Zambo
508264
225937057
2008-07-16T02:45:02Z
Andrechan
2020815
/* See also */
{{For|the variety of squash|Cucurbita ficifolia}}
{{Refimprove|date=December 2007}}
{{Infobox Ethnic group
|group = Zambo
|image = [[Image:Chavez141610.jpg|175px]]
|caption = <small>Notable Zambos:<br/> [[Hugo Chávez]]
|poptime = Official population numbers are unknown.
|popplace = [[Latin America]]
|langs = [[Spanish language|Spanish]], and [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]]
|rels = [[Christianity]] (Predominantly [[Roman Catholic]], with a minority of [[Protestant]]); and other religions.
|related = [[Garifuna]], [[African people]], and [[Indigenous people of the Americas|Amerindian people]].
}}
'''Zambo''' is a [[Spanish language|Spanish]] term (the [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]] language term is [[Cafuso]]) that was used in the [[Spanish Empire]] and continues to be used today to identify individuals in [[Hispanic America]] who are of mixed [[African people|African]] and [[Indigenous people of the Americas|Amerindian]] ancestry. The word originated from the [[Romance language|Romance]] and [[Latin language]]. The feminine word is '''Zamba''' (not to be confused with the Afro-Brazilian [[Samba (dance)|Samba]] folk dance or [[Samba (music)|Samba]] music, or with [[Argentina|Argentine]] [[Zamba|Zamba folk dance]]).
The word is not used in English, but people of this ethnicity exist in North America; the singer [[Tina Turner]] is Afro-Amerindian[http://www.hud.gov/offices/pih/ih/codetalk/onap/celebrities.cfm], as was the singer and guitarist [[Jimi Hendrix]].
Under the [[caste]] system of Spanish and Portuguese colonial Latin America, the term originally applied to the children of one African and one Amerindian parent, or the children of two zambo parents. During this period a myriad of other terms were in use to denote other individuals of African / Amerindian ancestry in ratios smaller or greater than the 50:50 of zambos: "Cambujo" (Zambo / Amerindian mixture) for example. Today, zambo refers to all people with significant amounts of both African and Amerindian ancestry.
==History==
[[Image:Zambo.jpg|thumb|left|300px|A representation of a '''Zambo''', in a "Pintura de Castas" during the Spanish colonial period of the Americas. The painting illustrates "an African and Amerindian produced a Zambo".]]
The first zambos were initially the offspring of escaping shipwrecked [[Atlantic slave trade|slave]]s, as well as plantation slave escapees, who ventured into various [[Central American]], [[South America]]n and [[Caribbean]] [[jungle]]s seeking refuge in remote Amerindian communities to hide and escape capture by [[Colonialism|colonial]] authorities. An example would be on the island of Hispaniola (the present day [[Haiti]] & the [[Dominican Republic]]), in which some escaped slaves encountered the few remaining [[Tainos]] on the island. Racial mixing occurred on the island and today Afro-Amerindians make up a small percentage of the populations of both Haiti and the Dominican Republic. These Amerindians — themselves under threat from encroaching European colonizers — were sympathetic to the plight of the fleeing slaves and welcomed them into their communities, offered them food and sanctuary, and in many cases also their daughters as wives. As in the [[United States]] during slavery, there are instances in Latin American history of Africans and Amerindians joining together and forming free renegade encampments to fight their European colonizers and slaveholders. In Latin America, these primarily African settlements of runaways, or [[Maroon (slavery)|Maroons]], were called ''[[quilombo]]s''. The most famous of all quilombos is the legendary [[Palmares (quilombo)|Palmares]] in Brazil, which at the height of its flourishing had a population of over 30,000. The word "Zambo" later became a racist word used to describe individuals of African descent.
The history behind the African ancestry of the Garifuna is usually attributed to escaping shipwrecked slaves, whereas for the zambos of north-western South America, the Lobos of Mexico and most other Zambos in general are attributed to escaping plantation slaves.
==Population today==
Officially, zambos represent small minorities in the northwestern South American countries of [[Colombia]], [[Venezuela]], and [[Ecuador]]. A small but noticeable number of zambos resulting from recent unions of Amerindian women to [[Afro-Ecuadorian]] men are not uncommon in major coastal cities of [[Ecuador]]. Prior to the rural to urban migration, the Amerindian and Afro-Ecuadorian ethnicities were mostly constrained to the [[Andes]] region and province of [[Esmeraldas Province|Esmeraldas]] respectively. The communities that exist in [[Brazil]], mainly along the northwestern region of the country, are known as Cafuzos.
In [[Honduras]], they are known as [[Garifuna]]s, and while Zambos can also be found in other Caribbean and Central America countries such as the [[Dominican Republic]], [[Belize]], and [[Nicaragua]], their history and origins are not linked to that of the Garifuna. In [[Mexico]], where they were known as Lobos (literally meaning [[wolf]]), they formed a sizeable minority in the past. The great majority of Lobos have now been absorbed into the much larger Mexican [[Mestizo]] population and can only be found in tiny communities scattered around the southern coastal states including [[Michoacán]], [[Guerrero]], [[Oaxaca]], [[Campeche]], [[Quintana Roo]], [[Yucatán]], and [[Veracruz]] where the country's Afro-Mexicans reside.
Culturally, Mexican Lobos followed Amerindian traditions rather than African influences, as is also the case in [[Bolivia]] where the Afro-Bolivian community has absorbed and retained many aspects of Amerindian cultural influences such as dress and use of the [[Aymara language]].
==Racism and discrimination==
These populations of mixed Amerindian and African ancestry are generally marginalized and [[racial discrimination|discriminated]] against, with color bias being pervasive throughout much of Latin America. Beyond the pockets of these specifically identified ethnic communities, in Latin American nations with large populations of people of African descent, the percentage of those with Amerindian ancestry is relatively high (though not as a ratio of the make up of the individuals). Such is the case in nations such as [[Colombia]], [[Nicaragua]], [[Panama]], and [[Brazil]].
Long-standing problems of race and class discrimination in Latin America confront Latin Americans of African and Amerindian ancestry to varying degrees, depending on their membership in or identification with a specific Afro-Amerindian ethnic group such as those mentioned above, or the degree to which their ancestry is expressed in their physical characeristics. Generally, those with dark skin and frizzy hair tend to be among the region's poorest and most disenfranchised. For instance, in 1998, when [[Hurricane Mitch]] battered the northeast coast of Honduras, the nation's Garifuna communities were among the hardest hit, yet because of a history of [[racism]] and discrimination, they were virtually ignored by government relief efforts.
== See also==
*[[Afro-Latin American]]
*[[Black Indians]]
*[[Black Seminoles]]
*[[Cafuzo]]
*[[Garifuna]]
*[[Miskito]]
*[[Mestizo]]
*[[Miscegenation]]
*[[Mulatto]]
*[[Mestee]]
*[[Sambo (racial term)]]
*[[List of topics related to Black and African people]]
==References==
{{reflist}}
==External links==
*[http://garifunaweb.com/ofraneh/informe1-4-03.html GarifunaWeb]
*[http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A61891-2002Dec1¬Found=true Stranded in Paradise: Shipwrecked Hundreds of Years Ago, the Garifuna Are Still Trying to Find Their Way] by Teresa Wiltz, The Washington Post.
{{Hispanics/Latinos}}
{{Miscegenation in Spanish colonies}}
[[Category:African-Native American relations]]
[[Category:Multiracial affairs]]
[[Category:Ethnic groups in the Americas]]
[[Category:Latin American caste system]]
[[Category:Ethnic groups in Latin America]]
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