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220 PERIOD 2 • The Early Modern World, 1450–1750

early date, these colonies experienced less racial variety and certainly demonstrated less
willingness to recognize the offspring of multiracial unions and accord them a place in
society. A sharply defined racial system (with Black Africans, “red” Native Americans,
and white Europeans) evolved in North America, whereas both Portuguese and
Spanish colonies acknowledged a wide variety of multiracial groups.
AP ® EXAM TIP Slavery too was different in North America than in the sugar colonies. By 1750
Compare slavery in or so, enslaved people in what became the United States were reproducing at such
Latin America and the a rate that by the time of the Civil War almost all enslaved North Americans had
Caribbean with slavery in been born in the New World. That was never the case in Latin America, where
British North America.
large-scale importation of new enslaved people continued well into the nineteenth
century. Nonetheless, many more enslaved people were voluntarily set free by their
owners in Brazil than in North America, and free Blacks and biracial or multiracial
people in Brazil had more economic opportunities than did their counterparts in
the United States. At least a few among them found positions as political leaders,
scholars, musicians, writers, and artists. Some were even hired as slave catchers.
Does this mean, then, that racism was absent in colonial Brazil? Certainly not,
but it was different from racism in North America. For one thing, in North America,
any African ancestry, no matter how small or distant, made a person “Black”; in
Brazil, a person of African and non-African ancestry was considered not Black, but
some other biracial or multiracial category. Racial prejudice surely persisted, for
European characteristics were prized more highly than African features, and people
regarded as white had enormously greater privileges and opportunities than others.
Nevertheless, skin color in Brazil, and in Latin America generally, was only one
criterion of class status, and the perception of color changed with the educational
or economic standing of individuals. A light-skinned person of biracial or multira-
cial background who had acquired some wealth or education might well “pass” as
a white. One curious visitor to Brazil was surprised to find a darker-skinned man
serving as a local official. “Isn’t the governor a mulatto?” inquired the visitor. “He
was, but he isn’t any more,” was the reply. “How can a governor be a mulatto?” 16

Settler Colonies in North America

®
AP Yet another distinctive type of colonial society emerged in the northern British
COMPARISON colonies of New England, New York, and Pennsylvania. The lands the British
What distinguished the acquired were widely regarded in Europe as the unpromising leftovers of the New
British settler colonies of World, lacking the obvious wealth and sophisticated cultures of the Spanish posses-
North America from their sions. Until at least the eighteenth century, these British colonies remained far less
Spanish or Portuguese
counterparts in Latin prominent on the world stage than those of Spain or Portugal.
America? The British settlers came from a more rapidly changing society than did those
from an ardently Catholic, semi-feudal, authoritarian Spain. When Britain launched
its colonial ventures in the seventeenth century, it had already experienced con-
siderable conflict between Catholics and Protestants, the rise of a merchant capi-
talist class distinct from the nobility, and the emergence of Parliament as a check
on the authority of kings. Although they brought much of their English culture
Uncorrected proofs have been used in this sample.
Copyright © Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
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