Casta: Difference between revisions
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[[File:Casta painting all.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|{{lang|es|Las castas|italic=yes}}. Casta painting showing 16 racial groupings. Anonymous, 18th century, oil on canvas, 148×104 cm, {{lang|es| |
[[File:Casta painting all.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|{{lang|es|Las castas|italic=yes}}. Casta painting showing 16 racial groupings. Anonymous, 18th century, oil on canvas, 148×104 cm, {{lang|es|Museo Nacional del Virreinato|italic=no}}, {{lang|nah|[[Tepotzotlán]]|italic=no}}, Mexico]] |
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'''{{lang|es|Casta}}''' ({{IPA-es|ˈkasta|lang}}) is a term meaning [[Lineage (anthropology)|lineage]] or race in Spanish and Portuguese. The term has historically been used as a racial and social identifier for mixed-race offspring in the colonial [[Spanish America|Spanish Empire in the Americas]]. The Spanish crown created a basic legal division between Hispanic society (''República de Españoles'') and Indigenous peoples (''República de Indios''), mainly living in indigenous communities. In the Hispanic sector were Spaniards, Black Africans, and mixed-race ''castas''.<ref>Seed, Patricia. "Caste and Class Structure in Colonial Spanish America" in ''[[Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture]]''. Vol. 2, 7-11</ref><ref>Cope, R. Douglas. ''The Limits of Racial Domination: Plebeian Society in Colonial Mexico City, 1660–1720''. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press 1994, 1, 4</ref> |
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'''{{lang|es|Casta}}''' ({{IPA-es|ˈkasta|lang}}) is a term which means "[[Lineage (anthropology)|lineage]]" in Spanish and Portuguese and has historically been used as a racial and social identifier. In the context of the [[Spanish America|Spanish Empire in the Americas]], the term also refers to a now-discredited 20th-century theoretical framework which postulated that colonial society operated under a hierarchical race-based "[[caste system]]". From the outset, colonial Spanish America resulted in widespread intermarriage: [[Miscegenation|unions]] of [[Spaniards]] ({{lang|es|españoles}}), [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|indigenous people]] ({{lang|es|indios}}), and [[List of ethnic groups of Africa|Africans]] ({{lang|es|[[negro]]s}}). Basic [[Multiracial people|mixed-race]] categories that appeared in official colonial documentation were {{lang|es|[[mestizo]]}}, generally offspring of a Spaniard and an Indigenous person; and {{lang|es|[[mulatto]]}}, offspring of a Spaniard and an African. A plethora of terms were used for people with mixed Spanish, Indigenous, and African ancestry in 18th-century casta paintings, but they are not known to have been widely used officially or unofficially in the [[Spanish Empire]]. |
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Many scholars have examined whether there was a rigid, racially-based, social hierarchy in Spanish America<ref>Cope, ''The Limits of Racial Domination''</ref><ref>Vinson, Ben III. ''Before Mestizaje: The Frontiers of Race and Caste in Colonial Mexico''. New York: Cambridge University Press 2018</ref> Although a strict racial hierarchy is shown in 18th century "casta paintings," with fixed categories in rank order, created by Spanish American and Iberian painters, extensive archival research does not support the artists' imagined fixity and rigidity of a highly ordered racial system.<ref>Katzew, Ilona. ''Casta Painting: Images of Race in Eighteenth-Century Mexico''. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004.</ref> |
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With the encounter in the [[New World]] between European Spaniards, [[List of ethnic groups of Africa|enslaved Africans]] ({{lang|es|[[negro]]s}}) forcibly brought by Spaniards, and [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|indigenous people]] ({{lang|es|indios}}), [[Miscegenation|sexual unions]] produced offspring that colonial officials classified in newly created legal racial categories. [[Multiracial people|Mixed-race]] categories that appeared in official Spanish documentation were {{lang|es|[[mestizo]]}}, generally offspring of a Spanish man and an Indigenous woman; and {{lang|es|[[mulatto]]}}, offspring of a Spanish man and an African woman. Many other terms are found in casta paintings, for people with variously mixed Spanish, Indigenous, and African ancestry; however, except for official categories of ''mestizo'' and mulatto, the plethora of other terms are not known to have been widely used officially or unofficially in the [[Spanish Empire]]. A few upwardly mobile African-descended men petitioned the crown in the late 18th century for "certificates of whiteness" (''cédulas de gracias al sacar'') to improve their social standing.<ref name="ReferenceA">Twinam, Ann. ''Purchasing Whiteness: Pardos, Mulattos, and the Quest for Social Mobility in the Spanish Indies''. Stanford: Stanford University Press 2015</ref> |
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== Etymology == |
== Etymology == |
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{{lang|es|Casta}} is an Iberian word (existing in Spanish, Portuguese and other Iberian languages since the Middle Ages), meaning |
{{lang|es|Casta}} is an Iberian word (existing in Spanish, Portuguese and other Iberian languages since the Middle Ages), meaning '[[lineage (anthropology)|lineage]]'. It is documented in Spanish since 1417 and is linked to the [[Proto-Indo-European language|Proto-Indo-European]] ''{{PIE|ger}}''. The Portuguese {{lang|pt|casta}} gave rise to the English word ''[[caste]]'' during the [[early modern period]].<ref>"Caste", ''Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary'', 10th edition. (Springfield, 1999.)</ref><ref>"Caste", ''New Oxford American Dictionary'', 2nd edition. (Oxford, 2005).</ref> |
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in Spanish for Spanish America, the [[Oxford English Dictionary]] states it "applies to the several mixed breeds [sic] between Europeans, Indians, and Negroes".<ref>OED, 1971. vol. 1, p.160</ref> The Portuguese word {{lang|pt|casta}} gave rise to the English word ''[[caste]]'' during the [[early modern period]], which was applied to the rigid social hierarchy in India, which the Portuguese had reached in 1498.<ref>"Caste", ''Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary'', 10th edition. (Springfield, 1999.)</ref><ref>"Caste", ''New Oxford American Dictionary'', 2nd edition. (Oxford, 2005).</ref> However, the strict system of hierarchy in India, the [[caste system]], differs significantly from the more fluid, multiracial situation in colonial Spanish America. |
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==Use of casta terminology== |
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In the historical literature, how racial distinction, hierarchy, and social status functioned over time in colonial Spanish America has been an evolving and contested discussion.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Giraudo |first1=Laura |title=Casta(s), 'sociedad de castas' e indigenismo: la interpretación del pasado colonial en el siglo XX |journal=Nuevo Mundo Mundos Nuevos |date=14 June 2018 |doi=10.4000/nuevomundo.72080 |doi-access=free |hdl=10261/167130 |hdl-access=free }}</ref><ref name="Vinson, Ben III 2018">Vinson, Ben III. ''Before Mestizaje: The Frontiers of Race and Caste in Colonial Mexico''. New York: Cambridge University Press 2018.</ref> Although the term ''sistema de castas'' (system of castes) or ''sociedad de castas'' ("society of castes") are utilized in modern historical analyses to describe the social hierarchy based on race, with Spaniards at the apex, archival research shows that there is not a rigid "system" with fixed places for individuals.<ref>Cope, R. Douglas. ''The Limits of Racial Domination: Plebeian Society in Colonial Mexico City, 1660–1720''. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994.</ref><ref>Valdés, Dennis N., "Decline of the ''Sociedad de Castas'' in Eighteenth-Century Mexico." PhD diss. University of Michigan, 1978</ref><ref>Rappaport, Joanne. ''The Disappearning Mestizo: Configuring Difference in the Colonial New Kingdom of Granada''. Durham: Duke University Press 2014.</ref> rather, a more fluid social structure where individuals could move from one category to another, or maintain or be given different labels depending on the context. In the 18th century, "casta paintings", imply a fixed racial hierarchy, but this genre may well have been an attempt to bring order into a system that was more fluid. "For colonial elites, casta paintings might well have been an attempt to fix in place rigid divisions based on race, even as they were disappearing in social reality."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Cline |first1=Sarah |title=Guadalupe and the Castas |journal=Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos |date=1 August 2015 |volume=31 |issue=2 |pages=218–247 |doi=10.1525/mex.2015.31.2.218 }}</ref> |
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Examination of registers in colonial Mexico put in question other narratives held by certain academics, such as Spanish immigrants who arrived to Mexico being almost exclusively men or that "pure Spanish" people were all part of a small powerful elite, as Spaniards were often the most numerous ethnic group in the colonial cities<ref name="EnsayospoblaciónMéxico">{{cite book|author1=Sherburne Friend Cook|author2=Woodrow Borah|title=Ensayos sobre historia de la población. México y el Caribe 2|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DSCVztyTANcC&pg=PA223|access-date=September 12, 2017|date=1998|publisher=Siglo XXI|isbn=9789682301063|page=223}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Hardin |first1=Monica L. |title=Household Mobility and Persistence in Guadalajara, Mexico: 1811–1842 |date=2016 |publisher=Lexington Books |isbn=978-1-4985-4072-8 |page=62 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t4SRDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA62 }}</ref> and there were menial workers and people in poverty who were of complete Spanish origin.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=San Miguel |first1=G. |title=Ser mestizo en la nueva España a fines del siglo XVIII: Acatzingo, 1792 |trans-title=To be 'mestizo' in New Spain at the end of the XVIIIth century. Acatzingo, 1792 |language=es |journal=Cuadernos de la Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales. Universidad Nacional de Jujuy |date=November 2000 |issue=13 |pages=325–342 |url=http://www.scielo.org.ar/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1668-81042000000100018 }}</ref> |
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In New Spain (colonial Mexico) during the [[Mexican War of Independence]], race and racial distinctions were an important issue and the end of imperial had a strong appeal. [[José María Morelos]], who was registered as a Spaniard in his baptismal records, called for the abolition of the formal distinctions the imperial regime made between racial groups, advocating for "calling them one and all Americans."<ref>quoted in [[Enrique Krauze]], ''Mexico: Biography of Power''. New York: HarperCollins 1997, p. 112</ref> Morelos issued regulations in 1810 to prevent ethnic-based disturbances. "He who raises his voice should be immediately punished." In 1821 race was an issue in the negotiations resulting in the [[Plan of Iguala]].<ref>quoted in Krauze, ''Mexico'', p. 111.</ref> |
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=="Colonial Caste System" debate== |
