Are these Argentine admixture percentages accurate?

Ah, I also LOVE Piazzolla's music. And I found his music is really the "musical face" of Argentina and certainly Buenos Aires. Every time I listen to his music, especially the amazing "Concierto para bandoneón", I immediately remind my long hours walking kilometers and kilometers in Buenos Aires (that's how I like my trips: walking a lot and wandering a lot around and a bit further from the touristy places to really see the "soul" of the place). One of my most pleasurable moments there was when I put my headphones and started walking on the streets of the Buenos Aires downtown and Recoleta while listening to Piazzolla's "Adiós nonino" and "Concierto para bandoneon" on my smartphone. Good memories!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgEkGs71OIE

recoleta-4-1024x666.jpg


recoleta.jpg
 
Tango shows are constantly coming to NYC, and I often go. I'm a dance nut. When I was flush with money because I had no children yet I had season's tickets to The New York City Ballet. Now I have to be more selective, especially because there are so many wonderful dance companies of all kinds in New York. It's one of the reasons I can never move too far away from here: dance, music, museums, galleries, lectures.

Forever Tango and Tango House are just two of them. It's more mesmerizing in person than in video. I can't take my eyes off them.

I am no fan of the British and American show versions I see on TV.

One of my favorite tangos is by two young Argentines in Robert Duval's movie Assassination Tango.

Have you ever seen Carlos Saura's movie "Tango"? It's fabulous. He shows the whole evolution of tango.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCL4aLaCTsM
 
Argentines are more mixed than they're generally thought to be (and also most of them themselves think they are). But the truth is that it varies A LOT between regions. People in Buenos Aires (I can affirm that because I've visited the city twice and walked a lot around in several distinct neighborhoods) has an unquestionable white majority, but lots of mestizo-looking people (but mostly mestizos with a more Europe-shifted phenotype than you think if your idea of a Hispanic mestizo is Mexicans or Peruvians ones). In Buenos Aires the capital and the province of Buenos Aires I won't be surprised if at least ~75-85% of the local gene pool is of European background. In that sense of strong regional structure, Argentina almost parallels what happens in Brazil, though Brazil has an even more varied genetic makeup,a more mixed populace within each region (most of them at least) and a much higher relevant contribution of African ancestry.

I find it intriguing, though, that while in my experience foreign people severely overestimate the European ancestry in average Argentines, those same people usually severely underestimate the European ancestry in Brazil, to the point that a lot of white and light-skinned mixed-race (who appear white-passing in many nations) people from Brazil tell stories about people who were totally surprised when they told them they were Brazilians and had pretty ordinary looks for Brazilian people. In fact, the difference between Brazil and Argentina as a whole is mainly in the amount of African ancestry. Brazilians are ~60-65% European on average, Argentines, probably ~65-75% on average. What really sets them apart is that African admixture is ~15-25% in Brazil, and at most ~2-4% in Argentina.


i am not sure about it :unsure:
durate is a white brazilian from this forum and show only 4-5% sub -sharan
how do you reach this high number ? ......:unsure:
and not even speaking on german brazilians in the deep south brazil who are 2-3% amerindian
if any....
and don't score sub -sharan or only 1-3% of it
 
i am not sure about it :unsure:
durate is a white brazilian from this forum and show only 4-5% sub -sharan
how do you reach this high number ? ......:unsure:
and not even speaking on german brazilians in the deep south brazil who are 2-3% amerindian
if any....
and don't score sub -sharan or only 1-3% of it

At least 3 different autosomal genetic studies show that.
Duarte is a very white Brazilian. He's not the average Brazilian. Average white Brazilians will have something like ~5-10% Subsaharan African ancestry and ~5-10% Amerindian ancestry on average. But white Brazilians are "just" ~43-45% of the population.

Averages are, well, averages. You will have people who are 99.99% European, and you will have people who are just 10% European. The average, though, is ~60-65%, and the vast majority of the population will be between ~40% and ~80% European ancestry.

