For various reasons the Spaniards and Portuguese mingled with the natives.

Among them religious, since they had as objective to convert the natives to the catholic, whereas the British did not have this with objective.

Another reason was the alliances, which began mostly through weddings. In Brazil he had a Portuguese named João Ramalho who was shipwrecked on the Brazilian coast around 1515 and he married one of the daughters of the local chief and years later when the Portuguese and Jesuits came to colonize he was able to help them by the close relationship he had with the chief . Later the sons of these Portuguese with natives were called "Mamelucos", a word in Arabic that was used to refer to the servants or slaves, mainly the military slaves. And these Mamelukes in Brazil were used mainly in expeditions by the interior of the country to find gold and to capture slaves. In the Spanish case has similarities, mainly with the conquistadors looking for gold and slaves.

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