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Zambo is a Spanish term (the Portuguese term is cafuzo) used in the Spanish Empire and occasionally today to identify individuals in the Americas who are of mixed African and Amerindian ancestry (the analogous English term, considered a slur, is sambo). The meaning of the term "Sambo" however is contested in North America, other etymologies have been proposed. The word originated from the Romance and Latin language. The feminine word is Zamba (not to be confused with the Afro-Brazilian Samba folk dance or Samba music, or with Argentine Zamba folk dance). Under the caste system of Spanish colonial America, the term originally applied to the children of one African and one Amerindian parent, or the children of two zambo parents. During this period a myriad of other terms denoted individuals of African / Amerindian ancestry in ratios smaller or greater than the 50:50 of zambos: "Cambujo" (Zambo/Amerindian mixture) for example. Today, zambo refers to all people with significant amounts of both African and Amerindian ancestry, though it is frequently considered pejorative. |