Mestizos

Mestizos (Portuguese: Mestiço; French: métis, through Late Latin mixticius, from Latin mixtus, past participle of the verb misceō, miscēre, "to mix") is a term of Spanish origin used to designate people of mixed ancestry from two or more races. Usually the term has been applied to those of mixed European and indigenous American Indian ancestry who inhabit the region spanning Latin America.

In other regions and countries previously under Spanish, Portuguese or French colonial rule, variants of the term may also be in usage for people of other mixtures. In the Philippines, the term Mestizo originally bore the connotation of mixed Spanish and Filipino, whereas nowadays the term is used to identify individuals who are mixed indigenous Austronesian and European or any other foreign ancestry. Regarding if mixed groups are (new) races, see the Race article. Regardless, they may be ethnicities.

Proper terminology

A more technically correct term for the European-Amerindian mix could be Euroamerindian, since mestizo taken literally simply means mixed, and the admixture varies and is unknown. Mestizo is commonly used in English and Spanish to mean primarily European and Amerindian admixture, however the slave trade imported negroes mainly into Northeast Brazil, Gran Colombia and Central America. As such many "mestizos" in Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Colombia and Brazil are heavily Africanised, contrary to mestizos from Mexico and Argentina who have little to no African ancestry. A more accurate term for the average Panamanian would be triracial.

The term mestizo in the United States today is applied to anyone with European and Amerindian admixture, including Peruvians who are often 75% Amerindian 25% European, and Costa Ricans who are on average 30% Amerindian 65% European.

The European statistics are peoples with European ancestry who are not mixed Euroamerindian (aka. "Hispanic") as US census data includes as white the mestizos who are predominantly European and claim to be white, controversially bumping the white percentage of the US population up by roughly 10 %.

Spanish terminology

Castizo means three quarters European and one quarter Amerindian ancestry.

Indomestizo is used academically to mean predominantly-Amerindian mestizos, such as the average Peruvian, Bolivian, Ecuadorian and Guatemalan. In parallel, it would be fitting to use Euromestizo for populations between mestizos and castizos, such as Costa Ricans.

Afrocriollo is another academic term that applies to the white-black mixed race populations found in countries such as Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Brazil. More accurately, Dominicanians who are 33% African on average can be considered Mulattoes or Quadroons (one-fourth black, 25%), while Panamanians, Hondurans, Nicaraguans, Puerto Ricans, and Brazilian Pardos are closer to Octaroons (one-eighth black, 12%), with other nationalities being Quintroon (one-sixteenth black, 6%) or less.

Afromestizo is used for the triracial European-Amerindian-African populations, and associated with mestizos in Colombia and Venezuela, but applies better to the triracial Nicaraguans, Hondurans, Salvadoreans, and Panamanians.

Outside of racially-knowledgeable contexts, the term moreno is used for brown people, blanco for whites and negro for blacks.

In the legal racial definition used by the Spanish Empire, a mestizo was the offspring of a Spaniard and an Amerindian, a castizo was the offspring of a Spaniard and a mestizo, and anyone with 7/8 Spanish ancestry or more was legally white. Whites born in Latin America were called Criollo. These terms are still in use today.

Brazilian terminology

The term Caboclo (also known as cariboca) is a person of a mixed Brazilian Amerindian (only this type of Amerindian) and European ancestry. . This makes Caboclo the Brazilian equivalent of the Spanish term Mestizo.

Mulato are European-African and Cafuzo are African-Amerindian.

Brazilian Mestiço, in contrast with Spanish Mestizo meaning Euroamerindian, only refers to mixed people, not specifically Euroamerindians. Pardo, the only mixed category tracked by the Brazilian census, is also synonymous with Mestiço and includes caboclos, mulattoes, cafuzos and all triracials.

Origins of this race mixing

Following the Conquest of Mexico-Tenochtitlan, in 1537, Pope Paul III issued a papal bull that recognized the personality of the Indians and declared them fit to receive the sacraments, including marriage to Europeans.

Amerindians were the first time in recorded history that mass miscegenation was used to genocide a race. In Latin America, where this genocide was performed few pure-blooded Amerindians remain, unlike in Anglo-America where there are far more pure-blooded Amerindians today than when Christopher Columbus arived due to white people's medicine.

In post-independence Paraguay, in 1814, the dictator of the country imposed anti-European marriage laws which decimated the European population by making it illegal for them to breed with each other, with the goal of destroying the Spanish white elite and creating a non-white population. This amounts to one of the most significant examples of deliberate White genocide in modern history (alongside the 1804 White genocide in Haiti).

Spanish and Amerindian

Mestizos come from two races both with rich heritages. Spain and Portugal have rich histories of being very inquisitive people whose inquisitive nature lead them to be expert worldwide navigators. They also kicked African invaders out of their country at one point, too. The American Indians have rich histories as being very spiritual, building marvellous stone cities, being expert astronomers, were skilled farmers, were the original breeders of dogs like the chihuahua and according to some who studied their lost cities and The Nazca Lines, they even established diplomatic relations extraterrestrial life.

Some have claimed that mixing of these races caused the decline of society, however, a perhaps more significant aspect is the role of economic sabotage against the Spanish Empire and the successor Latin states by Freemasonry (which in the aftermath also promoted "egalitarianism" against the natural order). In some cases, particularly the Chicano subculture, confused by this racial mix, some of these people have been known to attack their Spanish heritage. Other more mature groups, such as the Frente Nacional Mexicanista seek to glorify both the Spanish and Amerindian aspects of their national history and give due respect to both in the foundation of their nation.

See also

• Amerindians
• Argentina - See the "External links" section.
• Bandeira
• Chile - See the "External links" section.
• Effects of race mixing: Latin America
• Hispanics
• Mulattoes
• Miscegenation
• Race and intelligence: The genetics or not debate: Racial admixture - Studies on mixed-race groups have been one part of the debate on whether average measured IQ group differences are partially due to genetics or not.
• Race: Mixed race groups
• Hispanics and Latinos