From these alliances arose the mixture of Indians and Europeans, which runs through many of the very best families in Brazil. In the state of São Paulo, for instance, this mixture became very marked, and produced an almost white race as the strain of Indian blood became less. It was from this race that the original “Paulistas” sprang, who distinguished themselves among the Brazilians for their bravery in driving the savage Indians from the coast, and later by their enterprise and administrative capacity. I met one of these men in that state who was a wealthy _fazendero_, and a graduate of one of the best schools in our own land. I was impressed by his courtesy and intelligence, and finally asked him from what nationality he was descended. He said that his ancestry were Portuguese and Indian. “And,” he then added, “I am proud of the Indian blood in me.” From the way he said it, it was plain to be seen that he meant it; and such is the feeling of all those who have that mixture. Some of the very best men in that and other states have at least a slight trace of the aborigine blood in their veins. [Illustration: NEGROES IN BRAZIL.] The negroes, just as in our own land, were originally brought to Brazil and sold in bondage. The first slaves were imported into the state of Bahia in 1574. Just seventeen years later the official records give the population of that settlement as two thousand whites, four thousand negro slaves and six thousand civilized Indians. This will give a little idea of how rapidly the negroes were brought into the country by the slave traders. Great sugar plantations were worked, and on these were employed the cheap labour. The black slaves so exceeded in number the whites that insurrections broke out in many places. In Minas Geraes, for instance, out of a population of fifty thousand in the early part of the eighteenth century, thirty-five thousand were negro slaves, and most of these recent imports. Some of the whites were so fearful of their own lives, that the governor petitioned the King to put into execution the “Black Code,” which meant that the right leg of a fugitive slave might be cut off and a wooden one substituted. Thus, by terror, the excess of blacks was kept in subjection.