Inspired by the seminal studies of Melville Herskovitz, Franklin Frazier, Donald Pierson, and Ruth Landes in Bahia, Brazil has become in the postwar period a research laboratory for the study of harmonious race relations. This condition was internationally acknowledge when UNESCO sponsored a cycle of studies on race relations in Brazil in the 50s. The Bahian studies, made under the coordination or intelectual influence of Thales de Azevedo, became since then a hallmark for the social sciences in Brazil. In this paper I reconstruct the theoretical analysis of Azevedo on the Bahian race situation from his early study on the Povoamento da Cidade de Salvador until his critique of racial democracy in the 70s. I concentrate, however, on his main empirical work, The colour elites in Bahia of 1953.
Thales de Azevedo; race relations; Bahia; The colour elites