"This paper discusses the meanings of ‘race’ in the Portuguese empire on the basis of two historical case studies. The twin processes of miscegenation, in the biologi-cal sense, and cultural intermixing has engendered intermediate strata that have long stimulated the imagination of historians. In Brazilian historiography, consid- erable emphasis has been given to the invention of the ‘mulato’, as proposed by Alencastro (2000, 345-356), and the ethnogenesis of the ‘pardo’ in Portuguese America, as described in an article by Schwartz (1996). Compared to these inter- pretations of the emergence of these intermediate categories in Portuguese Amer- ica, the two cases presented here appear to suggest a more central role for the early demographic impact of access to manumission in colonial society and the possibili- ties for social mobility among the free peoples of African descent.";
The author reflects on " how Brazil, in its initial official images, it was characterized by its singularity: A mestizo and tropical monarchy." The essay "will make use of varied and original iconographic sources and texts emblematic of the Brazilian imperial period from 1822 to 1889.";