German Brazilians are like Italian Brazilians: only still mostly unmixed in tiny inland towns. The majority, especially people younger than 50 years old, are already mixed with people from other backgrounds, fully European or not. Moreover, German Brazilians are not a majority in the Brazilian South. There is a lot of mostly Iberian and Amerindian pre-Great Migration (the period from ~1870 to ~1930 in which Brazil received 6 million immigrants, joining USA, Argentina and Canada as the main destinations of worldwide European emigration) substrate in the region, which already had about 8% of Brazil's population (i.e. ~800,000 people) when the massive-scale immigration to the South started by the early 1870s (not it has about 15% of the country's population). On average ~75% to ~87% of the Southern Brazilian genetic makeup is European, so there is a substantial non-European contribution, too. Few people know this, but Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil's southernmost country) also has one of the largest black populations of Brazil and is (this is what is really surprising) the Brazilian state where the highest proportion of people claim to practice Afro-Brazilian religions.

My opinion is that Porteño Argentines, Chileans and Southern Brazilians usually and deliberately underestimate the non-European contributions to their culture and demographics. Actually, many of them go as far as denying or at least underrating the Iberian contribution, as if it weren't a decisive part of those regions' origins, perhaps even the most one.
 
i am not sure about it :unsure:
durate is a white brazilian from this forum and show only 4-5% sub -sharan
how do you reach this high number ? ......:unsure:
and not even speaking on german brazilians in the deep south brazil who are 2-3% amerindian
if any....
and don't score sub -sharan or only 1-3% of it
There're important variations in South Brazil. The region is somewhat heterogeneous in ancestry proportions, as Brazil as a whole. I believe Ygorcs referred to averages.

ED: just saw that Ygorcs already answered.

@Ygorcs
Nice to see Milton Manica again, after so much time. I remember him. Apparently he's from Brazil (South).
http://www.artistasgauchos.com.br/portal/?id=10107
https://br.pinterest.com/pin/556968678888672651/
 
There're important variations in South Brazil. The region is somewhat heterogeneous in ancestry proportions, as Brazil as a whole. I believe Ygorcs referred to averages.

ED: just saw that Ygorcs already answered.

@Ygorcs
Nice to see Milton Manica again, after so much time. I remember him. Apparently he's from Brazil (South).
http://www.artistasgauchos.com.br/portal/?id=10107
https://br.pinterest.com/pin/556968678888672651/

Indeed, I think the South is probably more heterogeneous even than the Northeast, North and Center-West. Probably second only to the Southeast. The cultural and demographic difference e.g. between the gaúcho Pampas region and the northern mountainous areas of Rio Grande do Sul, and between the coastal plain of Santa Catarina and the high plateus in the interior. Some parts have much more non-white people, some parts are far more Iberian in the dominant European ancestry, some others more Italian and German, some even more Slavic.

I didn't know him before. Very thrilling dancing performance! ;)
 
Thanks for answere both of you (y)
I didn't know brazil is that mixed...:unsure:
About white brazilians scoring 5-10% subsharan
And 5-10% amerindian sound logic
Dont see it in there phenotypes:unsure:
When i think of white brazilian person
This guy come to my head:cool-v:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_Araújo
 
Yes, Brazil is very mixed both across different phenotypic groups (I wouldn't really call them "races", the classification is entirely based on subjective perception of looks) and also within each of those phenotypic groups, in individuals' genetic makeup. I think it is the true melting pot, because it did truly melt at least partly the original genetic and phenotypic makeup of the peoples that composed the Brazilian society. I see the USA (at least until the 1960s) as a sort of patchwork, but not melting pot like Brazil. No phenotypic group of Brazil is not mixed (on average) to relevant degrees, some of them even very much so. I'd say you can break it down a bit like this:

Whites: ~80-85% European, ~5-10% African, ~5-10% Amerindian
Pardos/morenos (brown/mixed/swarthy, translations vary): ~50-55% European, ~20-30% African, ~15-30% Amerindian
Blacks: ~50-60% African, ~30-35% European, ~5-20% Amerindian
Other groups (indigenous and East Asians): ~80-90% Amerindian (or East Asian), ~10-20% others

White and black Brazilians are some of the most mixed in the world. You can see it in the looks of the majority of the Brazilian blacks: while they're about ~40-45% non-African, non-African admixture in African-Americans are ~20-25% non-African genetically.
 
