A very special country

I once heard a philosophy teacher say a few but very interesting words about Brazil: America and Brazil are similar in many ways: time of discovery, size, slavery, european roots for instance. 
But similarities stop here: americans have deep european roots that brazilians do not. Brazil is more like Africa and when you visit Salvador, you get a crystal clear picture of that situation.
Partly due to very different colonisation processses, America has stood close to Europe and Brazil has moved to African culture.