Latin America and The Caribbean
Studies carried out by the geneticist Sergio Pena conclude the average white Brazilian is 80% European, 10% Amerindian, and 10% African/black. Another study, carried out by the Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research, concludes the average white Brazilian is (>70%) European. Mulattoes represent a significant part of the population of various Latin American and Caribbean countries: Dominican Republic (73%) (all mixed race people), Brazil (49.6% mulattoes, mestizos/mamelucos and blacks), Belize (25%), Cuba (24.86%), Colombia (25%), Haiti (15-20%).
The roughly 200,000 Africans brought to Mexico were for the most part absorbed by the mestizo populations of mixed European and Amerindian descent. The state of Guerrero once had a large population of African slaves. Other Mexican states inhabited by people with some African ancestry, along with other ancestries, include Oaxaca, Veracruz, and Yucatán.
Other sources cite that more than 50% of Cubans are mulatto, about 40 percent of Brazilian people are mulatto/mestizo, and 67% of Venezuelans mestizo with African ancestry.
In one recent genetic study of 800 Puerto Ricans, 61% had mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from an Amerindian female ancestor, 27% inherited mitochondrial DNA from a female African ancestor and 12% had mitochondrial DNA from a female European ancestor. Conversely, patrilineal input as indicated by the Y chromosome showed that 70% of Puerto Rican males in the sample have Y chromosome DNA from a male European ancestor, 20% inherited Y chromosome DNA from a male African ancestor and less than 10% inherited Y chromosome DNA from male Amerindian ancestor. As these tests measure only the DNA along the direct matrilineal and patrilineal lines of inheritance, they cannot tell with certainty what percentage of European or African ancestry someone has.
During this whole period, Puerto Rico had laws like the Regla del Sacar or Gracias al Sacar where a person of black ancestry could be considered legally white so long as he could prove that at least one person per generation in the last four generations had also been legally white. Therefore people of black ancestry with known white lineage were classified as white, the opposite of the "one-drop rule" in the United States.
According to an autosomal DNA study conducted on a school in the poor periphery of Rio de Janeiro, the "pardos" (including mulattos) there were found to be on average over 80% European. "The results of the tests of genomic ancestry are quite different from the self made estimates of European ancestry", say the researchers. In general, the test results showed that European ancestry is far greater than the students thought it would be. The "pardos", for example, thought of themselves as 1/3 European, 1/3 African and 1/3 Amerindian before the tests. Along the same vein, it turned out that white students had overestimated their ratio of African and Amerindian genetic ancestry.
Read more about this topic: Mulatto American
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