Indeed, I think the South is probably more heterogeneous even than the Northeast, North and Center-West. Probably second only to the Southeast. The cultural and demographic difference e.g. between the gaúcho Pampas region and the northern mountainous areas of Rio Grande do Sul, and between the coastal plain of Santa Catarina and the high plateus in the interior. Some parts have much more non-white people, some parts are far more Iberian in the dominant European ancestry, some others more Italian and German, some even more Slavic.

I didn't know him before. Very thrilling dancing performance! ;)
Agreed.
The Southern half of the state is way more "gaúcho", with very few exceptions, São Lourenço do Sul being one of them (this city has a good frequency of people with Pomeranian background, but they're not necessarily the majority anyway).

That said, perhaps even the gaúchos proper may be different from each other. I have the impression that those from Pampas have more SSA contribution than those from the Campos de Cima da Serra and Missões, even if NA is the predominant non-Iberian ancestry in both. I may be mistaken though (regarding these regions being significantly different on this).
As for SSA ancestry itself, I believe two important hotspots are Pelotas and the capital Porto Alegre, but obviously it shows up in many other areas. Santa Catarina must have less SSA contribution than Rio Grande do Sul.
Perhaps the most important "cultural" item in Rio Grande do Sul (not exclusive, of course), important for ALL "ethnicities" in the state, is the "chimarrão", which is NA in origin. You may be German in ancestry, North Italian or whatever, chimarrão will likely be important for you. Generally speaking (obviously not all people use it). :)
When it comes to Euro ancestry in South (or actually any ancestry), perhaps one way to think it is using "cities". You have, say, the "Iberian" city (gaúchos, generally Portuguese+NA+SSA in whatever proportions), the Italian, the German (also some fewer Polish and Ukrainian), the Italian mixed more with gaúchos (or vice-versa), the German mixed more with gaúchos (or vice-versa), the Italian mixed more with Germans, all mixed, and on and on. It's really interesting, because sometimes you travel just few kilometers and voilà, you're in a city with a completely different predominant ancestry.
In some rare cases, you have internal divisions, such in Nova Petrópolis. Here, you have some districts with more bohemians (such in Linha Imperial) - probably mixed already with other kind of "Germans" -, in other you may have more Pomeranian, or Rennans etc. I remember to have read that the city had to be "descentralized", i.e., some of these Germans had to be separated from each other, since the beginning, due to rivalry (possibly related to religion) or something.
 
Tango shows are constantly coming to NYC, and I often go. I'm a dance nut. When I was flush with money because I had no children yet I had season's tickets to The New York City Ballet. Now I have to be more selective, especially because there are so many wonderful dance companies of all kinds in New York. It's one of the reasons I can never move too far away from here: dance, music, museums, galleries, lectures.

Forever Tango and Tango House are just two of them. It's more mesmerizing in person than in video. I can't take my eyes off them.

I am no fan of the British and American show versions I see on TV.

One of my favorite tangos is by two young Argentines in Robert Duval's movie Assassination Tango.

Have you ever seen Carlos Saura's movie "Tango"? It's fabulous. He shows the whole evolution of tango.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCL4aLaCTsM


For those who are not from Rio de la Plata, tango is basically a dance. But for Argentines and Uruguayans, tango is an expression of life due to the depth of its lyrics. I, just after my 50 years of age, began to appreciate it (before it was "the music of old people" for me), and only then did I understand the phrase that says: .. tango knows how to wait for you. And when you get to it ... it hits you in the chest ...
 
Yes, Brazil is very mixed both across different phenotypic groups (I wouldn't really call them "races", the classification is entirely based on subjective perception of looks) and also within each of those phenotypic groups, in individuals' genetic makeup. I think it is the true melting pot, because it did truly melt at least partly the original genetic and phenotypic makeup of the peoples that composed the Brazilian society. I see the USA (at least until the 1960s) as a sort of patchwork, but not melting pot like Brazil. No phenotypic group of Brazil is not mixed (on average) to relevant degrees, some of them even very much so. I'd say you can break it down a bit like this:

