Back to Study Guide Home Page Race and Caste in Colonial Mexico I. La Republica de Indios

• A. Spanish Crown wanted to keep groups separate
  • 1. Amerindians in the the Republica de Indios
  • 2. Whites and Blacks in a Republica de Espanoles
  • 3. Each republic with its own laws
  • 4. Indians live in separate communities
  • 5. Races separate in terms of marriage, jobs
  B. This plan unrealistic
  • 1. Miscegenation and acculturation take place for many reasons
  • 2. No Spanish women in first wave; not very many until 1550
  • 3. Economic, social realities insure biological and cultural intermingling
  C. Catstas develop quickly
  • 1. Spanish law designed around "purebloods"
    • a. Creole (Mexican-born) and Penisulare (Spanish-Born) whites at top
    • b. Indians and African next
  • 2. Mestizo, Mulatto, and Zambo part of scene very quickly
  • 3. Lots of crazy terms for other mixtures

II. Spaniards

• A. Very regionalistic Spain, carried over to the New World
  • 1. Spaniards viewed people from home region as an extended family
  • 2. Tended to help out people from home region
  • 3. "Spanish" (Castillian) does not become dominant tounge until 1600s
• B. Why go to Mexico ?
  • 1. To join families
  • 2. Artisans looking for job opportunities
  • 3. Many arive in retinues of royal officials
  • 4. Many came as indentured servants - poor people were largest group
• C. Limpieza de sangre
  • 1. Spanish law put emphasis on putrity of blood
  • 2. Must be able to prove an all-Spanish, all-Christian ancestry
  • 3. Basques held an exalted, arrogrant position
  • 4. Steady darkening of creoles led to a penisulare-creole divide

III. Amerindians

• A. Enourmous demographic disaster was the end for the Indian cities - people became rural
• B. Tribute contributes to acculturation
  • 1. Must pay in European goods (pigs, chicken) - grew to like them
  • 2. Need for cash pushed many into market life
  • 3. Desire to escape tribute propelled many into Spanish towns
  • 4. Eventually replaced tribute with free-wage work gangs - more acculturation
• C. What held Indian communities together was a strong sense of family, community
  • 1. Family made few concessions to Europe, though polygamy eliminated
  • 2. Acculturation fastest in North and near large cities
• D. Revolts
  • 1. Indians generally accepted Crown's legitimacy
  • 2. Were quick to revolt over grievances, violations of perceived rights
  • 3. Revolts did not challenge basic system, and judges were lenient

IV. Mestizos

• A. Hard to identify
  • 1. Biological mestizos in 1500s tended to identify with one or the other
  • 2. Spanish law did not account for them for a long time
• B. Outcasts
  • 1. Those identified as mestizos considered to be illegitimate
  • 2. This put a number of legal and psychological burdens on them
  • 3. Not until 1700s did law and society see them as unique group
• C. Go-betweens, innovators
  • 1. Some able to bridge gap, act as acculturating force in both directions
  • 2. Marginal status pushed them into pushing the limits of tradition
  • 3. But if successful, sought white status

V. Africans and mulattos

• A. Juan Garrido - free black - Cortes's valet and a conquistador in his own right
• B. But most arrived as slaves
  • 1. Some 200,000 over colonial era
  • 2. Because few women brought, mullatos and zambos much more common
  • 3. Worked in sugar, pearl fishing, mines, ranching, numerous crafts
  • 4. Agents of acculturation, as they had little choice but to identify with Spaniards
• C. Revolts and Maroon communities
  • 1. A number of revolts
  • 2. Authorities often dealt with them harshly
  • 3. Authorities forced to give official status to some maroon communities
• D. Free blacks and mulattos
  • 1. Through manumission, maroons, family ties, a free black community develops
  • 2. Lived and worked in the same world as mestizos
  • 3. Black men usually took Indian wives
  • 4. Common for high-ranking white men to have a mullata mistress
  • 5. Possible for successful mulattos to buy certificates of whiteness
  • 6. In this way, Afro-Mexicans merged with the creole and mestizo world

Back to Study Guide Home Page