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The degree to which racial category labels had legal and social consequences has been subject to academic debate since the idea of a "caste system" was first developed by Polish-Venezuelan philologist [[Ángel Rosenblat]] and Mexican anthropologist [[Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán]] in the 1940s. Both authors popularized the notion that racial status was the key organizing principle of Spanish colonial rule, a theory which became commonplace in the [[anglosphere]] during the mid and late 20th century. However, recent academic studies in Latin America have widely challenged this notion, considering it a flawed and ideologically-based reinterpretation of the colonial period. |
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[[Pilar Gonzalbo]], in her study {{lang|es|La trampa de las castas}} (2013) discards the idea of the existence of a "caste system" or a "caste society" in New Spain, understood as a "social organization based on the race and supported by coercive power".<ref name="Gonzalbo Aizpuru 2013, p. 15">Gonzalbo Aizpuru, Pilar, "La trampa de las castas" in Alberro, Solange and Gonzalbo Aizpuru, Pilar, ''La sociedad novohispana. Estereotipos y realidades, México'', El Colegio de México, 2013, p. 15–193.</ref> She also affirms in her work that certain subliminal and derogatory messages in caste paintings were not a general phenomenon, and that they only began to be carried out in particular environments of the [[Criollo people|Criollo]] oligarchies after the [[Bourbon Reforms|Bourbon Reformism]] and the influx of ideas of [[scientific racism]] from the [[illustration]] within some encyclopedic environments of the colonial bourgeoisie. |
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Joanne Rappaport, in her book on colonial [[New Kingdom of Granada|New Granada]], ''The Disappearing Mestizo'', rejects the caste system as an interpretative framework for that time, discussing both the legitimacy of a model valid for the entire colonial world and the usual association between "caste" and "race".<ref>{{Cite book|last=Rappaport|first=Joanne|title=The Disappearing Mestizo: Configuring Difference in the Colonial Kingdom of New Granada|publisher=Durham: Duke University Press|date=4 April 2014|isbn=978-0822356363}}</ref> |
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Similarly, Berta Ares' 2015 study on the [[Viceroyalty of Peru]], notes that the term "casta" was barely used by colonial authorities which, according to her, casts doubt on the existence of a "caste system". Even by the 18th century, its use was rare and appeared in its plural form, "castas", characterized by its ambiguous meaning. The word did not specifically refer to sectors of the population who were of mixed race, but also included both Spaniards and indigenous people of lower socio-economic extraction, often used together with other terms such as plebe, vulgo, naciones, clases, calidades, otras gentes, etc.<ref>Ares, Berta, “Usos y abusos del concepto de casta en el Perú colonial”, ponencia presentada en el Congreso Internacional INTERINDI 2015. Categorías e indigenismo en América Latina, EEHA-CSIC, Sevilla, 10 de noviembre de 2015. Citado con la autorización de la autora.</ref> |
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Ben Vinson, in a study of the historical archives of Mexico carried out in 2018, addressing the issue of racial diversity in Mexico and its relationship with imperial Spain, ratified these conclusions.<ref name="Vinson, Ben III 20182">{{cite book |title=Before Mestizaje: The Frontiers of Race and Caste in Colonial Mexico|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2018|isbn=9781107026438}}</ref> |
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Often called the {{lang|es|sistema de castas}} or the {{lang|es|sociedad de castas}}, there was, in fact, no fixed system of classification for individuals, as careful archival research has shown. There was considerable fluidity in society, with the same individuals being identified by different categories simultaneously or over time. Individuals self-identified by particular terms, often to shift their status from one category to another to their advantage. For example, both {{lang|es|mestizos}} and Spaniards were exempt from tribute obligations, but were both equally subject to the [[Spanish Inquisition|Inquisition]]. {{lang|es|Indios}}, on the other hand, paid tribute yet were exempt from the Inquisition. In certain cases, a {{lang|es|mestizo}} might try to "[[passing (racial identity)|pass]]" as an {{lang|es|indio}} to escape the Inquisition. An {{lang|es|indio}} might try to pass as a {{lang|es|Mestizo}} to escape tribute obligations.<ref name="Gonzalbo Aizpuru 2013, p. 15"/> |
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Casta paintings produced largely in 18th-century Mexico have influenced modern understandings of race in Spanish America, a concept which began infiltrating [[House of Bourbon|Bourbon]] Spain from France and Northern Europe during this time. They purport to show a fixed "system" of racial hierarchy which has been disputed by modern academia. These paintings should be evaluated as the production by elites in [[New Spain]] for an elite viewership in both Spanish territories and abroad portrayals of mixtures of Spaniards with other ethnicities, some of which have been interpreted as being pejorative in nature or seeking social outrage. They are thus useful for understanding elites and their attitudes toward non-elites, and quite valuable as illustrations of aspects of material culture in the late colonial era.<ref>Katzew, Ilona. ''Casta Painting: Images of Race in Eighteenth-Century Mexico''. New Haven: Yale University Press 2004.</ref> |
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The process of mixing ancestries by the union of people of different races is known in the modern era as ''{{lang|es|mestizaje}}'' ({{lang-pt|mestiçagem}} {{IPA-pt|mestʃiˈsaʒẽj|}}, {{IPA-pt|mɨʃtiˈsaʒɐ̃j|}}). In Spanish colonial law, mixed-race castas were classified as part of the {{lang|es|república de españoles}} and not the {{lang|es|república de indios}}, which set indigenous people outside the Hispanic sphere with different duties and rights to those of Spaniards and Mestizos. |
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The caste system for these revisionists would have been misconstrued as being analogous to the castes of India. Given that in viceregal Spanish America there was never a closed system based on birth rights, where the birth rate and, therefore, wealth, created a "caste system" difficult to penetrate; but, rather, the statute of ''Limpieza de sangre'' (a concept of religious root and not biological or racial) was given, in which the Indian and the mestizo, as a [[new Christian]], had limitations on access to certain trades until assimilation full of his conversion to Catholicism; but that did not prevent his social ascent, and he would even receive protections that would benefit his social mobilization, protections that the [[old Christian]] of the ''Republica de españoles'' would not enjoy (such as being free from all the taxes of the whites, with the exception of the indigenous tribute, or be exempt from the Holy Inquisition). Then, those conceptions of a "caste society" or a "caste system" as characteristic of colonial society would be completely anachronistic formulations and could be part of the Spanish Black Legend. Given this, in works prior to those of Rosenblat and Beltrán, one would not find references to the notion that the Spanish empire was a society founded on racial segregation. Neither in [[:es:Nicolás León Calderón|Nicolás León]], [[:es:Gregorio Torres Quintero|Gregorio Torres Quintero]], [[Raphaël Blanchard|Blanchard]], nor in the Catalog of Herrera and Cicero (1895), nor in the article "Castas" of the Dictionary of History and Geography (1855), nor in [[Alexander von Humboldt]]'s Political Essay on the Spanish-American territories that he visited on his scientific expeditions. Among other works that refer to the existence of castes and caste paintings, without implying connotations with modern racism, which would come to America after the [[Age of Enlightenment|French Enlightenment]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Giraudo |first=Laura |date=2018-06-14 |title=Casta(s), "sociedad de castas" e indigenismo: la interpretación del pasado colonial en el siglo XX |url=https://journals.openedition.org/nuevomundo/72080 |journal=Nuevo Mundo Mundos Nuevos. Nouveaux Mondes Mondes Nouveaux - Novo Mundo Mundos Novos - New World New Worlds |language=es |doi=10.4000/nuevomundo.72080 |s2cid=165569000 |issn=1626-0252|hdl=10261/167130 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> |
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This would make these critics conclude that those colonial societies were rather of the class type, that although there was a relationship between class and race through castes, that was not in a cause relationship, but in a consequence relationship ( not being an end in itself the race, which was understood in the Hispanic tradition as something purely spiritual, not so much biological). The purpose of the castas was to register the identity of lineages to register them in the republic of Spaniards, the republic of Indians, with the services and privileges acquired, which would not disturb the economic potential of the individual of the caste, nor would they have the purpose of to formally segregate them from positions of power, but to hierarchize them in feudal society (not equivalent to the same thing, as long as they were not prevented from ascending to the nobility or being part of the commercial petty bourgeoisie). Then, the viceroyalty society would be a society of "quality", estate, corporate, patronage and trade union, where each social group was not conditioned by their race, and neither did this establish the labor relations of its inhabitants. In the parish registers there would never have been the tendency to classify in so many innumerable mixtures as seen in the caste charts, which would be an artistic phenomenon typical of the Age of Enlightenment.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2014-10-18 |title=Castas y corporaciones {{!}} Víctor R. Nomberto, Doctor en Ciencias Sociales |url=http://blog.pucp.edu.pe/blog/victornomberto/2014/10/18/castas-y-corporaciones/ |access-date=2023-06-20 |language=es-ES}}</ref><ref>Santiago Paúl Yépez</ref> |
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==Historical use of ''casta'' terminology== |
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In colonial-era documentation, the term ''casta'' itself is seldom used, more often the question was a person's ''calidad'', "or socioracial 'qualities' (ancestry, skin color, and physical features, occupation, wealth, degree of Hispanization, public reputation, and honor."<ref>[[Matthew Restall|Restall, Matthew]] and [[Kris Lane]]. ''Latin America in Colonial Times''. New York: Cambridge University Press 2018, 229</ref> The idea of racial or ethnic difference between European Spaniards, Black Africans, and the indigenous population existed from the first encounter in the New World. |
