Sharecroppers and squatters (lavradores and moradores) were further down on the social ladder, and often paid for the privilege of cultivating their own plots of land on the property belonging to the mill owner. Naturally, the proliferation of the Portuguese plantations necessitated a great deal of slave labor and slaves in Brazil, as everywhere else, occupied the bottom-most level in the colonial social hierarchy. While slaves in Brazil were considered citizens, not property, and entertained the rights to marry, buy freedom, and fight legal battles, they were still flogged, branded, mutilated, and even murdered by their white masters. Eventually, escaped slaves began to form communities in the interior of Brazil, referred to as quilombos, and treaties were eventually reached giving those born in these communities full freedom and autonomy. In summary, the social structure in Brazil was quite clear-cut - white immigrants controlled the colony's economy and therefore claimed the top positions of power and privilege, and the social hierarchy descended down ethnic lines from white workers to mulattoes and other citizens of mixed ancestries to the African slaves.
The social structure of colonial Cuba differed from that of Brazil in several ways, but the two were still, in effect, the same. The Cuban immigrants did not adopt any of the ideas of ethnic flexibility entertained by the Brazilians; social status in Cuba was determined first by race and then by economic standing. The sole two distinct racial groups in the colony were whites and blacks, and they were subdivided accordingly. The white population was divided according to origin, with the Spanish immigrants being labeled either peninsulares or criollos. Peninsulares, or colonists born in Spain, enjoyed preferential treatment from the crown and occupied the majority of prestigious civil and religious positions in the colony.
