Editing Miscegenation (section)

====Background====
Prior to the European conquest of the [[Americas]] the demographics of [[Latin America]] was naturally 100% [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|American Indian]]. Today those who identify themselves as Native Americans are small minorities in many countries. For example, the CIA lists [[Demographics of Argentina#Indigenous peoples|Argentina's]] at 0.9%, [[Indigenous peoples in Brazil|Brazil's]] at 0.4%, and [[Uruguay]]'s at 0%.<ref>[https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html CIA Factbook] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171107142508/https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html |date=7 November 2017 }}. Cia.gov. Retrieved 11 December 2011.</ref> However, the range varies widely from country to country in [[Latin America]] with some countries having significantly larger [[Amerindian]] minorities.

[[File:Ignacio María Barreda - Las castas mexicanas.jpg|thumb|left|Depiction of casta system in [[New Spain|Mexico]], 18th century|309x309px]]

The early conquest of Latin America was primarily carried out by male soldiers and sailors from [[Spain]] and [[Portugal]]. Since they carried very few European women on their journeys the new settlers married and fathered children with Amerindian women and also with women taken by force from [[Africa]]. This process of miscegenation was even encouraged by the [[Spanish Monarchy]] and it led to the system of stratification known as the [[Casta]]. This system had Europeans ([[Spanish people|Spaniards]] and [[Portuguese people|Portuguese]]) at the top of the hierarchy followed by those of [[mixed race]]. Unmixed Blacks and Native Americans were at the bottom. A philosophy of [[Racial whitening|whitening]], an example of [[scientific racism]] in favor of [[white supremacy]], emerged in which Amerindian and African culture were stigmatized in favor of European values. Many Amerindian languages were lost as mixed race offspring adopted [[Spanish language|Spanish]] and [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]] as their first languages. Only towards the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century did large numbers of Europeans begin to migrate to [[South America]] and consequently altering its [[Latin america#Demographics|demographics]].

In addition many [[Ethnic groups of Africa|Africans]] were shipped to regions all over the Americas and were present in many of the early voyages of the [[conquistador]]s. [[Brazil]] has the largest population of African descendants outside Africa. Other countries such as [[Jamaica]], [[Cuba]], [[Puerto Rico]], [[Dominican Republic]], [[Haiti]], [[Venezuela]], [[Colombia]], and [[Ecuador]] still have sizeable populations identified as [[Black people|Black]]. However countries such as [[Argentina]] do not have a visible African presence today. Census information from the early 19th century shows that people categorized as Black made up to 30% of the population, or around 400,000 people.<ref>{{Cite journal | last1 = Fejerman | first1 = L. | last2 = Carnese | first2 = F. R. | last3 = Goicoechea | first3 = A. S. | last4 = Avena | first4 = S. A. | last5 = Dejean | first5 = C. B. | last6 = Ward | first6 = R. H. | doi = 10.1002/ajpa.20083 | title = African ancestry of the population of Buenos Aires | journal = American Journal of Physical Anthropology | volume = 128 | issue = 1 | pages = 164–170 | year = 2005 | pmid =  15714513}}</ref> Though almost completely absent today, their contribution to Argentine culture is significant and include the [[Argentine tango|tango]], the [[Milonga (music)|milonga]] and the [[Zamba (artform)|zamba]], words of [[Bantu languages|Bantu]] origin.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cwo.com/~lucumi/argentina.html|title=Blacks in Argentina: Disappearing Acts|last=Aidi|first=Hisham|date=2 April 2002|work=History Notes|publisher=The Global African Community|access-date=13 July 2008}}</ref>

{| class="wikitable" style="float: right;"
|-
! colspan="4"|Demographics of Brazil in 1835, 1940, 2000 and 2008<ref name="skidmore">{{Cite journal|first=Thomas E. |last=Skidmore |title=Fact and Myth: Discovering a Racial Problem in Brazil|journal=Working Paper|volume=173|url=http://www.nd.edu/~kellogg/publications/workingpapers/WPS/173.pdf|date=April 1992}}</ref><ref>[http://noticias.uol.com.br/especiais/pnad/ultnot/2009/09/18/ult6843u18.jhtm Brasil perde brancos e pretos e ganha 3,2 milhões de pardos]. Noticias.uol.com.br (18 September 2009). Retrieved 11 December 2011.</ref>
|-
! Year!! White !! Brown!! Black
|-
| 1835
| 24.4% || 18.2%||51.4%
|-
| 1940
| 64% ||21%||14%
|-
| 2000
| 53.7% ||38.5%||6.2%
|-
| 2008
| 48.8% ||43.8%||6.5%
|}
The ideology of whitening encouraged non-whites to seek white or lighter skinned partners. This dilution of non-white admixture would be beneficial to their offspring as they would face less stigmatization and find it easier to assimilate into mainstream society. After successive generations of European gene flow, non-white admixture levels would drop below levels at which skin color or physical appearance is not affected thus allowing individuals to identify as White. In many regions, the native and black populations were simply overwhelmed by a succession of waves of European immigration.

Historians and scientists are thus interested in tracing the fate of Native Americans and Africans from the past to the future. The questions remain about what proportion of these populations simply died out and what proportion still has descendants alive today including those who do not racially identify themselves as their ancestors would have. Admixture testing has thus become a useful objective tool in shedding light on the demographic history of Latin America.