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Some examples of blacks, mulattoes and mestizos who climbed socially would be used as evidence against these misrepresentations, such as: [[Juan Latino]], [[Juan Valiente]], [[Juan Garrido]], Juan García, Juan Bardales, Sebastián Toral, Antonio Pérez, Miguel Ruíz, Gómez de León,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ferro |first=Redes Desperta |date=2019-05-22 |title=Los conquistadores negros. El papel africano en la conquista de América |url=https://www.despertaferro-ediciones.com/2019/conquistadores-negros-africanos-conquista-america/ |access-date=2023-06-20 |website=Desperta Ferro Ediciones |language=es}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Álvarez |first=Jorge |date=2016-04-23 |title=Los conquistadores españoles de 'raza' negra |url=https://www.labrujulaverde.com/2016/04/los-conquistadores-espanoles-de-raza-negra |access-date=2023-06-20 |website=La Brújula Verde |language=es-es}}</ref> Fran Dearobe, José Manuel Valdés, Teresa Juliana de Santo Domingo. Names of indigenous chiefs and noble mestizos are also mentioned: Carlos Inca, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Manuela Taurichumbi Saba Cápac Inca, Alonso de Castilla Titu Atauchi Inga, Alonso de Areanas Florencia Inca, Gonzalo Tlaxhuexolotzin, Vicente Xicohténcatl, Bartolomé Zitlalpopoca, Lorenzo Nahxixcalzin , Doña Luisa Xicotencatl, Nicolás de San Luis Montañez, Fernando de Tapia, Isabel Moctezuma Tecuichpo Ixcaxochitzin, Pedro de Moctezuma. The [[Royal Decree-Law (Spain)|Royal Decree]] of [[Philip II of Spain|Philip II]] on 1559 is also often mentioned, in which it is prescribed that "the mestizos who come to these kingdoms to study, or for other things of their use (...) do not need another license to return." The document is important, because laws are not made for particular cases and it shows that the existence of multiple castes did not impede social mobilization within the Hispanic monarchy, the same mobilization that must have been significant to require the attention of a royal edict of the person of the Spanish king.<ref>{{Cite book |last=García |first=Juan Andreo |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sLYxdYzCJxkC&dq=los+mestizos+que+vinieren+a+estos+reinos+a+estudiar%2C+o+a+otras+cosas+de+su+aprovechamiento+%28%E2%80%A6%29+no+necesiten+de+otra+licencia+para+regresar&pg=PA31 |title=Familia, tradición y grupos sociales en América Latina |date=1994 |publisher=EDITUM |isbn=978-84-7564-151-5 |language=es}}</ref> |
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The term "caste" does appear in the published observations of visitors to Spanish America. [[Jorge Juan y Santacilia]] and [[Antonio de Ulloa]] published ''A Voyage to South America'', translated to English in 1758,<ref name="Voyage">{{cite book |last1=Juan |first1=Jorge |last2=de Ulloa |first2=Antonio |title=A voyage to South America: describing at large the Spanish cities, towns, provinces, &c. on that extensive continent. Interspersed throughout with reflections on the genius, customs, manners, and trade of the inhabitants: together with the natural history of the country. And an account of their gold and silver mines. Undertaken by command of His Majesty the king of Spain |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8aY6m79a4ggC| access-date=1 May 2024 | year=1758| publisher=L. Davis and C. Reymers |location=London}}</ref> which the [[Oxford English Dictionary]] quotes in its definition of "caste."<ref>Oxford English Dictionary, vol. 1, p.350</ref> In the 1774 account of Spanish-Irish nobleman of his visit to colonial Mexico, [[Pedro Alonso O'Crouley]], ''Idea compendiosa del Reyno de Nueva España'', he devotes a chapter to "Racial Mixtures". His account includes images of race mixture, typical of the genre of casta paintings in 18th century Mexico, but his account does not include the term ''casta'' itself. "At the time of the conquest, only Indians of unmixed blood were known to inhabit New Spain. The Spaniards associated with them, as also did the Negroes after a little while. Human weakness brought about the indistinct combination, the mixture of bloods and multiplication of races, that even to the present day has produced in the commingling of the three stocks and their descendants a number of other common mixtures."<ref>[[Pedro Alonso O'Crouly|O'Crouly, Sr. Don Pedro Alonso]], ''A Description of the Kingdom of New Spain'', translated and edited by Seán Galvin. John Howell Books, 1972, 19</ref> |
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=="Purity of blood" and the evolution of racial classification== |
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[[Alexander von Humboldt]] spent a year in colonial Mexico and commented on differences in skin color and social standing. "In America the greater or lesser degree of whiteness of skins decides the rank which a man occupies in society... It becomes, consequently, a very interesting business of public vanity to estimate accurately the fractions of European blood which belong to the different castes."<ref>Humboldt, Alexander von. ''Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain'', trans. John Black: Alfred A. Knopf 1972, 87-88</ref> |
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Certain authors have sought to link the castas in Latin America to the older Spanish concept of "purity of blood", ''[[limpieza de sangre]]'', originating under Moorish rule, developed in Christian Spain to denote those without recent Jewish or Muslim heritage or, more widely, heritage from individuals convicted by the Spanish inquisition for heresy. |
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It was directly linked to religion and notions of legitimacy, lineage and honor following Spain's reconquest of Moorish territory and the degree to which it can be considered a precursor to the modern concept of race has been the subject of academic debate.<ref>Maria Elena Martinez, ''Genealogical Fictions: Limpieza de Sangre, Religion, and Gender in Colonial Mexico,'' Stanford: Stanford University Press 2008, p. 265.</ref> The Inquisition only allowed those Spaniards who could demonstrate not to have Jewish and Moorish blood to emigrate to Latin America, although this prohibition was frequently ignored and a number of Spanish Conquistadors were Jewish [[Conversos]]. Others, such as Juan Valiente, were Black Africans or had recent Moorish ancestry. |
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A large inventory of racial terms is found in the 18th century genre of casta painting, where individuals representing different racial types are explicitly labeled by the elite artists creating the works for elite viewers. |
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Both in Spain and in the New World Conversos who continued to practice Judaism in secret were aggressively prosecuted. Of the roughly 40 people executed by the Spanish Inquisition in Mexico, a significant number were convicted of being "Judaizers" (''judaizantes'') .<ref>Jonathan I. Israel, ''Race, Class, and Politics in Colonial Mexico, 1610-1670.'' Oxford: Oxford University Press 1975, pp. 245-46.</ref> Spanish Conquistador Luis de Carvajal y de la Cueva was prosecuted by the Inquisition for secretly practising Judaism and eventually died in prison. |
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=="Purity of blood", gender, and racial classification== |
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[[File:De_español_y_mestiza,_castiza.jpg|thumb|upright|Spanish (español) father, Mestiza (mixed Spanish-Indian) mother, and their [[Castiza]] daughter. [[Miguel Cabrera (painter)|Miguel Cabrera]]]] |
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[[File:BMVB - anònim - "3 De Español y Castiza, Española" - 1079 (cropped).jpg|thumb|From Spaniard and Castiza, Spaniard, anonymous (1799), [[Biblioteca Museu Víctor Balaguer]]]] |
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[[File:José Joaquín Magón - La Mulata.jpg|thumb|IV. Spaniard + Negra = Mulata. "The pride and sharp wits of the Mulata are instilled in her white father and black mother". [[José Joaquín Magón]]]] |
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[[File:Castas 07tornatras max.jpg|thumb|upright|Spanish father and ''Albina'' mother, [[Torna atrás]]. Miguel Cabrera]] |
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In Spanish America, the idea of purity of blood also applied to Black Africans and indigenous peoples since, as Spaniards of Moorish and Jewish descent, they had not been Christian for various generations and were inherently suspect of engaging in religious heresy. In all Spanish territories, including Spain itself, evidence of lack of purity of blood had consequences for eligibility for office, entrance into the priesthood, and emigration to Spain's overseas territories. Having to produce genealogical records to prove one's pure ancestry gave rise to a trade in the creation of false genealogies, a practice which was already widespread in Spain itself.<ref>Martinez, ''Genealogical Fictions'', p. 266-67.</ref> |
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In Iberia, the notion of "purity of blood",'' [[limpieza de sangre]]'', was applied in the religious sphere, where those with no Jewish or Muslim "blood" were considered to be "pure" and deemed [[Old Christians]] and held a privileged status. [[New Christians]] were Jews or Muslims and their descendants who converted to Christianity and excluded from a number of privileges, such as holding office, despite now being Christians. New Christians were subject to the [[Spanish Inquisition]] and prosecuted if they continued to practice their old religion. The creation of genealogies showing the religious affiliation of one's ancestry was common, many with genealogical fictions to eliminate ancestry of those with the "taint" of Jewish or Muslim "blood". Being fully Spanish meant having European blood of Old Christian heritage. To what extent the older concept of purity of blood can be considered a precursor to the modern concept of race has been the subject of academic debate.<ref>[[Maria Elena Martinez|Martínez, María Elena]], ''Genealogical Fictions: Limpieza de Sangre, Religion, and Gender in Colonial Mexico,'' Stanford: Stanford University Press 2008, p. 265.</ref> |
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This was no impediment for intermarriage between Spaniards and indigenous people, just as it had not been between Old and New Christians or different racial groups coexisting in late medieval and early modern Spain. The result was generations of mixed-race children who were typically considered Spaniards, and many of whom returned to Spain to join the ranks of the nobility, a notable example being Juan Cano Moctezuma. |
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In early Spanish America, "purity of blood" came to apply to racial and ethnic classification, formalized in the legal system. |
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The initial vision of Spain's overseas possession was to keep Spaniards and indigenous in two separate spheres, the Republic of Spaniards and the Republic of Indians. The crown had sought to keep the [[New World]] free of suspect New Christian emigrants, while friars sought to convert the pagan indigenous populations to Christianity (in the so-called "spiritual conquest"). Crown prohibitions against New Christians from emigrating overseas was viewed as a protective measure for Christian religious orthodoxy of the Spanish population and the indigenous peoples being newly brought into Christendom. In practice, some New Christians evaded the prohibitions on emigration and when the Inquisitions were established in Mexico City and Peru in the late sixteenth century, New Christians who were accused of practicing Judaism in secret ("[[Judaizers]]") were aggressively prosecuted. Of the roughly 40 people executed by the [[Mexican Inquisition]], a significant number were convicted.<ref>[[Jonathan I. Israel|Israel, Jonathan I.]], ''Race, Class, and Politics in Colonial Mexico, 1610-1670.'' Oxford: Oxford University Press 1975, pp. 245-46.</ref> |
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However, starting in the late 16th century, some investigations of ancestry classified as "stains" any connection with Black Africans ("negros", which resulted in "mulatos") and sometimes mixtures with indigenous that produced [[Mestizos]].<ref name="Martinez, p. 267">Martinez, ''Genealogical Fictions'', p. 267.</ref> While some illustrations from the period show men of African descent dressed in fashionable clothing and as aristocrats in upper-class surroundings, the idea that any hint of black ancestry was a stain developed by the end of the colonial period, a time in which biological racism began to emerge throughout the western world. This trend was illustrated in 18th-century paintings of racial hierarchy, known as casta paintings which led to 20th-century emergence of theories on a "Caste System" existing in Colonial Spanish America. |
