In the formerPortuguese andSpanish colonies in the Americas,pardos (femininepardas) aretriracial descendants ofEuropeans,Indigenous Americans andAfricans.
In some places they were defined as neither exclusivelymestizo (Indigenous American-European descent), normulatto (African-European descent), norzambo (Indigenous American-African descent).[1] In colonial Mexico,pardo "became virtually synonymous withmulatto, thereby losing much of its Indigenous referencing". In the eighteenth century,pardo might have been the preferred label for blackness. Unlikenegro,pardo had no association with slavery.[2]Casta paintings from eighteenth-century Mexico use the labelnegro, neverpardo, to identify Africans paired with Spaniards.[3]
In Brazil, the wordpardo has had a general meaning since the beginning of the colonisation. In the famous letter byPero Vaz de Caminha, for example, in whichBrazil was first described by the Portuguese, the Indigenous Americans were called "pardo": "Pardo, naked, without clothing". The word has ever since been used to cover: African/European mixes, Asian/European mixes, Indigenous American/European/Asian/African mixes and Indigenous Americans themselves.[4]
For example,Diogo de Vasconcelos, a widely known historian fromMinas Gerais, mentions the story of Andresa de Castilhos. According to 18th-century accounts, Andresa de Castilhos was described by the following: "I declare that Andresa de Castilhos, parda woman ... has been freed ... is a descendant of the nativegentiles of the land ... I declare that Andresa de Castilhos is the daughter of a white man and a (Christian)neophyte (Indigenous) woman".[5]
The historian Maria Leônia Chaves de Resende says that the wordpardo was used to classify people with partial or full Indigenous American ancestry. A Manoel, natural son of Ana carijó, was baptised as a 'pardo'; inCampanha, several Indigenous Americans were classified as 'pardo'; the Indigenous American João Ferreira, Joana Rodriges and Andreza Pedrosa, for example, were described as 'freed pardo'; a Damaso identifies as a 'freed pardo' of the ''native of the land''; etc.[6] According to Chaves de Resende, the growth of the pardo population in Brazil includes the descendants of Indigenous American and not only those of African descent: "the growth of the 'pardo' segment had not only to do with the descendants of Africans, but also with the descendants of the Indigenous American, in particular the carijós and bastards, included in the condition of 'pardo'".[6]
TheAmerican historian Muriel Nazzari in 2001 noted that the "pardo" category has absorbed those persons of Indigenous American descent in the records ofSão Paulo: "This paper seeks to demonstrate that, though many Indians and mestizos did migrate, those who remained in São Paulo came to be classified as pardos."[7]
Most pardos withinCaribbean and NorthernSouth America historically inhabited the territories where the Spanish conquistadores imported slaves during colonial times, such as theCaptaincies ofCuba,Santo Domingo,Puerto Rico,VenezuelaColombia andEcuador.[8][9]
Pardos were the children of formerly enslaved black people who were now freed black people in Spanish America. These pardos were able to join the military and had moved up into high political and military roles such as “generals, congressmen, and senators.”[10] Pardos also helped win the fight for Latin American independence by fighting on the patriots' side of the cause.
In Peru, pardos are referred to the mixture of Spanish and Indigenous American with a little African contribution, located exclusively along the coast, in greater proportion between the regions of Tumbes to Ica.[11]
InBrazil,pardo is a race/skin colour category used by theBrazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) in Brazilian censuses, with historic roots in the colonial period.[12] The term "pardo" is more commonly used to refer to mixed-race Brazilians, individuals with varied racial ancestries. The other categories are:branco ("white"),preto ("black"),amarelo ("yellow", meaningEast Asians) andindígena ("indigene" or "indigenous person", meaningIndigenous Americans).
The term is still popular in Brazil. According toIBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics),[12]pardo is a broad classification that encompassesMultiracial Brazilians such asmulatos andcafuzos, as well as assimilatedIndigenous Americans known ascaboclos, mixed with Europeans or not. The termpardo was first used in aBrazilian census in 1872. The following census, in 1890, replaced the wordpardo bymestiço (that of mixed origins). The censuses of 1900 and 1920 did not ask about race, arguing that "the answers largely hid the truth".[13]
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