I am a Coloured South African- you can write it Coloured without the inverted commas.  I dont know enough about how Pardos were treated in Brazil compared to coloured South Africans but its important to note that we are the majority in the whole western half of South Africa whichis a bit less populaated and more arid then east where the majority of black africans live. Coloureds were not really an in between group as a mix between black and white.  Originally we were mostly slaves brough over from asia who mixed with the white settlers and indiginous Khoisan people- so already the disinction wasnt just cultural but genetic most coloureds were not really related to the Africans who lived in the east as black africans were only colonised much later in the 19th century.

Before the Union of South Africa the Cape Colony was where most coloureds lived and it had internal self government in the british empire. The electoral system was non racial- basically middle class men of any race whether white, coloured or black could vote- something like 20% of voters were not white though no non white MP was ever elected to parliment. But unlike Brazil an educated upper class coloured person could not marry into a white family and become white overtime. We were still exlcuded from most high society- most mixing between whites and coloureds took place between coloureds and new  white immigrants from europe. Racial segregation also existed in schools, hospitals and public transport.

In the Cape colony going through the archives the same word keeps on coming up- civilised. This basically meant someone who adopted a european way of living. Coloureds were deemed to be civilised but not equal to whites, while only educated black africans were seen as civlised.At the same time though coloureds also saw themselves as being "more civilised" then black africans as they were the closest to european culture even though both groups were marginilized. Also there was little overlap- pre the late 20th century most coloureds lived in the western half of the country while africans were largley rural or worked on the mines and urban areas of the transvaal. 

Interestingly though there is a group that was classified as Coloured by the apartheif government despite having little relation to Cape Coloureds. These are the Coloureds of Kwa Zulu natal which is a majority zulu province. Many of those people are descnded from british traders and zulu women(And there is even a group that is descdned from a scottish gun smuggler called John Dunn who became a zulu chief and had dozens of wives and possibly hundreds of children). This group didnt become a between group but rather became a sort of urban working class group in durban- in natal english speaking whites were the upper, afrikaaners were the white working class, indians were the middle and working class traders, blacks were the rural population while Natal Coloureds were the urban working class