Whites: ~80-85% European, ~5-10% African, ~5-10% Amerindian
Pardos/morenos (brown/mixed/swarthy, translations vary): ~50-55% European, ~20-30% African, ~15-30% Amerindian
Blacks: ~50-60% African, ~30-35% European, ~5-20% Amerindian
Other groups (indigenous and East Asians): ~80-90% Amerindian (or East Asian), ~10-20% others

White and black Brazilians are some of the most mixed in the world. You can see it in the looks of the majority of the Brazilian blacks: while they're about ~40-45% non-African, non-African admixture in African-Americans are ~20-25% non-African genetically.
Agreed.
The Southern half of the state is way more "gaúcho", with very few exceptions, São Lourenço do Sul being one of them (this city has a good frequency of people with Pomeranian background, but they're not necessarily the majority anyway).

That said, perhaps even the gaúchos proper may be different from each other. I have the impression that those from Pampas have more SSA contribution than those from the Campos de Cima da Serra and Missões, even if NA is the predominant non-Iberian ancestry in both. I may be mistaken though (regarding these regions being significantly different on this).
As for SSA ancestry itself, I believe two important hotspots are Pelotas and the capital Porto Alegre, but obviously it shows up in many other areas. Santa Catarina must have less SSA contribution than Rio Grande do Sul.
Perhaps the most important "cultural" item in Rio Grande do Sul (not exclusive, of course), important for ALL "ethnicities" in the state, is the "chimarrão", which is NA in origin. You may be German in ancestry, North Italian or whatever, chimarrão will likely be important for you. Generally speaking (obviously not all people use it). :)
When it comes to Euro ancestry in South (or actually any ancestry), perhaps one way to think it is using "cities". You have, say, the "Iberian" city (gaúchos, generally Portuguese+NA+SSA in whatever proportions), the Italian, the German (also some fewer Polish and Ukrainian), the Italian mixed more with gaúchos (or vice-versa), the German mixed more with gaúchos (or vice-versa), the Italian mixed more with Germans, all mixed, and on and on. It's really interesting, because sometimes you travel just few kilometers and voilà, you're in a city with a completely different predominant ancestry.
In some rare cases, you have internal divisions, such in Nova Petrópolis. Here, you have some districts with more bohemians (such in Linha Imperial) - probably mixed already with other kind of "Germans" -, in other you may have more Pomeranian, or Rennans etc. I remember to have read that the city had to be "descentralized", i.e., some of these Germans had to be separated from each other, since the beginning, due to rivalry (possibly related to religion) or something.

The Human Development Index (IDH) - of Belo Horizonte is 0.810, which places the municipality in the Very High Human Development range (IDH between 0.800 and 1). The Human Development Index (IDH) - of Porto Alegre is 0.805, in 2010, which places this municipality in the Very High Human Development Index, also. Development range (IDH between 0.800 and 1). BH has a higher IDH than Porto Alegre. As mentioned, the BH’s Human Development Index is considered very high, according to data from the United Nations Development Program. According to data from the 2010 report, released in 2013, its value was 0.810, being the second largest in Minas Gerais, after Nova Lima (0.813). Therefore, the BH’s IDH is higher than that of Porto Alegre, capital of Rio Grande do Sul. The vast majority of whites in BH live in these places: “There are neighborhoods that have very high human development indexes in BH (equal to or greater than the indexes of some Scandinavian countries): Carmo / Sion (0.973): greater than Iceland - 0.968; Cruzeiro / Anchieta / Funcionários (0.970): greater than Iceland - 0.968; Grajau / Gutierrez (0.965): greater than Australia - 0.962; Belvedere / Mangabeiras / Comiteco (0.964): greater than Australia - 0.962; Serra / São Lucas (0.953): equal to Japan, Netherlands - 0.953”. The people who live in these neighborhoods have the phenotype equivalent to mine and I, in particular, do not believe they have more than 5% SSA. I do not believe that. They are the elite of the state.
Come and do “a search in loco” in Belo Horizonte‘.(y):)
 
In some places in Brazil perhaps it was the way it used to be in Cuba? I've known a few "white" Cubans quite well, children and grandchildren of people who fled Castro's Cuba.

They never suspected that they had any non-European ancestry; they only found out when they did one of the retail ancestry tests.

