Brazil imported more African slaves than any other country in the world: over 4 million people. Despite the ancestry forming a big part of the population, the development of a national Black identity was hindered after the country’s abolition of slavery in 1888.
Brazil didn’t have an apartheid system like South Africa’s or Jim Crow laws like the United States, and its mixed population was seen as a symbol of harmony between races. The idea of Brazil being a “racial democracy” affected how Brazilians saw the role of race in their own lives — until the myth was debunked.
