Brazil: population by region, ethnicity and slave status 1872| ��ƽ��

Population of Brazil by region, ethnicity and slave status in 1872

Region	Free non-white	Slave non-white	White
East: Minas Gerais	805,967	370,459	830,987
East: Bahia	830,431	167,824	331,479
East: Rio de Janiero**	252,271	341,576	455,074
East: Sergipe	100,755	22,623	49,778
East: Espirito Santo	27,367	22,659	26,582
Northeast: Pernambuco	449,547	89,028	291,159
Northeast: Ceará	368,100	31,913	268,836
Northeast: Paraíba	200,412	21,526	144,721
Northeast: Maranhão	169,645	74,939	103,513
Northeast: Alagoas	217,106	35,741	88,798
Northeast: Rio Grande do Norte	107,455	13,020	102,465
Northeast: Piauí	121,527	23,795	43,447
South: São Paolo	207,845	156,612	433,432
South: Rio Grande do Sul	82,938	67,791	258,367
South: Santa Catarina	15,984	14,984	125,942
South: Paraná	37,377	10,560	69,698
North: Pará	110,556	27,485	92,634
North: Amazonas	8,592	979	11,211
Center-West: Goiás	103,564	10,652	41,929
Center-West: Mato Grosso	27,989	6,667	17,237

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Release date

December 2020

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Region

Brazil

Survey time period

1872

Supplementary notes

The term "colored" was used by the source, but has been changed to "non-white" to reflect modern attitudes. This data does not appear to include indigenous people, or those of mixed white and indigenous descent ("caboclo"). A figure of 386,955 was given separately for Brazil's total caboclo population in 1872.

*When the individual entries per region are totaled, the figures for "Free non-white" and "White" match the totals given in the source, however the "Slave non-white" entries total at 1,510,833: this suggests an error of 23 with either the overall "Slave non-white" total, or one of the individual entries.

**Separate figures given by the source for the state and city of Rio de Janeiro; these have been combined in this statistic.

Release date is most recent date of data access

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Brazil conducted its first nationwide census in 1872; this census gave total populations of 4.2 million free non-whites, 1.5 million slave non-whites, and 3.8 million whites. Indigenous people and those of mixed indigenous descent were largely excluded from the census, although an overall figure of 0.4 million was given for the entire country. These figures combined to give a total of 9.9 million (modern UN estimates put the total at 10.3 million in 1872; likely due to the census' exclusion of many non-white infants).

The state of Minas Gerais had the largest population, at over two million people, with the neighboring states of Bahia and Rio de Janeiro with the second and third largest populations respectively. East Brazil was the region with the largest population, followed by the northeast and then south. In terms of ethnicity, non-whites outnumbered white people in every region except for the south, and free people of color outnumbered slaves in every state except for Rio de Janeiro.