View source for Mameluco

{{Short description|First generation child of a European and an Amerindian}}{{Distinguish|Mameluk}}{{italic title}}
[[Image:Albert Eckhout - Mameluca.JPG|thumb|right|150px|[[Albert Eckhout]]: a ''mameluco'' woman in Brazil, {{circa}} 1641–1644]]
'''''Mameluco''''' is a [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]]  word that denotes the first generation child of a [[whites|European]] and an [[Amerindian]]. It corresponds to the Spanish word ''[[mestizo]]''.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, ''mameluco'' was also used to refer to organized bands of explorers from [[Colonial Brazil]] known as ''[[bandeirantes]]'', who roamed the interior of [[South America]] departing from [[São Paulo]]  near the [[Atlantic Ocean]] to the interior of Brazil and [[Paraguay]], invading [[Guarani people|Guarani]] settlements in search of slaves and gold.

The word may have become common in Portugal in the [[Middle Ages]], deriving from the [[Arabic language|Arabic]], "[[Mamluk]]", "slave", commonly referring to soldiers and rulers of slave origin, especially in [[Egypt]].

==See also==
*[[Amazonian Jews]]
*[[Caboclo]]
*[[Mestiço]]
*[[Mixed-race Brazilian]]
*[[Pardo Brazilians]]

==External links==
*{{CathEncy|wstitle=Mameluco}}
[[Category:Mamluks]]
[[Category:Multiracial affairs in Brazil]]
[[Category:Latin American caste system]]
[[Category:Portuguese colonization of the Americas]]
[[Category:Portuguese words and phrases]]
{{Ethno-stub}}{{Multiethnicity}}{{Ancestry and ethnicity in Brazil}}