Zambo (caste)

It was called zambo (cafuzo in Brazil, lobo in Mexico, and garífuna on the eastern coast Caribbean or Atlantic region of Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Belize) to the individual born from the miscegenation of a black person with an American indigenous person.

Europeans categorized the human groups present in the American colonial period as whites, Indians and blacks, and their crosses as mestizos, mulattoes and zambos.

Demographics

In various regions of the Americas, demographic changes were drastic after 1542 and, later, due to the slave trade (a common practice in Renaissance times in Europe), it was propitiated that in some regions considered colonies, people of distinct cultures and genetic characteristics; this social interaction soon ended in unions between people of different races.

Under the caste system existing in colonial Spanish America, the term zambo was originally applied to the children of an African and an Amerindian person, or to the children of two zambos. During this period there were other terms that denoted the greater or lesser percentage of zambos: this is the case of the term "cambujo", which referred to the descendants of a zambo and an Amerindian. Today, zambo is used to refer to all people with a significant amount of African and Amerindian ancestry.

A census carried out in 1610 in the Villa Imperial de Potosí, shows that among the 160,000 inhabitants, there were "6,000 blacks, mulattoes and zambos of both sexes".

This miscegenation is very frequent in Brazil (particularly in Pará, Amapá, Bahía and Maranhão), the coastal region of Ecuador (Guayas, Esmeraldas, Santa Elena, Manabí), Venezuela and Panama. On the Caribbean coast of Central America, specific groups are known as the Garífuna or Miskito.

In Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, the number of elements that could be considered pure zambos is very low, since the majority have disappeared due to miscegenation with indigenous people, with whites or with mestizos; however, in the lower social strata it is common to find people with sambo-type features. In Argentina, the zamba population was concentrated mainly in the province of Santiago del Estero, where the scarce black population was found.

In Chile, the zambos occurred in the Atacama Region, where the few blacks who lived in Chile settled, mainly in the central zone, and who, when slavery was abolished around 1820, emigrated north in search of better economic prospects, since being free ceased to be attractive to landowners and landowners, since the fact that blacks were free meant that they had to be paid, increasing production costs, a situation that landowners and landowners in the central zone they could not afford it, considering that, as a result of the War of Independence, the Chilean economy was almost destroyed, and agriculture in ruins. All of this meant that a great mass of freed blacks remained unemployed, and many of this mass emigrated to the north, where, in addition to the mild climate, the incipient mining business was eager for labor, hopefully strong and low-cost. That mass emigrated to the north mixed with the local indigenous people, from whose unions a significant number of zambos arose. It is important to point out that during the colony, the Atacama-Copiapó area was one of the Chilean areas with the lowest population indices, and within this scarcity the Spanish white presence was even more scarce; For this reason, today it is very easy to see people with clubbed features in the city of Copiapó, the result of the Afro-Indigenous fusion.

In the Panamanian and Colombian Pacific there is a considerable mixed population of blacks and Amerindians, although the black component seems to be less important, and there is also a certain Spanish mix.

The Amerindians, for the most part, also harassed by the social system of the European colonizers, were understanding with the escaped slaves, to whom they provided shelter and food, and whose children were able to unite with the descendants of the indigenous people. Such is the case of the so-called "Reino Zambo de Esmeraldas", in northern Ecuador. On two occasions, groups of black slaves embarked on Spanish ships managed to escape and found refuge in the indigenous populations of the area, adopting their customs and integrating socially.

As during the slave-owning period of the United States, there are cases in Latin American history of Africans and Amerindians united, forming settlements to defend themselves against European settlers and slavers. Thus, in Latin America there are various samples of these joint settlements of Africans and Amerindians (called quilombos), such as the Palmares quilombo in Brazil, which during its peak period had a population of 30,000 inhabitants. The word zambo has subsequently been used with a strong racist connotation to refer to all descendants of Africans.

News

Panama is home to the highest percentage of zamba population in the world (14%)^{[citation required]}. Currently, the zambos represent a considerable group in northwestern South American countries, such as the Pacific coast of Ecuador. A large but noteworthy number of zambos is the result of recent unions between Amerindian women and men of African descent. In Brazil, existing communities (especially in the northwestern part of the country) are called cafuzos.

In Honduras they are known as Garífunas, whose origin and history are separate from the zambos that live in other Caribbean and Central American countries (Dominican Republic, Belize and Nicaragua). Examples of prominent zambos or people with zambo ancestry are the former Panamanian dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega, the former Chilean soccer player Jean Beausejour, or the Argentine singer King Africa.

Racism and discrimination

Populations of African and Amerindian ancestry have generally been marginalized and discriminated against.

In March 2008, then-US Senator Barack Obama reflected in a speech on the plight of populations of African and Amerindian ancestry, thereby demonstrating his concern for the Zamba population of his country.