Zambo (casta)

"Pintura de Castas": De negro e india, sale lobo

Zambo (Cafuzo in Brasil, Lobo in Mexico, Marabou en Haiti, Garifuna en Honduras, Belize, y Guatemala) es el término utilizado para designar al individuo humano nacido del mestizaje de un negro, con un amerindio.

Bajo el sistema de castas existente en la América Latina colonial, el término originalmente se aplicaba a los hijos de un Africano/a y un Amerindio/a, o a los hijos de dos zambos. Durante este periodo existian otros terminos que denotaban el porcentaje mayor o menor de los zambos, es el caso del término "Cambujo" que se refería a los descendientes de una zambo/a y un amerindio/a. Actualmente Zambo se utiliza para hacer referencia a todas las personas con una cantidad significativa de ancestros africanos y amerindios.

Este mestizaje es muy frecuente en el Brasil, la costa pacífica de Colombia, la region de Guayas en Ecuador, los departamentos de Lima e Ica, en el Perú, en algunos estados del sur de México y en la Costa del Caribe de Centroamérica, donde grupos específicos son conocidos como garífunas o misquitos.

En el Pacífico costarricense, existe una considerable población mestizada de negros y amerindios, si bien el componente negro parece ser menos importante y existe además cierta mezcla española.

Historia

Los primeros Zambos eran esclavos que habiendo sobrevivido al naufragio de barcos esclavistas o que habíendo escapado de plantaciones se aventuraban en zonas de jungla de América Central, Ameríca del Sur o del Caribe en busca de refugio para evitar volver a ser capturados. Esto en ocasiones provocaba el entrar en contacto con poblaciones amerindias remotas. Esto sucedió en la Isla de la Española (actual Haití y República Dominicana), en la que algunos esclavos huidos contactaron con algunos de los Tainos de la isla. La mezcla racial tuvo lugar y actualmente los Afro-Amerindios conforman una pequeña parte de la población de ambos países.

Los amerindios, en su mayor parte tambien acosados por los colonizadores europeos, fueron comprensivos con los esclavos huidos a los que proporcionaron cobijo y alimento y cuyas hijas fueron tomadas como esposas por los esclavos.

Al igual que durante el periodo esclavista de los Estados Unidos, existen casos en la historia Latino Americana, de Africanos y Amerindios unidos formando asentamientos para defenderse frente a los colonos europeos y a los esclavistas. Así en Latinoamérica existen varias muestras de estos asentamientos conjuntos de Africanos y Amerindios (llamados Quilombos), como es el caso del quilombo de Palmares, en Brasil, el cual durante el periodo de mayor apogeo llegó a tener una población de 30.000 habitantes. LA palabra Zambo ha sido utilizada posteriormente con una, fuerte connotación racista, apra referise a todo descendiente de Africanos.

Actualmente

Archivo:HugoChavez1824.jpeg

El Presidente de Venezuela, Hugo Chávez es mitad zambo, mitad mestizo

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 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 Garifunas, 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, such as Michoacan, Guerrero, Oaxaca, Campeche, Quintana Roo, and Yucatan, most notably the state of Veracruz and the Costa Chica, incidentally the same locales where the country's Afro-Mexicans reside.

Culturally, Mexican Lobos followed Amerindian traditions rather than African ones, as is also the case in Bolivia, where the Afro-Bolivian community has absorbed/retained many aspects of Amerindian culture, such as dress and use of the Aymara language.

Racism and discrimination

These populations of mixed Amerindian and African ancestry are generally marginalized and 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 El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama and Brazil.

Long-standing problems of race and class discrimination in Latin America confront Latin Americans of African and Indian 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.

U.S. Senator Barack Obama recently addressed the plight of Afro-Latinos in general in a May 25, 2005 statement:

... From Colombia to Brazil to the Dominican Republic to Ecuador, persons of African descent continue to experience racial discrimination and remain among the poorest and most marginalized groups in the entire region. While recent positive steps have been taken in some areas—for example, giving land titles to Afro-Colombians and passing explicit anti-discrimination legislation in Brazil—much work still needs to be done to ensure that this is the beginning of an ongoing process of reform, not the end.

In places where civil conflict has taken hold, Afro-Latinos are much more likely to become victims of violence or refugees in their own countries. In many areas, Afro-Latinos are also subject to aggression by local police forces at far greater rates than those perceived to be white. Access to health services is another serious concern, and recent studies have shown that Afro-Latino communities are at greater risk of contracting HIV/AIDS.​

See also

• Afro-Latin American
• Atlantic slave trade
• Black Indians
  • Cherokee Freedmen
  • Black Seminoles
• Cafuzo
• Capoeira
• Garifuna
• Palmares (quilombo)
• Quilombo
• Sambo (racial term)
• Slavery
• Triangular trade
• Zumbi

External links

• GarifunaWeb
• Stranded in Paradise: Shipwrecked Hundreds of Years Ago, the Garifuna Are Still Trying to Find Their Way by Teresa Wiltz, The Washington Post.