Late 18th century Brazil:49.4% of the population were slaves

[Tutankhamun]

Are those murals from Debret as well (the battle scenes)?

Some yes, others are by German artists.

[J.Haddadd]

Statistics is not the strongest aptitude of the people here. If 49.4% of the Brazilian colonial population in 1790 (excluding Amerindians, who were not counted as part of the population) was made of slaves who were mostly men and had a life expectancy of 4-5 years in Brazil, it means Brazil is MORE black nowadays than the expected. Buenos Aires in the early 19th century was 30% made of slaves and the average SSA DNA on porteños is less than 5%, actually around 2-3%.

It means that despite the huge European influx from 1700 to 1950 Brazil also received many ''recent blacks'' in the 19th century who are responsible for a larger black input. The total number of slaves don't matter as much as their birth rates and mortality rates.

[Tooting Carmen]

Statistics is not the strongest aptitude of the people here. If 49.4% of the Brazilian colonial population (excluding Amerindians, who were not counted as part of the population) was made of slaves who were mostly men and had a life expectancy of 4-5 years in Brazil, it means Brazil is MORE black nowadays than the expected. Buenos Aires in the early 19th century was 30% made of slaves and the average SSA DNA on porteños is less than 5%, actually around 2-3%.

It means that despite the guge European influx from 1700 to 1950 Brazil also received many ''recent blacks'' in the 19th century who are responsible for a large black input.

Well Brazil didn't abolish slavery until the 1880's...

[Andullero]

Well Brazil didn't abolish slavery until the 1880's...

Yep, but the British Navy enforced ban on the slave trade from 1807 onwards did put a huge dent on the numbers they could import yearly. Plus the annual influx of Portuguese settlers ensured that they would never reach the Caribbean type imbalances of 90% enslaved vs 10% free.

[J.Haddadd]

Well Brazil didn't abolish slavery until the 1880's...

Most of the African input in Brazil arrived in the period between 1800-1850, if they abolished slavery when they became independent they would be a mix between Argentina and Puerto Rico rather than a mix of Argentina and Dominican Republic with touches of Venezuela.

[Tooting Carmen]

Yep, but the British Navy enforced ban on the slave trade from 1807 onwards did put a huge dent on the numbers they could import yearly. Plus the annual influx of Portuguese settlers ensured that they would never reach the Caribbean type imbalances of 90% enslaved vs 10% free.

Granted, but nevertheless the fact that slavery lasted so long in Brazil and that the country still even today gets a free pass on its sordid history compared to the US is extraordinary itself. By contrast, Colombia, which in many other respects is certainly no more 'progressive' than Brazil and arguably less so, introduced the (for its time) revolutionary "Ley del Ventre", which stated that all children born to a slavemaster and slave were automatically freeborn regardless of the former's wishes, even before slavery was abolished altogether in the 1820's.

[Zumbi]

Some paintings from that period, I would say another 50% were somewhere around 30-35% Portuguese.

Spoiler!

Indigenous people were not included in these statistics because they were always seen as a ''barbarian people'' by the Portuguese and Brazilians of the time, even in the north where indigenous people were more numerous in the local census you only find ''Brancos'' ''Negros'' ''Negros livres'' and ''Mestiços'' no indigenous people, indigenous people have always been seen as ''foreigners'' in Portuguese America. Of course, that would all change if the indigenous converted to Christianity, there are several reports of indigenous people who converted and lived normally in Luso-Brazilian society at the time.


At the same time of these paintings that I showed there are these, of wars against indigenous.

Spoiler!

I found this other paper:

"500 anos de demografia brasileira: uma resenha"

https://www.rebep.org.br/revista/article/view/335

The paper quotes the population of european origin as being 31,1% of the pop in 1798

And "Índios" as being 7,8% of the pop

[Tenma de Pegasus]

Considering the very low life expectative of africans in Brazil

I think colonial Brazil would generate a big Pernambuco without the XIX european migration