White Brazilians: Difference between revisions - Wikipedia

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Latin American [[oligarchies]], which remained predominantly of European origin, felt bothered with the large numbers of blacks and mixed Indians that made up the majority of the population. As a result, countries such as [[Argentina]], [[Uruguay]] and Brazil started to encourage the arrival of European immigrants, in order to make the white population grow and to dilute the African and Amerindian blood in their population. Argentina even had an article in its Constitution prohibiting any attempt to prevent the entry of European immigrants in the country. In the case of Brazil, the immigrants started arriving in huge numbers during the 1880s. From 1886 to 1900, almost 1.4 million Europeans arrived, of whom over 900,000 were Italians. During this period of 14 years, Brazil received more Europeans than during the over 300 years of colonization.

BeforeAccording to [[Darcy Ribeiro]] before [[1850]], no more than 700500,000 PortugueseEuropeans settled in Brazil<ref>Darcy Ribeiro. O Povo Brasileiro, Vol. 07, 1997 (1997).</ref> [[IBGE]] estimated that the number was close to 700,000 Portuguese.<ref>http://www.ibge.gov.br/ibgeteen/povoamento/portugueses.html</ref>. FromThe mass European immigration to Brazil only started in the second half of the 19th century, from 1850 to 1970, some 5 million Europeans arrived, because of three main reasons:

*to "whiten" Brazil, since the Amerindian and African elements predominated in the population, a fact that bothered the local elite, that considered these races inferior. Then, they thought they needed to bring European peoples in order to elevate the racial status of the local population. This Brazilian thinking was shared with other Latin American countries, such as Argentina and Uruguay.