ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to place the Brazilian process within the larger Latin American discourse on race and national identity. The marginalizing of ethnic movements coexisted with a denigration of the African influence and a general de-legitimization of blackness as a viable component of national identity. Race represents one of the most important social parameters that have affected our visions of ‘the national’. The colonial class structure engendered a caste system as the white colonizers, by virtue of their race, were inherently of a higher status. For whites abolition signaled the eradication of slavery associated with backwardness and a projection of a new nationhood free of the African past. Positivism accounted for Latin American militaries’ roles in the development of national economies. The promise of abolition helped Latin American independence leaders attain the support of their slaves. Finally, the chapter presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