In all of the ones I knew, most had a few percent SSA, and a few also had a few percent Amerindian, and carried Amerindian mtDna. The latter was the biggerr shock as the history books had said that the "natives" were exterminated. If I remember correctly, the Amerindian showed up in the eastern part of the island.

The totals were never more than around 5-7%, and it certainly wasn't visible.

In the case of Cuba, these people, who were indeed the "elite", all fled when their properties were confiscated. One of them returned for a visit, to the anger of his family and friends, and said from what he could see there were no "white" Cubans left. That entire part of Cuban history is gone.

Many of the people who remain do carry European ancestry, of course.

I suppose another example is the Afrikaners. The first settlers were men; they took mates from among the locals or the slaves, but some of the children of those unions then only admixed with full Europeans, and so the other ancestry was diluted.

Coincidentally, there was a clip on my youtube feed yesterday about Sally Hemings, the slave "concubine" of President Thomas Jefferson. Historians and his white descendants have always denied it, but recent dna testing is pretty conclusive.

This poor mulatto or quadroon girl gave birth to six or seven children, starting when she was just sixteen years old. Even more appalling, she was the half sister of his deceased wife and much older. He never treated them in a "fatherly" way, but she, and they, received "special treatment", and when they were 21, two of the children, a boy and a girl, were "allowed" and actually aided by him in "running away". They "passed" into the white community and their descendants are unknown.

Two boys, Eston and Madison, remained with their mother, whom he never freed. She was freed after his death by Jefferson's daughter. He did free the two boys in his will. Madison chose to remain in the "colored" community and he has African American descendants today. Eston took the Jefferson name and claimed Thomas Jefferson as his father. He married another mostly white woman, and his descendants were part of the white community. The connection was a family legend but dna testing has proved the males carry Thomas Jefferson's specific yDna.

There are no pictures of Sally Hemings or of Eston Hemings Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson's son, but this is his son Beverly.
Jefferson_Beverly.jpg


This is another of Eston's sons, John Wayles Jefferson, who became a rich and successful cotton broker.
Jefferson-John-Wayles.jpg


Clearly, 5% SSA doesn't "show".

The whole thing disgusts me. I think he freed them but not her because be believed (the statement is found among his account books) that if a slave is an octoroon, or only one-eighth African, they perhaps might be considered "white" enough to be freed. I think he said something like one sixteenth or one thirty-secondth is "better". Don't quote me but it was something horrible like that.

I know we shouldn't judge the people of the past by the standards of today, but by that time some people were already indeed appalled by such callous and immoral behavior, among them President John Adams and his wife Abigail, who fell out with Jefferson when they found out and never really spoke again.
 
Angela a good example
of
A white cuban
Is andy garcia

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_García

To me he looks full iberian
Or full south italian...😉
Auosomally he might carry some %
Sub- sharan or some % amerindian
But it is not visible in his phenotype
Not for nothing they took him for godfather😉
 
Angela a good example
of
A white cuban
Is andy garcia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_García
To me he looks full iberian
Or full south italian...������
Auosomally he might carry some %
Sub- sharan or some % amerindian
But it is not visible in his phenotype
Not for nothing they took him for godfather������

I agree that he looks completely Iberian, or at least Southern European. If you really look closely, at least when he got older, there's something not quite Italian about him, but when he was young he was indeed a good "fit" phenotypically imo.
30th+Annual+American+Cinematheque+Awards+Gala+_VEA  jTUOGZEx.jpg



Desi Arnaz from I LOVE LUCY is another one.
dess.jpg


Gloria Estevan, on the other hand, who I'm sure never thought she had "minority ancestry" either, to me does show some hints of it.

3790c71d-041d-4de3-8726-b4639fc4a1fb.jpg


When she was "hot". God, I love 80s music, even when it's trashy. :)

Gloria Estevan and the Miami Sound Machine...

By the way, another one who was a good fit for a certain type of Italian in The Godfather was the Ashkenazi Jewish James Caan, who brilliantly played Sonny. He even got the walk, the mannerisms, everything right.

sonny_c.gif


Maybe overdone a bit, but good; maybe more Neapolitan than Sicilian, who in my experience can often be very, very, controlled.

 
In some places in Brazil perhaps it was the way it used to be in Cuba? I've known a few "white" Cubans quite well, children and grandchildren of people who fled Castro's Cuba.

