in Brazil.
The impact of the Portuguese colonization
According to estimates of Brazil's ethnic composition in 1835 (excluding the indigenous peoples), just over half of the Brazilian population was black (51.4%), followed by whites (24.4%) and brown people (18.2%). About four decades later, in 1872, the census registered significant changes in the ethnic composition: blacks dropped to 19.7%, while whites increased their proportion to 38.1% and brown people became the most numerous, at 42.2%.
+ Color / race in Brazil, after Portuguese colonization (Amerindians excluded) Year White Brown Black 1835 24.4% 18.2%51.4% 1872 38.1% 42.2%19.7%
The proportional reduction of blacks and the increase of whites and brown people, between 1835 and 1872, had little or nothing to do with a recent European immigration: between 1822 and 1872, only 268,000 European immigrants entered Brazil, and these immigrants and their descendants did not exceed 6% of the Brazilian population in 1872. This change can be explained by the fact that the Portuguese colonizers and their descendants managed to reproduce much more quickly than Africans and their descendants. During the three centuries of African slavery in Brazil, the growth of the black population was basically due to the importation of new slaves from Africa, given that the natural reproduction of slaves was very slow and even little stimulated (it was more economical to buy new slaves than to take care of slave children). Moreover, life expectancy of slaves in Brazil was very low. In the words of Augustin Saint-Hilaire: "An infinity of blacks died without leaving any descendants". In 1850, with the prohibition of the entry of new slaves in Brazil, the proportional growth of the black population not only stagnated, but also decreased substantially, as can be seen.Viagem à província de São Paulo, fls. 69, Livraria Itatiaia Editora Ltda, 1976)