Which Central and South Americans cultures are the most Spanish in ancestry?

Factual Questions
1

First of all, please correct any incorrect notions that may be present in my question. I’m not particularly informed on the topic. The foundations for this question are of the “Oh, I think I heard somewhere once . . .” type.

So, with that preface:

Oh, I think I heard somewhere once that when the Spanish came to the New World their intentions were more along the lines of gaining fortune and returning to Spain in contrast to the English and Dutch plans to make settlement and establish colonies.

Because of this the Spanish did not bring women with them. Consequently, the peoples of Central and South America are a mix of European and Indigenous American ancestry because the Spanish settlers only had the idigenous women with whom to procreate.

First of all: How correct is my understanding of this?

Now, my main question:

Of course each of the nations of Central and South America has a distinct history. As Spanish involvement in the New World progressed did they become more settlement-minded? Do some of the peoples of Central and South America have more Spanish background than others (as a culture, not individuals)?
Any related info having to do with the Portuguese would also be appreciated.

2

As a generalization, this is pretty much correct, especially for the earliest period of colonization. Some Spanish women did come however.

I think it varies more regionally based on what originally happened to the Indian population, rather than changing concepts of colonization. Costa Rica, for example, is the most European/least Indian country in Central America, because the Indians were pretty much wiped out. Guatemala is the most Indian, because it had the densest population to start with and relatively large numbers of Indians survived.

In Panama, the proportion of Spanish vs. Indian blood varies locally. In the province of Los Santos, most of the Indians were wiped out so that Santenos are “whiter” on average and have a more Spanish culture. Not far away, in the province of Cocle, there were relatively few Spanish colonists, and the population looks much more Indian and preserves more Indian culture. In the more remote parts of the country, essentially pure Indians have survived (Kuna, Embera, Ngobe, and others) with much of their culture intact. Some parts of the country are populated mostly by the descendents of escaped African slaves. Panama City itself also had a large slave population in colonial times, and the residents are a very complex mix of Spanish, Indian, and African (not to mention later influxes from China and the Mediterranean.)

One country where post-colonial settlement patterns had an enormous effect is Argentina. The population is nearly entirely of European descent, because the relatively few Indians were mostly wiped out and there was very heavy immigration from Europe, especially Italy, in the 19th century. There were also very few slaves. (Buenos Aires is one of the “whitest” cities I’ve ever been to, including Europe.)

3

If the question is simply which Latin American country is most European, the answer is Argentina. The percentage of Indian (i.e., native) population is quite small. There are somewhat more people of Italian ancestry than Spanish because of heavy nineteenth and twentieth immigration from Italy. Buenos Aires looks very European. It has a significant Jewish population. And a couple of random facts about the country: It has the highest rate of anorexia in the world because of the popularity of fashion models as career goals for women. It’s the third biggest market for Woody Allen films, after the U.S. and France, and maybe it’s the largest market per capita for them.

4

This would have to do with Brazil, where the Portuguese intermarried/had relations with both the indigenous population and with the large African slave population that they brought with them. So in Brazil you have a mixture of Portuguese, African, and Indian cultures, though the degree of this mixture varies from place to place.

You also have a significant presence of German descendants in southern Brazil, and large numbers of Japanese descendants in places like Sao Paulo. And so forth and so on.

So Portuguese culture is really just one of many pieces in the Brazilian cultural mosaic.

Brazilians take a lot of pride in their diversity, which contrasts strongly with their much more European neighbors in Argentina.

5

Argentina and uruguay are clearly the most European countries in Spanish speaking America, but the Spanish are perhaps eclipsed by the Italians in terms of their contribution to the ancestry of the people in the country.

Also, while I’ll agree that Buenos Aires is essentially European, some of the back country of Argentina (around the Andes) is pretty heavily mestizo, though Bolivian and Chilean immigration is part of this.

I would make the case that if you are talking about actual Spanish (as opposed to European in general) ancestry, (pre-Castro) Cuba would have the highest percentage. Some figures I have seen claimed Cuba was 75% Spanish in the 1950s, though more accurate figures might be closer to 50-60% then, and probably 30-40% today. One factor is Cuba and Puerto Rico remained Spanish colonies up to 1898, and retain a Spanish element. Chile and Costa Rica are mostly mestizo, but there is a stronger Spanish element in mestizos from those countries than in many others, mainly because the indigenous people put up more resistance and were driven away from much of their land. So the mestizos there are often more European looking. By contrast, many mestizos are actually the descendants of indigenous people who adopted Spanish ways and ceased to be “Indians”.

Different Latin American countries had different patterns of settlement and intermarriage. Peru and Mexico have a similar history in many ways, but they are still quite different because in Peru, the Spanish mostly settled (along with their African slaves) on the coast. The Native Quechua and Aymara stayed largely intact in the highlands. So currently Peru is about 40-50% indigenous, 40% mestizo (including many Hispanicized Indians), and there is a white population concentrated around Lima, with Asians and Blacks. In Peru being “white Peruvian” is almost synonymous with being from metropolitan Lima
By contrast “provincial” is often a euphemism for mainly Indian blood. Of course Lima today has many people from the interior of Indian ancestry.

In central Mexico, the Spanish didn’t start a colony alongside a conquered Indian empire, they built one on top instead. So the Mexican capital probably always had a predominantly Indian or part Indian majority, and the “white Mexican” population is a very small elite mostly in the cities, but not as separate from the majority as in Peru. Mexico now is more like 10-20% indigenous, 70-80% mestizo, and probably 5% more or less European.

In southern Mexico, around Chiapas and Oaxaca, a “Peruvian model” of settlement took place instead, and as a results those states have large Indian majorities. And in Northern Mexico, the Native population was more sparse (Apaches and Yaqui as in Arizona and New Mexico), so little mixing between Spaniards and Indians took place there. Settlers from further south brought most of the Native ancestry. Some of the people from northern New Mexico, who are not Mexican immigrants but the descendants of Spanish settlers, are often very European looking.