They never suspected that they had any non-European ancestry; they only found out when they did one of the retail ancestry tests.

In all of the ones I knew, most had a few percent SSA, and a few also had a few percent Amerindian, and carried Amerindian mtDna. The latter was the biggerr shock as the history books had said that the "natives" were exterminated. If I remember correctly, the Amerindian showed up in the eastern part of the island.

The totals were never more than around 5-7%, and it certainly wasn't visible.

In the case of Cuba, these people, who were indeed the "elite", all fled when their properties were confiscated. One of them returned for a visit, to the anger of his family and friends, and said from what he could see there were no "white" Cubans left. That entire part of Cuban history is gone.

Many of the people who remain do carry European ancestry, of course.

I suppose another example is the Afrikaners. The first settlers were men; they took mates from among the locals or the slaves, but some of the children of those unions then only admixed with full Europeans, and so the other ancestry was diluted.

Coincidentally, there was a clip on my youtube feed yesterday about Sally Hemings, the slave "concubine" of President Thomas Jefferson. Historians and his white descendants have always denied it, but recent dna testing is pretty conclusive.

This poor mulatto or quadroon girl gave birth to six or seven children, starting when she was just sixteen years old. Even more appalling, she was the half sister of his deceased wife and much older. He never treated them in a "fatherly" way, but she, and they, received "special treatment", and when they were 21, two of the children, a boy and a girl, were "allowed" and actually aided by him in "running away". They "passed" into the white community and their descendants are unknown.

Two boys, Eston and Madison, remained with their mother, whom he never freed. She was freed after his death by Jefferson's daughter. He did free the two boys in his will. Madison chose to remain in the "colored" community and he has African American descendants today. Eston took the Jefferson name and claimed Thomas Jefferson as his father. He married another mostly white woman, and his descendants were part of the white community. The connection was a family legend but dna testing has proved the males carry Thomas Jefferson's specific yDna.

There are no pictures of Sally Hemings or of Eston Hemings Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson's son, but this is his son Beverly.
Jefferson_Beverly.jpg


This is another of Eston's sons, John Wayles Jefferson, who became a rich and successful cotton broker.
Jefferson-John-Wayles.jpg


Clearly, 5% SSA doesn't "show".

The whole thing disgusts me. I think he freed them but not her because be believed (the statement is found among his account books) that if a slave is an octoroon, or only one-eighth African, they perhaps might be considered "white" enough to be freed. I think he said something like one sixteenth or one thirty-secondth is "better". Don't quote me but it was something horrible like that.

I know we shouldn't judge the people of the past by the standards of today, but by that time some people were already indeed appalled by such callous and immoral behavior, among them President John Adams and his wife Abigail, who fell out with Jefferson when they found out and never really spoke again.

Interesting (and sad, too) examples, Angela.

Yes, I think some parts of Brazill, mainly in the South and the southern portion of the Southeast (mainly São Paulo), were pretty similar to Cuba. In other parts of Brazil the so-called "miscigenation ideology" has become very deep-rooted, so I think most white people will acknowledge they have Amerindian an African ancestry, too, and sometimes even overestimate it (I have read about Brazilians who were kind of "underwhelmed" by the little exotic results of their DNA tests when it turned out that they were 95%> European and nothing else). But in the South and parts of São Paulo a lot of white people were under the impression they were almost "purely" European until DNA tests arrived, though they are still not nearly as popular as they've become in the USA (few companies are available in Brazil AFAIK). The branqueamentoear("whitening") policy of late 19th century and early 20th century Brazilian national and state governments (i.e. a eugenics-based policy to "improve tha racial stock" of Brazil by diluting Amerindian and African ancestry as much as possible through large-scale immigration and a strong encouragement to multi-generational white+non-white mixing) seems to have been not only much more successful, but also much more enduring in the people's mindset in the Southeast and especially in the South.