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In the Indigenous sphere, the crown recognized the indigenous nobility, with noble men as leaders within the Republic of Indians. Indigenous nobles submitted proofs (''probanzas'') of their purity of blood to affirm their rights and privileges that were extended to themselves and their communities.<ref>Martinez, ''Genealogical Fictions'', p. 273.</ref> Initially, the Spanish saw indigenous men as being fully capable of being ordained as priests. Because of that, the early [[Order of Friars Minor|Franciscans]] established the [[Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco]] to educate indigenous elites to enter into the priesthood, but the friars' optimism of that project faded and the school ceased to function. When the Inquisition was established, indigenous peoples were exempted from prosecution, because they were now deemed permanent neophytes, denied the status of full Christians. Indigenous men were barred from being ordained as priests. |
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The idea in New Spain that native or "Indian" (''indio'') blood in a lineage was an impurity may well have come about as the optimism of the early [[Order of Friars Minor|Franciscans]] faded about creating Indian priests trained at the [[Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco]], which ceased that function in the mid-16th century. In addition, the Indian nobility, which was recognized by the Spanish colonists, had declined in importance, and there were fewer formal marriages between Spaniards and indigenous women than during the early decades of the colonial era.<ref name="Martinez, p. 267"/> In the 17th century in New Spain, the ideas of purity of blood became associated with "Spanishness and whiteness, but it came to work together with socio-economic categories", such that a lineage with someone engaged in work with their hands was tainted by that connection.<ref>Martinez, ''Genealogical Fictions'', p. 269.</ref> |
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Indians in indigenous communities in Central Mexico were affected by ideas of purity of blood. Pure indigenous ancestry became a requirement to hold office; men who had any non-Indian ancestry (Spaniards and/or Black) were barred from holding office. Within the world of the Republic of Indians, local [[caciques]] [rulers] and ''principales'' were granted a set of privileges and rights on the basis of their pre-Hispanic noble bloodlines and acceptance of the Catholic faith."<ref>Martinez, ''Genealogical Fictions'', p. 270.</ref> In 18th c. Mexico, convents for elite indigenous women were established in the 18th century, which required proof that they were of pure indigenous ancestry,<ref>Díaz, Mónica, "The Indigenous Nuns of Corpus Christi: Race and Spirituality," in Susan Schroeder and Stafford Poole, eds. ''Religion in New Spain''. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press 2007, 179-80</ref> but there were no such religious establishments for women of Black ancestry.<ref>Sierra Silva, Pablo Miguel. ''Urban Slavery in Colonial Mexico: Puebla de los Angeles, 1531-1706''. New York: Cambridge University Press 2018, 82</ref> |
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Indians in Central Mexico were affected by ideas of purity of blood from the other side. Crown decrees on purity of blood were affirmed by indigenous communities, which barred Indians from holding office who had any non-Indians (Spaniards and/or Black peoples) in their lineage. In indigenous communities "local [[caciques]] [rulers] and principales were granted a set of privileges and rights on the basis of their pre-Hispanic noble bloodlines and acceptance of the Catholic faith."<ref>Martinez, ''Genealogical Fictions'', p. 270.</ref> Indigenous nobles submitted proofs (''probanzas'') of their purity of blood to affirm their rights and privileges that were extended to themselves and their communities. This supported the ''república de indios'', a legal division of society that separated indigenous from non-Indians (''república de españoles'').<ref>Martinez, ''Genealogical Fictions'', p. 273.</ref> |
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Gender was implicated in notions of purity and honor. Spaniards were vigilant in controlling Spanish women's sexuality, since if the women deviated from norms of male dominance in the social hierarchy.<ref>Seed, Patricia, ''To Love, Honor, and Obey in Colonial Mexico: Conflicts over Marriage Choice 1574-1821''. Stanford: Stanford University Press 1988</ref><ref>Johnson, Lyman and Sonya Lipsett-Rivera, eds. ''The Faces of Honor: Sex, Shame, and Violence in Colonial Latin America''. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press 1998</ref><ref>Twinam, Ann. ''Public Lives, Private Secrets: Gender, Honor, and Sexuality in Colonial Spanish America''. Stanford: Stanfor University Press 1999</ref> Most casta paintings begin with a grouping of a Spanish man and an indigenous woman with their mixed-race mestizo offspring. Rarely do groupings show Spanish women paired with a lower-rank, darker partner (''Negro, mulato, morisco''), but such groups do appear in several single-canvas casta paintings. (See below) |
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==Casta classifications and legal consequences== |
==Casta classifications and legal consequences== |
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[[File:Castas 01mestiza max.jpg|thumb|upright|From Spaniard and Indian woman, Mestiza. [[Miguel Cabrera (painter)|Miguel Cabrera]], 1763]] |
[[File:Castas 01mestiza max.jpg|thumb|upright|From Spaniard and Indian woman, Mestiza. [[Miguel Cabrera (painter)|Miguel Cabrera]], 1763]] |
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[[File:De_español_y_mestiza,_castiza.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Spanish (español) father, Mestiza (mixed Spanish-Indian) mother, and their Castiza daughter. Miguel Cabrera]] |
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[[File:De_Mulato_y_Mestiza.jpg|thumb|De Mulato y Mestiza, produce mulato es torna atrás. Attributed to [[Juan Rodríguez Juárez]], ca. 1715. Private collection]] |
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During the colonial period, there were a series of crown and ecclesiastical edicts that codified the legal differences between Spaniards, Blacks, Indians, and mixed-race castas. The basic division was between the Republic of Spaniards (European whites, Blacks, and mixed-race castas, such as mestizos (white + Indian) and mulattoes (white + Black), and the Republic of Indians. Spaniards brought enslaved Blacks during the conquest era, and the names of a few have been recorded. A free black population emerged during the later colonial period, particularly in urban areas. The crown considered Indians as free vassals and forbade the enslavement of Indians, except for acts of war or rebellion. They were, however, subject to forced labor, especially during the early period of Spanish settlement when the ''[[encomienda]]'', (rewards of indigenous labor given generally to conquerors and their descendants) was in existence. |
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In Spanish America racial categories were registered at local parishes upon baptism as required by the Spanish Crown. Initially in Spanish America there were three ethnic categories. They generally referred to the multiplicity of indigenous American peoples as "Indians" (''indios''). Those from Spain called themselves ''españoles''. The third group were black Africans, called ''negros'' (lit. "blacks"), brought as slaves from the earliest days of Spanish Empire. Although intermarriage was widespread from the beginning of the colonial period, ''mestizos'' only slowly began to be recognized as a distinct ethnicity 150 years after the [[Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire]], prior to which they had simply been identified as Spaniards.{{Citation needed|date=October 2022}} |
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Although intermarriage was widespread from the beginning of the colonial period, mestizos only slowly began to be recognized as a distinct category. The category was often associated with illegitimacy but where the offspring was recognized by Spanish parents, they were accepted as Spaniards, and, as such, did not appear in official records as anything else.<ref>Lockhart and Schwartz, ''Early Latin America'', 131</ref> In other cases, mestizo offspring were brought up in the Republic of Indians, as members of indigenous communities. In some indigenous communities, these individuals faced opposition for official leadership positions because of their mixed-race ancestry. |
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Although the number of Spanish women emigrating to New Spain was far higher than is often portrayed, they were fewer in number than men, as well as fewer black women than men, so the mixed-race offspring of Spaniards and of Black people were often the product of liaisons with indigenous women. The process of race mixture is now termed ''mestizaje'', a term coined in the modern era.{{Citation needed|date=October 2022}} |
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In the population at large, access to social privileges and even at times a person's perceived and accepted racial classification, were predominantly determined by that person's [[Socioeconomics|socioeconomic]] standing in society.<ref>See [[Passing (racial identity)]] for a discussion of a related phenomenon, although in a later and very different cultural and legal context.</ref><ref>{{cite book | last = Seed | first = Patricia | author-link = Patricia Seed | title = To Love, Honor, and Obey in Colonial Mexico: Conflicts over Marriage Choice, 1574-1821 | publisher = Stanford University | year = 1988 | location = Stanford | pages = 21–23 | isbn = 978-0-8047-2159-2 }}</ref> General racial groupings had their own set of privileges and restrictions, both legal and customary. For example, only Spaniards and indigenous people, who were deemed to be the original societies of the Spanish dominions, had recognized ranks of nobility.<ref>{{cite book | last = MacLachlan | first = Colin |author2=Jaime E. Rodríguez O. | title = The Forging of the Cosmic Race: A Reinterpretation of Colonial Mexico | publisher = University of California | edition = Expanded | year = 1990 | location = Berkeley | pages = 199, 208 | isbn = 978-0-520-04280-3}}</ref> A more salient reason for the expansion of the category of noble to Indian elites was that they served as intermediaries between their communities and royal government.<ref>{{cite book | last = Gibson | first = Charles | author-link = Charles Gibson (historian) | title = The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule | url = https://archive.org/details/aztecsunderspani00gibs | url-access = registration | publisher = Stanford University | year = 1964 | location = Stanford | pages = [https://archive.org/details/aztecsunderspani00gibs/page/154 154–165] | isbn = 978-0-8047-0912-5}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | last = Bakewell | first = Peter | title = A History of Latin America | publisher = Blackwell | year = 1997 | location = Malden, Mass. | pages = [https://archive.org/details/historyoflatinam0000bake/page/160 160–163] | isbn = 978-0-631-16791-4 | quote = The Spaniards generally regarded [local Indian lords/''caciques''] as ''hidalgos'', and used the honorific 'don' with the more eminent of them. | url = https://archive.org/details/historyoflatinam0000bake/page/160 }}</ref> |
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In the 16th century, the term ''casta'', a collective category for mixed-race individuals, came into existence as the numbers grew, particularly in urban areas. Nevertheless, during the first century and a half of the colonial era, the offspring of mixed marriages were registered as Spaniards and only Africans were registered as "Castas". The registry of "Mestizos" as "Castas" rather than "Spaniards" only become widespread in the last century of colonial rule. |
