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Brazilians retrace their African roots using DNA tests • FRANCE 24 English

  • June 25, 2024



Brazilians retrace their African roots using DNA tests • FRANCE 24 English

[Music] in the heart of Rio it’s in this port District that the history of Brazil has its painful Origins which are the field of expertise of ta why is this District called little Africa do you have any idea it’s a tribute to the presence and influence of the Africans who populated this district and Port area she is a tour guide specializing in afrob Brazilian culture today she’s giving a history lesson to two tourists from the Amazon many came from the Congo Angola and the whole region after the abolition of slavery in 1888 the Minister of Finance ordered the destruction of all documents relating to the slave trade it took years of Investigation to unearth the truth behind the local African Heritage accusing this is the archaeological site of the kais valongo this is where over a million Africans arrived and for a long time it was a bus [Music] station for almost a whole Century we didn’t know the history of this place my grandfather is European Portuguese and it’s easy to know exactly where he comes from on my mother’s side we’re all of mixed race we don’t know if we’re from Africa if we’re indigenous taes decided to go in search of her story in 2017 she had a DNA test Cameroon and Congo 37% Nigeria 20% I felt a bit Nigerian maybe because I come from the state of Bahia in the north and there’s a very strong influence of Nigerian culture there a DNA test costs between 80 And1 in Brazil demand has exploded with an increase of 1,000% in the past 3 years meanwhile two researchers from the University of s Paulo have gone to the heart of the Amazon Kelly Nunes and Julio andrai have come to a village inhabited mainly by afro descendants they’re starting a new project Brazil’s first public de na [Music] database around 50 Village Elders like Don Marcos are taking part in The Collection it was my grandfather who heard this story from his grandfather that our village Festival originated in Morocco at 75 his memories however faded are as precious as his saliva through the study of genetics Kelly and Julio have also become historians we’re going to be able to trace the origins of your ancestors your grandparents great grandparents where they came from in Africa it’s a historical reconstruction it’s not just about identifying where they came from but when they came how and to reconstruct this journey we need to collect as many memories as possible that will help us to interpret the results back in s Paro Kelly Nunes and her team will analyze a salava samples in this University Laboratory over the course of the next few months all the samples have numbers and are completely Anonymous no names are written on them it’s this machine that will then separate the genome in the saliva human DNA is made up of three billion letters the researchers will analyze just 6 million of them enough to be able to compare with other DNA banks around the world and identify similarities with other regions now we’re going to interpret the DNA letters that are translated using this program so we can see from the fluorescent colors that certain individuals have identical letters and therefore this common Gene the aim is to enrich Brazilian history but not only that certain diseases are more prevalent in certain regions of the world than in others and understanding how they manifest themselves in people who are descendant from these regions helps us must to understand why and how Brazilians also develop these diseases this is very important for scientific research it is a scientific and historical quest with lots of room to grow this is makapa capital of amapa a small state in Northern Brazil International Africa day is being celebrated to Mark the occasion Kelly Nunes has come to train local nurses in DNA testing for several days there will be Cris crossing the region to collect DNA from 500 residents aged over 70 all of whom are of African descent I want to know where I come from before the almighty calls me back there’s a family here for example that has been called the cono family for Generations because the father always said that they were descended from the Congo but his parents are already dead and there are many stories like that for example my name is Almeida the research we’ve done shows that we come from weda but we have no idea if that’s true WEA is a former slave port in Benin a delegation from that country has been invited to the event the mayor of WIA has no doubt that there is a connection the results of the Brazil DNA project could strengthen ties between the two countries we can say with a great deal of certainty now that we have read relatives here will know in the next few days and we’re going to confirm this by giving them beninese nationality as the president of Benin confirmed during a recent official visit any Brazilian who can provide DNA proof will be able to obtain benin’s nationality further strengthening Partnerships with Africa known here as the mother continent

More than half of Brazil’s population is Black, but most have no idea of their precise origins. They only know the broad outlines of their history and the fact that their African ancestors were enslaved and shipped over by the millions. After the abolition of slavery in 1888, the finance minister of the time ordered the destruction of all documents relating to the slave trade. Today, many Brazilians are searching for their roots and some are even taking DNA tests. Our correspondents Fanny Lothaire, Louise Raulais and Tim Vickery report.
#Brazil #DNA #history

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34 comments

  1. I always find this so-called DNA test very annoying. Why is it that only white people are always conducting DNA test over black people and even in a Brazil where white people are minority and yet it is white people that are conducting DNA test over the black people and this clearly shows that the minority white people are claiming to be the superior and dominant people of Brazil and black people are not reasonable about this. So sad !

  3. im from recife brazil and i want to know;

    1-does all the afro influx to europe or the occident as whole and even china,has something to do with "slavery?

    2-never did the americas denied that they traded with slaves,as did ghenghis long time ago,the vikings,etc..ok?

    3-"slavery" as you know it,,started in ancient babylonia,before the time of jesus,musas abraham ..etc…it was never a brazilian/american thing.that is BBS or big BS
    .
    4-most of these people came later,and not during slavery time after better opportunities as they do today

    5-dont know yr race,but be aware that europeans too were enslaved during the 17 centuries below,even jesus grandma was a slave from europe!!
    doh!!🙄🙄😴😴🥱🥱😑😑

  5. How can one differentiate the Africans who were already there for centuries before trans Atlantic slavery against the ones who were taken there as a result of slavery????

  6. 😂😮😅there's no science to any of these dna test. Stop giving away your genetic code to big pharma and to the state.