I have seen some Southern Brazilians espouse a lot of quibbles against the autosomal DNA tests that indicate the region is "only" ~75% to ~87% (results vary) European in ancestry. Never mind that even in the "whitest" of all states, Santa Catarina, a full 1/5 of the population self-declares as non-white, and in the other southern states (including São Paulo, which is a sort of transition zone between Southeast and South) that proportion is even lower: about 20-25% in Rio Grande do Sul, 30% in Paraná and 40% in São Paulo. So, I think those results of already published autosomal studies must be pretty much accurate, even accounting for some small margin of error. In my experience I think ~5-15% non-European ancestry usually don't show up clearly in one's looks. A lot of visibly very European-like people may have that amount of African and Amerindian ancestry and never even know it.
 
The whole thing disgusts me. I think he freed them but not her because be believed (the statement is found among his account books) that if a slave is an octoroon, or only one-eighth African, they perhaps might be considered "white" enough to be freed. I think he said something like one sixteenth or one thirty-secondth is "better". Don't quote me but it was something horrible like that.

I know we shouldn't judge the people of the past by the standards of today, but by that time some people were already indeed appalled by such callous and immoral behavior, among them President John Adams and his wife Abigail, who fell out with Jefferson when they found out and never really spoke again.

Wow I didn't know that part of the story. I had sometimes wondered why it was so horrible according to many Americans, considering that concubine relationships between slaves or former slaves and wealthier white man was once pretty common stuff in many parts of the Americas, but the details are much more complicated... I was under the impression he had freed Sally after some years, too, but he didn't, and the reason why he didn't is incredibly petty and prejudiced even for the standards of the early 19th century (by that time, there were already a lot of abolitionists, and even a racist and still even more slavery-based country like Brazil already had hundreds of thousands of black - indeed black or partly black-looking, not just having African ancestry - people freed by their former owners because of many non-racial reasons, including purely emotional/affectionate ones).
 
Wow I didn't know that part of the story. I had sometimes wondered why it was so horrible according to many Americans, considering that concubine relationships between slaves or former slaves and wealthier white man was once pretty common stuff in many parts of the Americas, but the details are much more complicated... I was under the impression he had freed Sally after some years, too, but he didn't, and the reason why he didn't is incredibly petty and prejudiced even for the standards of the early 19th century (by that time, there were already a lot of abolitionists, and even a racist and still even more slavery-based country like Brazil already had hundreds of thousands of black - indeed black or partly black-looking, not just having African ancestry - people freed by their former owners because of many non-racial reasons, including purely emotional/affectionate ones).

The "Anglo-Saxon" attitude toward this cross racial sexual contact was very different from that in the Spanish, Portuguese and French colonies.

In the northern and midwestern states the vast majority of people didn't have slaves, and given the Calvinism of religious beliefs about sexuality, they found the idea that southern slave owners had sexual congress with black women appalling on all sorts of levels.

The rumors about Jefferson almost brought him down and put the government in turmoil.

In the slave holding states of the south people obviously had to know it was going on. Why were these obviously mixed people in the population, after all.

I've read a lot of accounts from the period both from white people and former or escaped slaves, and there was a sort of conspiracy of silence and almost pathological denial.

In response to Abolitionist diatribes about the practice you'll be amused to hear that one common response was to blame it on the sailors on the slave ships, often Spanish and Portuguese. When the babies were pointed out it was usually blamed on the often Irish overseers, anything rather than admit that English men were the fathers.

Both things undoubtedly happened, but it was also the slave owners themselves. Jefferson's father in law fathered six children on a mulatto woman, Elizabeth Hemings, never freed any of them, and on his death this whole family was bequeathed to his daughter Martha Wayles and ended up on Jefferson's Monticello, waiting on and working for their half sister and her family.

People went to great lengths to hide it, and it was never spoken of in "white" society. Jefferson wasn't unusual in that regard. The pretense was that Sally was just the housekeeper, with the added duty of looking after Jefferson's room and clothing. Convenient, that. Only after rather recent restorations of Monticello was it discovered that there was a hidden staircase from Sally's downstairs room into the President's bedchamber. Even more recently a "secret bedroom" with no windows was discovered where it is suspected Sally Hemings gave birth to her children.

The closest Jefferson's legitimate children ever got to acknowledging a genetic relationship was to blame it on a young nephew who was an alcoholic and ne'er-do-well who died young. They had to acknowledge some sort of relationship because there were so many accounts by northern visitors to Monticello of all these white red-haired slaves they'd seen.