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Official censuses and ecclesiastical records noted an individual's racial category, so that these sources can be used to chart socio-economic standards, residence patterns, and other important data. ''Castas'' defined themselves in different ways, and how they were recorded in official records was a process of negotiation between the ''casta'' and the person creating the document, whether it was a birth certificate, a marriage certificate or a court deposition. In real life, many ''casta'' individuals were assigned different racial categories in different documents, revealing the malleable nature of racial identity in colonial, [[Hispanic America|Spanish America]]n society.<ref>Cope, ''The Limits of Racial Domination'' and Seed, ''To Love, Honor, and Obey'', in passim.</ref> |
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The crown had divided the population of its overseas empire into two categories, separating Indians from non-Indians. Indigenous were the ''República de Indios'', the other the ''República de Españoles'', essentially the Hispanic sphere, so that Spaniards, Black people, and mixed-race castas were lumped into this category. Official censuses and ecclesiastical records noted an individual's racial category, so that these sources can be used to chart socio-economic standard, residence patterns, and other important data. |
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The most desirable status was of Español, and there was scrutiny of those claiming that category. "In the [colonial Mexican] censuses of white/mestizo households, provisions were made to keep accurate records of ''castizos''. The flexibility of having three categories (''mestizo'' [Spanish + Indian], ''castizo'' [Spanish + mestizo], and ''español'') provided census takers a broader framework within which to capture differences of [[phenotype]] — presumably in hopes of closely regulating entry into the coveted ''español'' classification. Some were classified as ''castizos'' rather than ''españoles'', but "their castizo status allowed them to maintain social elevation with the broader mestizo mainstream."<ref>Vinson (2018), ''Before Mestizaje'', p. 120.</ref> Marriage licenses required a declaration of racial status for each partner. The category ''castizo'' "was widely recognized by the eighteenth century; castizos still did not appear in great numbers [in parish documentation] even though they were widely distributed throughout [[New Spain]]."<ref>Vinson, Ben III. (2018) ''Before Mestizaje'', pp. 134, 45.</ref> Parish registers, where baptism, marriage, and burial were recorded, had three basic categories: ''español'' (Spaniards), ''indio'', and ''color quebrado'' ("broken color", indicating a mixed-race person). In some parishes in colonial Mexico, ''indios'' were recorded with other non-Spaniards in the ''color quebrado'' register.<ref>Vinson, ''Before Mestizaje'', p. 49.</ref> |
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General racial groupings had their own set of privileges and restrictions, both legal and customary. So, for example, only Spaniards and indigenous people, who were deemed to be the original societies of the Spanish dominions, had recognized aristocracies.<ref>{{cite book | last = MacLachlan | first = Colin |author2=Jaime E. Rodríguez O. | title = The Forging of the Cosmic Race: A Reinterprretation of Colonial Mexico | publisher = University of California | edition = Expanded | year = 1990 | location = Berkeley | pages = 199, 208 | isbn = 978-0-520-04280-3 | quote = [I]n the New World all Spaniards, no matter how poor, claimed hidalgo status. This unprecedented expansion of the privileged segment of society could be tolerated by the Crown because in Mexico the indigenous population assumed the burden of personal tribute.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | last = Gibson | first = Charles | author-link = Charles Gibson (historian) | title = The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule | url = https://archive.org/details/aztecsunderspani00gibs | url-access = registration | publisher = Stanford University | year = 1964 | location = Stanford | pages = [https://archive.org/details/aztecsunderspani00gibs/page/154 154–165] | isbn = 978-0-8047-0912-5}}</ref> In the population at large, access to social privileges and even at times a person's perceived and accepted racial classification, were predominantly determined by that person's [[Socioeconomics|socioeconomic]] standing in society.<ref>See [[Passing (racial identity)]] for a discussion of a related phenomenon, although in a later and very different cultural and legal context.</ref><ref>{{cite book | last = Seed | first = Patricia | author-link = Patricia Seed | title = To Love, Honor, and Obey in Colonial Mexico: Conflicts over Marriage Choice, 1574-1821 | publisher = Stanford University | year = 1988 | location = Stanford | pages = 21–23 | isbn = 978-0-8047-2159-2 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book | last = Bakewell | first = Peter | title = A History of Latin America | publisher = Blackwell | year = 1997 | location = Malden, Mass. | pages = [https://archive.org/details/historyoflatinam0000bake/page/160 160–163] | isbn = 978-0-631-16791-4 | quote = The Spaniards generally regarded [local Indian lords/''caciques''] as ''hidalgos'', and used the honorific 'don' with the more eminent of them. […] Broadly speaking, Spaniards in the Indies in the 16th century arranged themselves socially less and less by Iberian criteria or frank, and increasingly by new American standards. […] simple wealth gained from using America's human and natural resources soon became a strong influence on social standing. | url = https://archive.org/details/historyoflatinam0000bake/page/160 }}</ref> |
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In the late 18th c., a few upwardly mobile mulattoes or ''pardos'' ("darkskinned") petitioned the crown for a formal change in their status via a "certificate of whiteness", (''cédula de gracias al sacar''). Royal officials closely examined the petitions, generating considerable documentation for the 40 cases.<ref>[[Ann Twinam|Twinam, Ann]]. "Purchasing Whiteness: Conversations on the Essence of Pardo-ness and Mulatto-ness at the End of Empire" in Andrew B. Fisher and Matt D. O'Hara, ''Imperial Subjects'', Durham: Duke University Press 2009, 141-66</ref><ref name="ReferenceA"/> |
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Official censuses and ecclesiastical records noted an individual's racial category, so that these sources can be used to chart socio-economic standards, residence patterns, and other important data. Parish registers, where baptism, marriage, and burial were recorded, had three basic categories: español (Spaniards), ''indio'', and ''color quebrado'' ("broken color", indicating a mixed-race person). In some parishes in colonial Mexico, ''indios'' were recorded with other non-Spaniards in the ''color quebrado'' register.<ref>Vinson, ''Before Mestizaje'', p. 49.</ref> Españoles and mestizos could be ordained as priests and were exempt from payment of tribute to the crown. Free black people, indigenous people, and mixed-race castas were required to pay tribute and barred from the priesthood. Being designated as an español or mestizo conferred social and financial advantages. Black men began to apply to the [[Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico]], but in 1688 Bishop [[Juan de Palafox y Mendoza]] attempted to prevent their entrance by drafting new regulations barring black peoples and mulattoes.<ref>{{cite book |last=Ramos-Kittrell |first=Jesús |title=Playing in the Cathedral: Music, Race, and Status in New Spain |location=New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=2016 |pages=39–40}}</ref> In 1776, the crown issued the [[Royal Pragmatic on Marriage]], taking approval of marriages away from the couple and placing it in their parents' hands. The marriage between Luisa de Abrego, a free black domestic servant from Seville and Miguel Rodríguez, a white Segovian conquistador in 1565 in St. Augustine (Spanish Florida), is the first known and recorded Christian marriage anywhere in the continental United States.<ref>{{citation|url=http://laflorida.org/florida-stories/|title=Luisa de Abrego: Marriage, Bigamy, and the Spanish Inquisition|publisher=University of South Florida|author=J. Michael Francis, PhD|access-date=2019-08-31|archive-date=2021-02-04|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210204110350/http://laflorida.org/florida-stories/|url-status=dead}}</ref> |
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Starting in the 16th c. edicts began codifying status by race, which became increasingly restrictive, in theory, until the end of crown rule in Spanish America in the early nineteenth century. At independence, formal racial categories were eliminated in Mexico. Shifting one's category, could have personal benefits. For example, both {{lang|es|mestizos}} and Spaniards were exempt from tribute obligations, but were both subject to the [[Spanish Inquisition|Inquisition]]. {{lang|es|Indios}}, on the other hand, paid tribute yet were exempt from the Inquisition. In certain cases, a {{lang|es|mestizo}} might try to "[[passing (racial identity)|pass]]" as an {{lang|es|indio}} to escape the Inquisition.<ref>Tavaez, David. "Legally Indian:Inquisitorial Readings of Indigenous Identity in New Spain" in Andrew B. fisher and Matthew D. O'Hara, eds. ''Imperial Subjects: Race and Identity in Colonial Latin America''. Durham: Duke University Press 2009, 81-100</ref> An {{lang|es|indio}} might try to pass as a {{lang|es|Mestizo}} to escape tribute obligations.<ref name="Gonzalbo Aizpuru 2013, p. 15"/> A sampling of regulations include: 1514 Indians are allowed to marry Spaniards; 1530 Indians with more than one wife must live with the first or be punished; the 1549 restriction on mulattoes, mestizos, and those of illegitimate birth from holding encomiendas or royal offices; 1552 prohibition against Blacks carrying weapons; 1554 crown recognition of necessity to house and educate mestizos and mestizas; 1561 Blacks are encouraged to marry other Blacks; 1572 legitimate children of free enslaved Blacks and Indian women required to pay tribute; 1587 non-Indians (Spaniards, Blacks, mestizos, and mulattoes) forbidden from living in indigenous communities; 1588 permission for mestizos of legitimate birth to be ordained as priests; and 1599 mestizos prohibited from becoming official notaries.<ref>Burkholder, Mark A. and Lyman Johnson, ''Colonial Latin America''. 10th edition. New York: Oxford University Press 2019, 189, 216</ref> In 1569, when the [[Mexican Inquisition|formal tribunal of the Inquisition]] was established in Mexico City, indigenous peoples were removed from its jurisdiction.<ref>Chuchiak, John F. IV, ''The Inquisition in New Spain, 1536-1820''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press 2012, 11</ref> Bishop [[Juan de Palafox y Mendoza]] drafted new regulations for entry to the [[Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico]], (under jurisdiction of the Catholic Church) barring Blacks and mulattos.<ref>{{cite book |last=Ramos-Kittrell |first=Jesús |title=Playing in the Cathedral: Music, Race, and Status in New Spain |location=New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=2016 |pages=39–40}}</ref> |
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Long lists of different terms found in casta paintings do not appear in official documentation or anywhere outside these paintings. Only counts of Spaniards, mestizos, black peoples and mulattoes, and indigenes (''indios''), were recorded in censuses.<ref name="Almanac">{{Citation|editor= Sonia G. Benson|title= The Hispanic American Almanac: A Reference Work on Hispanics in the United States.|edition= Third|year= 2003|publisher= Thomson Gale|isbn= 978-0-7876-2518-4|page= [https://archive.org/details/hispanicamerican0000unse/page/14 14]|url= https://archive.org/details/hispanicamerican0000unse/page/14}}</ref> |
