E/CN.4/1996/72/Add.1 page 7 fail to mention the carnal ties between master and slave which produced the first people of mixed parentage and were the origin of one of the features of modern Brazilian society. 4/ 14. It was this early period, with the mingling of Amerindian, European and African stock, that saw the beginnings of the demographic complexity of Brazil, characterized by a long process of miscegenation between these three population groups, while physiological miscegenation was largely the result of domination and at times rape, a cultural miscegenation also occurred. The dominant framework and the structure of production were European, but many cultural features of the subordinate groups became assimilated: the Indians’ legacy was the growing of cassava, the use of the hammock and a large number of place names. The African introduced gardening and metalworking techniques, cooking, music and religions, which even today make the North-east a unique cultural aggregate in Brazil. 15. The gold cycle followed that of sugar, the price of which fell to a low point on world markets because of competition from British and French output. As a result, both free men and slaves were attracted to the mines in the State of Minas Gerais, in the South-east region, a process that contributed to the gradual decline of the North-east, symbolized by the transfer of the colonial capital from Salvador to Rio de Janeiro in 1763. 16. It was this period that saw the beginning of the dependency between the North-east and the South-east and South. As the North-east became progressively marginalized, the country’s centre of gravity would move south, a trend that intensified with the expansion of coffee growing which would ensure the economic prosperity of the South-central area. The coffee cycle was not a delayed repetition of the sugar cycle from the point of view of plantation management since the slave system was being challenged and the abolition of slavery in 1888 was to lead to the replacement of slave labour by a wage-earning or contractual labour force, largely made up of European emigrants. 17. Some people take the view that the process of exclusion of Blacks, Indians and people of mixed parentage from the country’s economic and social life began during this period - since nothing had been done to integrate the former slaves - and was intensified by the industrialization of the country (principally in the South and South-east in the twentieth century) and by the increasing numbers of immigrants from Europe, but also from Asia (especially Japan). By acquiring or receiving land and by obtaining skilled jobs or establishing businesses, these immigrants were to form a prosperous, predominantly white Brazil in the South-east and South, as opposed to the poor regions of the North and North-east, whose interbred populations came to swell the favelas of Rio and São Paolo. 5/ Regional imbalances, the product of a history of contrasts, have also engendered ethno-sociological imbalances. 18. The African contribution is particularly evident in the old plantation areas, where there had been a concentration of African slaves. The sugar cane cycle had left a large Black and Mulatto population in the North-east, especially Pernambuco and Bahia and in part of the South-east, Rio de Janeiro. These population groups are also found, to a less concentrated degree, in the State of Minas Gerais, where the gold and mining cycle had brought many slaves