British, French, and Dutch Also Intermixed

Colonial Miscegenation Was Not a Spanish Monopoly

Why is it taken for granted that only the Spanish intermixed with indigenous peoples and enslaved women in the Americas? This question resurfaces whenever the colonial debate opens, and the short answer is: they didn't. The estimates circulating in the discussion paint a less exclusive picture than the narrative suggests.

What Does Genetics Say About European Ancestry in the Americas?

Around 90% of U.S. African Americans have detectable European ancestry, according to estimates in the debate. The average genome shows about 15-25% European depending on the study and region; one major study places it near 24%. Among Native Americans and First Nations in Canada, some estimate around 70% with some European ancestry, though this varies greatly by community.

Between these extremes lies an entire continent. According to several participants, intermixing was not a specifically Iberian trait: it's what happens when a predominantly male population arrives without European women available, and the barriers to mixing depended on the territory, not the passport.

Married or Not: The Difference Was the Children's Fate

Thomas Jefferson, the second U.S. president, had at least six children with Sally Hemings, an enslaved woman of African descent, according to the study cited in the debate. Two were freed, and two others escaped, as one participant recounts. Another suggests that Cortés placed his son with Doña Marina as a foster companion for the future Philip II.

Therein lies the gap separating one empire from another. Not in genetics, but in the place the mixed-race individual occupied in the social structure. Those who intermixed with an enslaved woman could be generating more slaves.

French, Dutch, and British: Each Empire, Its Own Pattern

According to arguments in the debate, marriages between British colonists and native women were not rare; the union of Pocahontas and John Rolfe is the most cited, but not exceptional. For French trappers, taking an Indian vvife was a direct tradition, although another participant asserts that in Canada and Louisiana, the French brought European women, and intermixing was less common. In Polynesia and New Zealand, unions between white men and local women were abundant.

Then there's the Dutch case. The colonists in Indonesia were all men, without European women, leading to the Indo-Dutch: nearly 2 million Eurasian mestizos, of whom 1.5 million live in the Netherlands today, according to the calculation cited in the debate.

Some argue that Spain was unique in creating a truly mixed-race culture, while others respond that this depends on models of domination and demographics, not tolerance. The debate also points out that miscegenation was neither a new nor an exclusive pattern, but has occurred at other times in history.