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In late 18th c., when the crown established a standing military, it excluded indigenous men from being conscripted. To make military service prestigious, the crown created a privileged status, the ''[[fuero|fuero militar]]'', the first time non-whites were eligible for such a privilege.<ref>Archer, Christon I. "Military: Bourbon New Spain", ''[[Encyclopedia of Mexico]]'', 1997, 901</ref> A few men of African descent petitioned the crown for status as whites. In 1776 under the Bourbon monarchy, the crown issued the [[Royal Pragmatic on Marriage]], taking approval of marriages away from the couple and placing it in their parents' hands, as a measure to prevent "unequal" unions.<ref>Seed, Patricia, ''To Love Honor and Obey in Colonial Mexico: Conflicts over Marriage Choice, 1574-1821''. Stanford: Stanford University Press 1988</ref> The marriage between Luisa de Abrego, a free black domestic servant from Seville and Miguel Rodríguez, a white Segovian conquistador in 1565 in St. Augustine (Spanish Florida), is the first known and recorded Christian marriage anywhere in the continental United States.<ref>{{citation|url=http://laflorida.org/florida-stories/|title=Luisa de Abrego: Marriage, Bigamy, and the Spanish Inquisition|publisher=University of South Florida|author=J. Michael Francis, PhD|access-date=2019-08-31|archive-date=2021-02-04|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210204110350/http://laflorida.org/florida-stories/|url-status=dead}}</ref> |
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==Casta paintings of the 18th century== |
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[[File:Casta_Painting_by_Luis_de_Mena.jpg|thumb|upright|Luis de Mena, [[Virgin of Guadalupe]] and castas, 1750. Museo de América, Madrid]] |
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[[File:José Joaquín Magón - El Mestizo.jpg|thumb|Spaniard + India = Mestizo. I. "Born of the Spaniard and the India is a Mestizo, who is generally humble, tranquil, and straightforward." [[José Joaquín Magón]]. [[Museo Nacional de Antropología (Madrid)|Museo de Antropología]], [[Madrid]].]] |
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[[File:Ignacio María Barreda - Las castas mexicanas.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Casta painting showing 16 hierarchically arranged, mixed-race groupings, with ''indios mecos'' set outside of the orderly set of "civilized" society. [[Ignacio Maria Barreda]], 1777. Real Academia Española de la Lengua, Madrid]] |
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[[File:Castas 04mulata max.jpg|thumb|Spaniard + ''Negra'', Mulatto. [[Miguel Cabrera (painter)|Miguel Cabrera]]]] |
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[[File: |
[[File:Castas 07tornatras max.jpg|thumb|upright|Spanish father and ''Albina'' mother, [[Torna atrás]]. [[Miguel Cabrera (painter)|Miguel Cabrera]], 18th-century Mexico]] |
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[[File:José Joaquín Magón - El Mestizo.jpg|thumb|left|[[José Joaquín Magón]], Spaniard + India = Mestizo. I. "Born of the Spaniard and the India is a Mestizo, who is generally humble, tranquil, and straightforward." Museo de Antropología, Madrid. 115 x 141 cm]] |
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[[File:X. De espanol y torna atras, tente en el aire (Casta painting) LACMA M.2011.20.3 (1 of 6).jpg|thumb|Spanish father, Torna atrás mother, ''Tente en el aire'' ("floating in mid air") offspring]] |
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[[File:X. De espanol y torna atras, tente en el aire (Casta painting) LACMA M.2011.20.3 (1 of 6).jpg|thumb|left|Spanish father, Torna atrás mother, ''Tente en el aire'' ("floating in mid air") offspring]] |
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[[File:Castas 16indios max.jpg|thumb|upright|''Indios Gentiles''. Miguel Cabrera]] |
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In the 18th century, "casta paintings" were created by American-born and Iberian Spaniards showing a fixed racial hierarchy with Spaniards on top. Scholars now contend that this genre may well have been elites' attempt to bring order into a situation that was fluid and disorderly. "For colonial elites, casta paintings might well have been an attempt to fix in place rigid divisions based on race, even as they were disappearing in social reality."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Cline |first1=Sarah |title=Guadalupe and the Castas |journal=Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos |date=1 August 2015 |volume=31 |issue=2 |pages=218–247 |doi=10.1525/mex.2015.31.2.218 }}</ref> A 2018 textbook on colonial Latin America, states that casta paintings are "mistakenly viewed as depicting a rigid caste system, the paintings in fact did almost the opposite. No such system existed; the paintings were an expression of wishful thinking of the elite."<ref>[[Matthew Restall|Restall, Matthew]] and [[Kris Lane]]. ''Latin America in Colonial Times''. 2nd edition. New York: Cambridge University Press 2018, 296</ref> |
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For approximately a century, casta paintings were |
Artwork created mainly in 18th-century Mexico purports to show race mixture as a hierarchy. These paintings have had tremendous influence in how scholars have approached difference in the colonial era, but should not be taken as definitive description of racial difference. For approximately a century, casta paintings were by elite artists for an elite viewership. They ceased to be produced following Mexico's independence in 1821 when casta designations were abolished. The vast majority of casta paintings were produced in Mexico, by a variety of artists, with a single group of canvases clearly identified for 18th-century Peru. In the colonial era, artists primarily created religious art and portraits, but in the 18th century, casta paintings emerged as a completely secular genre of art. An exception to that is the painting by [[Luis de Mena]], a single canvas that has the central figure of the Virgin of Guadalupe and a set of casta groupings.<ref>Cline, "Guadalupe and the Castas" pp. 222-23</ref> Most sets of casta paintings have 16 separate canvases, but a few, such as Mena's, Ignacio María Barreda, and the anonymous painting in the Museo de Virreinato in Tepozotlan, Mexico, are frequently reproduced as examples of the genre, likely because their composition gives a single, tidy image of the racial classification (from the elite viewpoint). |
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It is unclear why casta paintings emerged as a genre, why they became such a popular genre of artwork, who commissioned them, and who collected them. One scholar suggests they can be seen as "proud renditions of the local,"<ref>Katzew, Ilona, "Casta Painting: Identity and Social Stratification in Colonial Mexico," in ''New World Orders: Casta Painting and Colonial Latin America'',ed. Ilona Katzew. New York: Americas Society Art Gallery 1996, 22</ref> at a point when American-born Spaniards began forming a clearer identification with their place of birth rather than metropolitan Spain.<ref>[[David Brading|Brading, D.A.]] ''The First America: The Spanish Monarchy, Creole Patriots, and the Liberal State, 1492-1867''. New York: Cambridge University Press 1991.</ref> The single-canvas casta artwork could well have been as a curiosity or souvenir for Spaniards to take home to Spain; two frequently reproduced casta paintings are Mena's and Barreda's, both of which are in Madrid museums.<ref>García Sáiz, María Concepción. ''Las castas mexicanas''. Milan: Olivetti 1989, 20.</ref> There is only one set of casta paintings definitively done in Peru, commissioned by Viceroy Manuel Amat y Junyent (1770), and sent to Spain for the Cabinet of Natural History of the Prince of Asturias.<ref>Donahue-Wallace, Kelly. ''Art and Architecture of Viceregal Latin America, 1521-1821''. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press 2008, p. 221. She reproduces a letter from Amat concerning the paintings.</ref> |
It is unclear why casta paintings emerged as a genre, why they became such a popular genre of artwork, who commissioned them, and who collected them. One scholar suggests they can be seen as "proud renditions of the local,"<ref>Katzew, Ilona, "Casta Painting: Identity and Social Stratification in Colonial Mexico," in ''New World Orders: Casta Painting and Colonial Latin America'',ed. Ilona Katzew. New York: Americas Society Art Gallery 1996, 22</ref> at a point when American-born Spaniards began forming a clearer identification with their place of birth rather than metropolitan Spain.<ref>[[David Brading|Brading, D.A.]] ''The First America: The Spanish Monarchy, Creole Patriots, and the Liberal State, 1492-1867''. New York: Cambridge University Press 1991.</ref> The single-canvas casta artwork could well have been as a curiosity or souvenir for Spaniards to take home to Spain; two frequently reproduced casta paintings are Mena's and Barreda's, both of which are in Madrid museums.<ref>García Sáiz, María Concepción. ''Las castas mexicanas''. Milan: Olivetti 1989, 20.</ref> There is only one set of casta paintings definitively done in Peru, commissioned by Viceroy Manuel Amat y Junyent (1770), and sent to Spain for the Cabinet of Natural History of the Prince of Asturias.<ref>Donahue-Wallace, Kelly. ''Art and Architecture of Viceregal Latin America, 1521-1821''. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press 2008, p. 221. She reproduces a letter from Amat concerning the paintings.</ref> |
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The influence of the European [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] on the Spanish empire led to an interest in organizing knowledge and scientific description might have resulted in the commission of many series of pictures that document the racial combinations that existed in Spanish territories in the Americas. Many sets of these paintings still exist (around one hundred complete sets in museums and private collections and many more individual paintings), of varying artistic quality, usually consisting of sixteen paintings representing as many racial combinations. It must be emphasized that these paintings reflected the views of the economically established society |
The influence of the European [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] on the Spanish empire led to an interest in organizing knowledge and scientific description might have resulted in the commission of many series of pictures that document the racial combinations that existed in Spanish territories in the Americas. Many sets of these paintings still exist (around one hundred complete sets in museums and private collections and many more individual paintings), of varying artistic quality, usually consisting of sixteen paintings representing as many racial combinations. It must be emphasized that these paintings reflected the views of the economically established Criollo society and officialdom, but not all Criollos were pleased with casta paintings. One remarked that they show "what harms us, not what benefits us, what dishonors us, not what ennobles us."<ref>quoted in Katzew, Ilona, "Casta Painting: Identity and Social Stratification in Colonial Mexico, in ''New World Orders: Casta Painting and Colonial Latin America''. exhib. cat. New York: Americas Society Art Gallery 1996, 14.</ref> Many paintings are in Spain in major museums, but many remain in private collections in Mexico, perhaps commissioned and kept because they show the character of late colonial Mexico and a source of pride.<ref>Donahue-Wallace, p. 220.</ref> |
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[[File:Casta - de Negra y Español sale Mulato, s. XVIII - Anónimo.jpg|thumb|Black and Spanish, comes out mulatto]] |
