ABSTRACT

The most important feature of Latin American lowland race relations since the abolition of slavery is the absence of sharply defined racial groupings… one is obliged to conclude… that there is no such thing as a Negro group or a white group…. One of the most striking consequences of the Brazilian system of racial identification is that parents and children and even brothers and sisters are frequently accepted as representatives of quite opposite racial types. (Harris, 1964, pp. 54–57)