French-Spanish New Orleans was different. They developed a whole system called "placage" where contracts were signed between white men and women of color, providing for them economically, and any children of the union, as well as freeing them in some situations. Of course, I'm sure there was also "extra-legal" contact as well, with violence and coercion involved, but no matter how some revisionist historians want to make the white slave owners as "bad" as possible there are too many accounts from the women themselves to the practice to deny it.

The French novelist Alexandre Dumas, one of my favorites, was the child of such a union.

alexandre-dumas-the-count-of-monte-cristo-the-three-musketeers-twenty-years-after-the-vicomte-de-bragelonne-ten-years-later.jpg


"Plaçage was a recognized extralegal system in French and Spanish slave colonies of North America (including the Caribbean) by which ethnic European men entered into civil unions with non-Europeans of African, Native American and mixed-race descent. The term comes from the French placer meaning "to place with". The women were not legally recognized as wives but were known as placées; their relationships were recognized among the free people of color as mariages de la main gauche or left-handed marriages. They became institutionalized with contracts or negotiations that settled property on the woman and her children and, in some cases, gave them freedom if they were enslaved. The system flourished throughout the French and Spanish colonial periods, reaching its zenith during the latter, between 1769 and 1803.It was widely practiced in New Orleans, where planter society had created enough wealth to support the system.[clarification needed] It also took place in the Latin-influenced cities of Natchez and Biloxi, Mississippi; Mobile, Alabama; St. Augustine and Pensacola, Florida;[1] as well as Saint-Domingue (now the Republic of Haiti). Plaçage became associated with New Orleans as part of its cosmopolitan society."


The whole thing horrified the "Yankees" when they took over; they viewed it as institutionalized cross racial prostitution.

Latins have a different attitude clearly. I saw it in histories of the second world war as well, with the attitude of the Italian colonial governments in places like Eritrea and Somalia.
 
Hi all,

Sorry if I am bringing up and old thread, but I am new here and find the discussion interesting as I am an Argentine (although I currently live in NYC). Regarding "Argentine whiteness", I agree that it is often exaggerated and that some of the reasons already brought up here play a role. Basically, that, as is common in LATAM, anyone looking white would be considered white and there was historically (and to some extent there still is) some prestige attached to being white. Also, most foreigners usually visit Buenos Aires and keep to upper and midddle class neighborhoods (Recoleta, Palermo, etc).

However, I also think that it should be taken into account that, much like what has and is happening in the US, the demographic composition of Argentina has changed considerably during the last 5o or 60 years. Mainly because of the following factors:

1) Provinces where people usually have higher amerindian admixture have historically had much higher birth rates than Buenos Aires, Santa Fe or other provinces with higher european populations.

2) From the 60s onwards, European immgration was largely replaced by immigration from neighboring countries (mainly Bolivia, Peru, Chile and Paraguay, which of course have much higher amerindian populations). For example, today there are about 550k Parguayans and 350k bolivians living in Argentina (the country has approx. 44 million inhabitants). People of paraguayan or bolivian descent are of course many more, as anyone born in Argentina automaticallly becomes Argentinian because of Ius Soli rules.

3) Many middle and upper-middle class Argentines have been steadily living the country in recent decades for economic reasons (also, most Argentines who travel and visit foreign countries are usually upper middle class, which may also contribute to the perception of Argentines being white).

That said, If DNA tests would have been available in the 1940s I have no doubt that european admixture would have been considerably higher. So, the stereotype of Argentina being whiter than it is may be based on what Argentina used to look like. I tried to post a picture with percentages of foreign born population in Argentina as per the 1914 census but I was not allowed to do it.

I think the same can be said about the US. When is was little I had the stereotypical image of Americans being blond gringos. That is certainly not what I see when I walk the streets today. I can safely say that Buenos Aires is much whiter than NYC.
 
See the wonderful Mercedes Sosa


Maradona's parents where orginally from the Province of Corrientes and Mercedes Sosa came from Tucuman. Both provinces with significant amerindian admixture. None of them, of course, were considered white in Argentina (the great Mercedes Sosa was affectionately nicknamed "La Negra").
 

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