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Some of the finer sets were done by prominent Mexican artists, such as [[José de Alcíbar]], [[Miguel Cabrera (painter)|Miguel Cabrera]], [[José de Ibarra]], [[José Joaquín Magón]], (who painted two sets); [[Juan Patricio Morlete Ruiz]], [[José de Páez]], and [[Juan Rodríguez Juárez]]. One of Magón's sets includes descriptions of the "character and moral standing" of his subjects. These artists worked together in the painting guilds of New Spain. They were important transitional artists in 18th-century casta painting. At least one Spaniard, [[Francisco Clapera]], also contributed to the casta genre. In general, little is known of most artists who did sign their work; most casta paintings are unsigned. |
Some of the finer sets were done by prominent Mexican artists, such as [[José de Alcíbar]], [[Miguel Cabrera (painter)|Miguel Cabrera]], [[José de Ibarra]], [[José Joaquín Magón]], (who painted two sets); [[Juan Patricio Morlete Ruiz]], [[José de Páez]], and [[Juan Rodríguez Juárez]]. One of Magón's sets includes descriptions of the "character and moral standing" of his subjects. These artists worked together in the painting guilds of New Spain. They were important transitional artists in 18th-century casta painting. At least one Spaniard, [[Francisco Clapera]], also contributed to the casta genre. In general, little is known of most artists who did sign their work; most casta paintings are unsigned. |
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Certain authors have interpreted the overall theme of these paintings as representing the "supremacy of the Spaniards", the possibility that mixtures of Spaniards and Spanish-Indian offspring could return to the status of Spaniards through marriage to Spaniards over generations, what can be considered "restoration of racial purity,"<ref>Cline, "Guadalupe and the Castas", p. 229</ref> or "racial mending"<ref>Katzew, ''Casta Painting'', pp. 48-51</ref> was seen visually in many sets of casta paintings. It was also articulated by a visitor to Mexico, Don Pedro Alonso O'Crouley, in 1774. "If the mixed-blood is the offspring of a Spaniard and an Indian, the stigma [of race mixture] disappears at the third step in descent because it is held as systematic that a Spaniard and an Indian produce a mestizo; a mestizo and a Spaniard, a castizo; and a castizo and a Spaniard, a Spaniard. The admixture of Indian blood should not indeed be regarded as a blemish, since the provisions of law give the Indian all that he could wish for, and Philip II granted to mestizos the privilege of becoming priests. On this consideration is based the common estimation of descent from a union of Indian and European or creole Spaniard."<ref>Sr. Don Pedro Alonso O’Crouley, ''A Description of the Kingdom of New Spain'' (1774),trans. and ed. Sean Galvin. San Francisco: John Howell Books, 1972, 20</ref> |
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O'Crouley says that the same process of restoration of racial purity does not occur over generations for European-African offspring marrying whites. “From the union of a Spaniard and a Negro the mixed-blood retains the stigma for generations without losing the original quality of a mulato."<ref>O’Crouley, “A Description of the Kingdom of New Spain’’, p. 20</ref> Casta paintings show increasing whitening over generations with the mixes of Spaniards and Africans. The sequence is the offspring of a Spaniard + ''Negra'', [[Mulatto]]; Spaniard with a Mulatta, [[Morisco]]; Spaniard with a Morisca, ''Albino'' (a racial category, derived from ''Alba'', "white"); Spaniard with an ''Albina'', ''[[Torna atrás]]'', or "throw back" black. ''Negro'', ''Mulatto'', and ''Morisco'' were labels found in colonial-era documentation, but ''Albino'' and ''Torna atrás'' exist only as fairly standard categories in casta paintings. |
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In casta paintings artists depict the pairing of Blacks with a bewildering number of combinations, labeled with "fanciful terms" to describe them. Instead of leading to a new racial type or equilibrium, they led to apparent disorder. Terms such as the above-mentioned ''tente en el aire'' ("floating in midair") and ''no te entiendo'' ("I don't understand you")—and others based on terms used for animals: ''[[coyote (racial category)|coyote]]'' and ''[[lobo (racial category)|lobo]]'' (wolf).<ref name="Cuervas">{{cite journal |first1=Marco Polo Hernández |last1=Cuevas |title=The Mexican Colonial Term 'Chino' Is a Referent of Afrodescendant |journal=The Journal of Pan African Studies |volume=5 |issue=5 |date=June 2012 |pages=124–143 |s2cid=142322782 }}</ref> |
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In contrast, mixtures with Black people, both by Indians and Spaniards, led to a bewildering number of combinations, with "fanciful terms" to describe them. Instead of leading to a new racial type or equilibrium, they led to apparent disorder. Terms such as the above-mentioned ''tente en el aire'' ("floating in midair") and ''no te entiendo'' ("I don't understand you")—and others based on terms used for animals: ''[[coyote (racial category)|coyote]]'' and ''[[lobo (racial category)|lobo]]'' (wolf).<ref name="Cuervas">{{cite journal |first1=Marco Polo Hernández |last1=Cuevas |title=The Mexican Colonial Term 'Chino' Is a Referent of Afrodescendant |journal=The Journal of Pan African Studies |volume=5 |issue=5 |date=June 2012 |pages=124–143 |s2cid=142322782 }}</ref><ref name="Katzew, Casta Painting.">Katzew, "Casta Painting."{{page needed|date=August 2019}}</ref> |
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Some paintings depict the supposed "innate" character and quality of people because of their birth and ethnic origin. For example, according to one painting by José Joaquín Magón, a mestizo (mixed Indian + Spanish) was considered ''generally humble, tranquil, and straightforward''; while another painting claims "from Lobo and Indian woman is born the Cambujo, one usually slow, lazy, and cumbersome." Ultimately, the casta paintings are reminders of the colonial biases in modern human history that linked a caste/ethnic society based on descent, skin color, social status, and one's birth.<ref>{{cite thesis |last1=Martínez López |first1=María Elena |title=The Spanish concept of ''limpieza de sangre'' and the emergence of the 'race/caste' system in the Viceroyalty of New Spain |date=2002 |id={{ProQuest|305466668}} |oclc=62284377 }}</ref><ref name="María Elena Martínez 2010">{{cite web |title=Social Order in the Spanish New World |first1=María Elena |last1=Martínez |year=2010 |url=http://inside.sfuhs.org/dept/history/Mexicoreader/Chapter3/Social%20Order%20in%20the%20Spanish%20New%20World.pdf }}</ref> |
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''Castas'' defined themselves in different ways, and how they were recorded in official records was a process of negotiation between the ''casta'' and the person creating the document, whether it was a birth certificate, a marriage certificate or a court deposition. In real life, many ''casta'' individuals were assigned different racial categories in different documents, revealing the malleable nature of racial identity in colonial, [[Hispanic America|Spanish America]]n society.<ref>Cope, ''The Limits of Racial Domination'' and Seed, ''To Love, Honor, and Obey'', in passim.</ref> |
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Often, casta paintings depicted commodity items from Spanish America such as pulque, the fermented alcohol drink of the lower classes. Painters depicted [[Pulque|interpretations of pulque]] that were attributed to specific castas. |
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Some paintings depicted the supposed "innate" character and quality of people because of their birth and ethnic origin. For example, according to one painting by José Joaquín Magón, a mestizo (mixed Indian + Spanish) was considered ''generally humble, tranquil, and straightforward''; while another painting claims "from Lobo and Indian woman is born the Cambujo, one usually slow, lazy, and cumbersome." Ultimately, the casta paintings are reminders of the colonial biases in modern human history that linked a caste/ethnic society based on descent, skin color, social status, and one's birth.<ref>{{cite thesis |last1=Martínez López |first1=María Elena |title=The Spanish concept of ''limpieza de sangre'' and the emergence of the 'race/caste' system in the Viceroyalty of New Spain |date=2002 |id={{ProQuest|305466668}} |oclc=62284377 }}</ref><ref name="María Elena Martínez 2010">{{cite web |title=Social Order in the Spanish New World |first1=María Elena |last1=Martínez |year=2010 |url=http://inside.sfuhs.org/dept/history/Mexicoreader/Chapter3/Social%20Order%20in%20the%20Spanish%20New%20World.pdf }}</ref> |
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[[File:Castas 16indios max.jpg|thumb|upright|''Indios Gentiles''. Miguel Cabrera]] |
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The ''Indias'' in casta paintings are shown as partners to Spaniards, Black people, and castas, and thus part of Hispanic society. But in a number of casta paintings, they are also shown separate from "civilized society," such as Miguel Cabrera's ''Indios Gentiles'', or ''indios bárbaros'' or ''Chichimecas'' barely clothed indigenous in a wild, setting.<ref>Estrada de Gerlero, Elena Isabel. "The Representation of 'Heathen Indians' in Mexican Casta Painting," in ''New World Orders: Casta Painting and Colonial Latin America'', ed. Ilona Katzew. Exh.cat. New York: Americas Society Art Gallery 1996.</ref> In the single-canvas casta painting by José María Barreda, there are a canonical 16 casta groupings and then in a separate cell below are "Mecos". Although the so-called "barbarian Indians" (''indios bárbaros'') were fierce warriors on horseback, indios in casta paintings are not shown as bellicose, but as weak, a trope that developed in the colonial era.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Lewis |first1=Laura A. |title=The 'Weakness' of Women and the feminization of the Indian in colonial Mexico |journal=Colonial Latin American Review |date=June 1996 |volume=5 |issue=1 |pages=73–94 |doi=10.1080/10609169608569878 }}</ref> |
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Often, casta paintings depicted commodity items from Latin America like pulque, the fermented alcohol drink of the lower classes. Painters depicted [[Pulque|interpretations of pulque]] that were attributed to specific castas. |
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A casta painting by Luis de Mena that is often reproduced as an example of the genre shows an unusual couple with a pale, well-dressed Spanish woman paired with a nearly naked indio, producing a Mestizo offspring. "The aberrant combination not only mocks social protocol but also seems to underscore the very artificiality of a casta system that pretends to circumscribe social fluidity and economic mobility."<ref>Peterson, Jeanette Favrot, ''Visualizing Guadalulpe''. p. 258</ref> The image "would have seemed frankly bizarre and offensive by eighteenth-century Creole elites, if taken literally", but if the pair were considered allegorical figures, the Spanish woman represents "Europe" and the indio "America."<ref>Cline, "Guadalupe and the Castas", p. 225</ref> The image "functions as an allegory for the 'civilizing' and Christianizing process."<ref>Martinez, Maria Elena. ''Genealogical Fictions'', p. 256</ref> |