  8. Well as an African visiting Switzerland, I entered a shop I found this lady at the counter a black lady, I was curious and asked her from which African country she is from, she looked at me and asked do I look like I am from Africa, well she looked just like my sisters , nieces and my country women

  9. Very cool.I wonder as an AA how did we become the "least" conscious and connected to our African roots? I notice with many other African decedents around the globe, they have been able to keep even the tiniest connection and awareness of their ancestry. 😔

  10. When confronted with the truth a human being will do one of two things. Accept the truth and inch closer to God, or reject the truth and inch closer to the devil. The truth is in no need of support, whereas lies need a little truth to stand, and will eventually fall.

  15. Am Black American from Mississippi,did my DNA nd im 40% igbo,55%Congolese Bantu, 5% is shared between Scottish white nd indian.
    So proud of my Ancestors for always keeping it on lock even after 400 years😱. Proud 95% African!!💪💪

  19. I'm afrobrazilian and I've got by dna test that I'm descendent from Yoruba, Igbo, also Fulani from Nigeria. Fón people from Benin. Bakongo from Angola and Zulu from South Africa. I'm from everywhere in Africa 😅

  21. My current nationality is African-American. I am a descendant of enslaved Africans from Guinea-Bissau in West Africa. Through DNA testing, I share maternal and paternal DNA with the Balanta people of Guinea-Bissau

  27. The Amazon rainforest received the least number of enslaved people and there are millions of mixed native and white but Brazil counts them all as black but they're caboclos without black ancestry. It just shows how flawed the "black percentage" really is. They forget that millions of brazilians have at least one Indigenous grandma or great grandmother caught by the lasso literally stolen from their tribes and often forced to mate with white and enslaved men

  28. The Brazilian government classifies all mixed-race Brazilians as "black" this way indigenous descendants cannot claim their rights to Indigenous land which are frequently stolen by the white men, including the Amazon rainforest. Indigenous DNA is also by the millions, in fact during First time census there were more natives then Enslaved as natives were counted as pardos and some white. It's crazy to see that Africans so proud of this erasure of native Brazilian ancestry and happy to believe it's a "whole black country" when what's happened is a major erasure. African people have very little knowledge of the suffering of Indigenous brazilians, they were the first to be Enslaved and it was still happening when Africans arrived, even though later it became a crime to enslave them. It's highly disrespectful of the people who often complain of injustice. Millions of native women were violate and today their descendants are all "black"? This erasure began with the Portuguese labeling "civilized" Indigenous people as white and mixed "pardos". Whites forced agreements and married into tribes and had children with them, while killing non-"civilized" natives. "Civilized" Natives were actually considered vassals of the king of Portugal, black people weren't this was a way to show that they "respected" natives but of course it was just a trick Consequently, today, the government categorizes all mixed-race Brazilians, even those without African ancestry, as black or Afro-Brazilian, denying them rights to indigenous lands, which are highly valuable for the coloniser. Descendants of enslaved people typically have limited land ownership, prompting the government to impose a black identity on all mixed-race Brazilians. However, there is growing resistance to this racial imposition among them.

  29. Brazil never invests same energy into Indigenous DNA Which is huge even black Brazilians Such as player endrick has native blood but Brazil insists they're solely black because black people can't claim they were descendants of first inhabitants, it's all a plan to for the white to rob the land. They say there are only 1 million natives but if the real numbers of descendants were published Many would want to discover who their native ancestors were, which tribe and this would pose a huge problem for the government. So telling everybody they're black they won't face any of this problem but Indigenous ancestry is extremity high

  30. Did you know that black Africans were not 🚫 initially called "black" in Brazil 🇧🇷? The first to be called "black" were enslaved native Brazilians because black meant slave, when Brazil was discovered natives were described as pardos in 1500 which was not black or white, today pardo means mixed. The first "official" language of Brazil wasn't Portuguese but native Tupi. African Enslaved people were called "tapamunhos" by white and natives. With the promulgation of the Indian Directory 1757. It became illegal to call natives black because it was associated with slavery and it was prohibited to enslave them 🚫 But now all their descendants even without black ancestry are all counted as black because the gov want to erase indigenous ancestry and their existence with the support of afro activists. Black arecelebrating this ethnocide when they believe that Brazil is majority "black" thanks to the erasure of native identity.

  31. These people are descendants of quilombolas, as the Amazon region historically received the fewest Africans. This makes them easier to study. However, will the researchers also inform us about the amount of native Brazilian blood in these Afro-descendants? Given that the Amazon has the largest native Brazilian population and intermixing occurred?
    If they don't then it's another erasure of indigenous ancestry supported by afro activists. These two great people lived and died together

  32. Black people are inadvertently supporting the ethnocide of Indigenous brazilian DNA. Majority of the people in the video have Native Brazilian DNA along African, the black footballer endrick has 11% native Diane dos santos is 20% native 39% black but you are all here acting like native Brazilians didn't exist and trying to claim the country as black. Acting so desperate. I hope you all get called out internationally at some point for taking part in the white men's plans to erase Brazil of it's indigenous ancestry because this is supported by afro activists from Brazil and abroad. It would be no different if whites claimed south Africa as white nation. I hope the world will soon notice the injustice that is going on in Brazil 🇧🇷

  33. Please watch my videos on mixed race brazilians of indigenous descent who according to the new law are considered black but if you see them they're white and native mix. Black people need to know what's going on in Brazil, you don't need to erase native to feel better. Beware that you're supporting the white men by erasing native ancestry most Brazilians have native blood.

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