following the trend of several other countries in the americas, which encouraged immigration from many countries, brazil quickly became a melting pot of races and nationalities, but being peculiar in the sense of having the highest degree of intermarriage in the world. immigrants found a strong social and cultural tolerance toward inter-racial marriage, including large numbers of mulattoes (european and african), caboclos (indian and european) and mixed european, african and indian people, though it was not accompanied by an entire lack of racism. correspondingly, the same mentality reflected in low psychological and social barriers regarding intermarriage between europeans, middle easterners and asians of several origins, as well as between people of different religions.