History
More than a million Spaniards and Portuguese settled in their American colonies during the colonial period. In the case of the Portuguese in Brazil, the process was slow between 1500 and 1640, when only some 100.000 Lusitanians immigrated in the new colony, but it notably increased during the period 1701-1760, in which 600.000 Portuguese form Portugal arrived. Brazilian writer Renato Pinto Venâncio estimated -based on the many studies on the topic- that some 724.000 Portuguese arrived in Brazilian territory through the whole colonial period.
In the particular case of Spaniards, it seems to be a fact -though estimates vary- that immigration of conquistadores and colonists towards the New World was scanty during all the colonial period, which would explain the admixture (mestizaje) that took place in this region. Some estimates state that less than 200,000 Spaniards arrived in the Americas during the period 1509-1790. On the other hand, M. Mönier assessed that 437,669 Peninsulares settled in the Spanish American possessions between 1506 and 1650. It is possible that some "undesirable" groups who were persecuted in Spain by the time -Sefardic Jews, Gypsies, Moors, homosexuals, heretics, witches, etc.- had escaped to the New World as "stowaways". Mexico and Peru became the main destinations of Spanish colonists during the 16th century. By some other estimates 1 million arrived in the 18th century.
After the period of the Wars of Independence, the elites of most of the countries(except for Brazil)of the region mistakenly concluded that the cause of their underdevelopment was their populations being mostly Amerindian, Mestizo or Mulatto, so a major process of "Whitening" was required, or at least desirable. Then, most Latin American countries implemented policies to promote and incentivate European immigration, and some were quite successful at it, especially Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil. The amount of European immigrants arrived from the late 19th century and the early 20th century far surpassed the figures of original colonists. Numbers vary according to the period taken into account, but it is evident that, of a total 15 million immigrants arrived in Latin America, Argentina received 6.4 million and Brazil welcomed 5.5 million immigrants between 1821 and 1932.
Read more about this topic: White Latin American
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