The ''Indias'' in casta paintings depict them as partners to Spaniards, Black people, and castas, and thus part of Hispanic society. But in a number of casta paintings, they are also shown apart from "civilized society," such as Miguel Cabrera's ''Indios Gentiles'', or ''indios bárbaros'' or ''Chichimecas'' barely clothed indigenous in a wild, setting.<ref>Estrada de Gerlero, Elena Isabel. "The Representation of 'Heathen Indians' in Mexican Casta Painting," in ''New World Orders: Casta Painting and Colonial Latin America'', ed. Ilona Katzew. Exh.cat. New York: Americas Society Art Gallery 1996.</ref> In the single-canvas casta painting by José María Barreda, there are a canonical 16 casta groupings and then in a separate cell below are "Mecos". Although the so-called "barbarian Indians" (''indios bárbaros'') were fierce warriors on horseback, indios in casta paintings are not shown as bellicose, but as weak, a trope that developed in the colonial era.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Lewis |first1=Laura A. |title=The 'Weakness' of Women and the feminization of the Indian in colonial Mexico |journal=Colonial Latin American Review |date=June 1996 |volume=5 |issue=1 |pages=73–94 |doi=10.1080/10609169608569878 }}</ref> A casta painting by Luis de Mena that is often reproduced as an example of the genre shows an unusual couple with a pale, well-dressed Spanish woman paired with a nearly naked indio, producing a Mestizo offspring. "The aberrant combination not only mocks social protocol but also seems to underscore the very artificiality of a casta system that pretends to circumscribe social fluidity and economic mobility."<ref>Peterson, Jeanette Favrot, ''Visualizing Guadalulpe''. p. 258</ref> The image "would have seemed frankly bizarre and offensive by eighteenth-century Creole elites, if taken literally", but if the pair were considered allegorical figures, the Spanish woman represents "Europe" and the indio "America."<ref>Cline, "Guadalupe and the Castas", p. 225</ref> The image "functions as an allegory for the 'civilizing' and Christianizing process."<ref>Martinez, Maria Elena. ''Genealogical Fictions'', p. 256</ref> |
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===Sample sets of casta paintings=== |
===Sample sets of casta paintings=== |
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Presented here are casta lists from |
Presented here are casta lists from three sets of paintings. Note that they only agree on the first five combinations, which are essentially the Indian-White ones. There is no agreement on the Black mixtures, however. Also, no one list should be taken as "authoritative". These terms would have varied from region to region and across time periods. The lists here probably reflect the names that the artist knew or preferred, the ones the patron requested to be painted, or a combination of both. |
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| align="center" | '''Miguel Cabrera, 1763'''<ref>Katzew (2004), ''Casta Painting'', 101-106. Paintings 1 and 3-8 private collections; 2 and 9-16 [[Museum of the Americas (Madrid)|Museo de América, Madrid]]; 15 Elisabeth Waldo-Dentzel, Multicultural Music and Art Center (Northridge California).</ref> |
| align="center" | '''Miguel Cabrera, 1763'''<ref>Katzew (2004), ''Casta Painting'', 101-106. Paintings 1 and 3-8 private collections; 2 and 9-16 [[Museum of the Americas (Madrid)|Museo de América, Madrid]]; 15 Elisabeth Waldo-Dentzel, Multicultural Music and Art Center (Northridge California).</ref> |
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| align="center" | '''Andrés de Islas, 1774'''<ref>Katzew, Ilona. Program for ''Inventing Race: Casta Painting and Eighteenth-Century Mexico'', April 4-August 8, 2004. [[Los Angeles County Museum of Art|LACMA]]</ref> |
| align="center" | '''Andrés de Islas, 1774'''<ref>Katzew, Ilona. Program for ''Inventing Race: Casta Painting and Eighteenth-Century Mexico'', April 4-August 8, 2004. [[Los Angeles County Museum of Art|LACMA]]</ref> |
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| align="center" | '''Anonymous''' (Museo del Virreinato)<ref>Gracia, J. E. and Pablo De Greiff, eds. ''Hispanics/Latinos in the United States: Ethnicity, Race and Rights.'' New York, Routledge, 2000, 53. {{ISBN|978-0-415-92620-1}}</ref> |
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#De Español y d'India; Mestiza |
#De Español y d'India; Mestiza |
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#De |
#De español y Mestiza, Castiza |
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#De Español y Castiza, Español |
#De Español y Castiza, Español |
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#De Español y Negra, Mulata |
#De Español y Negra, Mulata |
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#De Español y Mulata; Morisca |
#De Español y Mulata; Morisca |
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#De Español y Morisca; Albina<ref>Christopher Knight, "A Most Rare Couch Find: LACMA acquires a recently unrolled masterpiece." ''Los Angeles Times'', April 1, 2015, A1.</ref> |
#De Español y Morisca; Albina<ref>Christopher Knight, "A Most Rare Couch Find: LACMA acquires a recently unrolled masterpiece." ''Los Angeles Times'', April 1, 2015, A1.</ref> |
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#De Español y Albina; Torna atrás |
#De Español y Albina; Torna atrás |
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#De Español y Torna atrás; Tente en |
#De Español y Torna atrás; Tente en el aire |
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#De Negro y d'India, China cambuja. |
#De Negro y d'India, China cambuja. |
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#De Chino cambujo y d'India; Loba |
#De Chino cambujo y d'India; Loba |
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#Indios Mecos bárbaros (Barbarian [[Chichimeca|Meco Indians]]) |
#Indios Mecos bárbaros (Barbarian [[Chichimeca|Meco Indians]]) |
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Casta paintings on a single canvas show groupings that vary from many sets on 16 separate canvases, especially showing Spanish women (''Españolas'') paired with men of lower status men (''Mestizo, Negro, Mulato, Morisco''). These might be purely imagined pairings and not necessarily reflective of social reality. |
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| align="center" | '''[[Luis de Mena]]''' (ca. 1750)<ref>Cline, Sarah. "Guadalupe and the Castas: The Power of a Singular Colonial Mexican Painting". ''[[Mexican Studies|Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos]]''. vol 31, issue 2, Summer 2015 218-47. electronic ISSN 1533-8320</ref> |
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| align = "center" | '''Ignacio María Barreda''' (1777)<ref>García Sáiz, María Concepción. ''Las Castas Mexicanas''. Olivetti 1989, 140-41</ref> |
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| align="center" |'''Anonymous''' (late 18th c?)<ref>García Sáiz, María Concepción. ''Las Castas Mexicanas''. Olivetti 1989, 180-81</ref> |
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|- valign="top" |
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[[File:Casta_Painting_by_Luis_de_Mena.jpg|thumb|upright|center]] |
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#'''Española''' + Indio - Mestizo |
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#Mestizo + '''Española''' - Castizo |
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#Castizo + '''Española''' - Española |
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#Español + Negra - Mulato |
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#Mulato + '''Española''' - Morisca |
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#Morisca + Español - Albino Torna atrás |
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#Mestiza + Indio - Lobo |
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#Lobo + India - Indio |
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[[File:Ignacio María Barreda - Las castas mexicanas.jpg|thumb|upright|center]] |
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#Español + India - Mestizo or Cholo |
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#Español + Mestiza - Castizo or ''cuarterón'' |
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#Castizo + '''Española''' - Español Criollo |
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#Negro + '''Española''' - Mulato |
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#Mulato + '''Española''' - Morisco |
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#Morisco + '''Española''' - Albina |
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#Español + Tornatras Negro |
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#Tornatras + India - Lobo o Zambo |
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#Indio + Loba - Chino |
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#Chino + India - Zambaiga |
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#Zambaiga + Chino - Cambujo |
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#Cambuja + Chino - Genízara |
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#Genízara + Chino - Albarazado |
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#Albarazado + Negra - Calpamula |
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#Calpamula + Albarazado - Gíbaro |
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#Gíbaro + Albarazao - Tente en el aire |
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#Mecos and Mecas, even though they are many, they are all similar |
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[[File:Casta painting all.jpg|thumb|upright|center]] |
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#Español con India, Mestizo |
#Español con India, Mestizo |
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#Mestizo con |
#Mestizo con Española, Castizo |
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#Castiza con Español, Española |
#Castiza con Español, Española |
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#Español con Negra, Mulato |
#Español con Negra, Mulato |
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#Mulato con |
#Mulato con Española, Morisca |
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#Morisco con |
#Morisco con Española, Chino |
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#Chino con India, Salta atrás |
#Chino con India, Salta atrás |
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#Salta |
#Salta atras con Mulata, Lobo |
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#Lobo con China, Gíbaro (Jíbaro) |
#Lobo con China, Gíbaro (Jíbaro) |
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#Gíbaro con Mulata, Albarazado |
#Gíbaro con Mulata, Albarazado |
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#Albarazado con Negra, Cambujo |
#Albarazado con Negra, Cambujo |
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#Cambujo con India, |
#Cambujo con India, Sambiaga (Zambiaga) |
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# |
#Sambiago con Loba, Calpamulato |
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#Calpamulto con Cambuja, Tente en el aire |
#Calpamulto con Cambuja, Tente en el aire |
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#Tente en el aire con Mulata, No te entiendo |
#Tente en el aire con Mulata, No te entiendo |
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#No te entiendo con India, Torna atrás |
#No te entiendo con India, Torna atrás |
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=== |
===Casta paintings=== |
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<gallery> |
<gallery> |
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Image:Mestizo.jpg|''De español e india, produce mestizo'' (From a Spanish man and an indigenous woman, a Mestizo is produced). |
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Image:Cabrera Pintura de Castas.jpg|''De español y mulata, morisca''. [[Miguel Cabrera (painter)|Miguel Cabrera]], 1763 |
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File:Castas 08tentenelaire max.jpg|Spaniard and Torna atrás, Tente en el aire. Miguel Cabrera, 1763 |
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File:IX. From Spaniard and Albino, Return Backwards (De espanol y albina, torna atras) LACMA M.2011.20.2 (5 of 5).jpg|''De español, Alvina, Torna atrás''. [[Juan Patricio Morlete Ruiz]] (1701-1770) |
File:IX. From Spaniard and Albino, Return Backwards (De espanol y albina, torna atras) LACMA M.2011.20.2 (5 of 5).jpg|''De español, Alvina, Torna atrás''. [[Juan Patricio Morlete Ruiz]] (1701-1770) |
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File:De Albina y Español, Torna atrás (Juan Patricio Morlete).jpg|''De Albina y Español, Torna atrás''. Attributed to Juan Patricio Morlete Ruiz. |
File:De Albina y Español, Torna atrás (Juan Patricio Morlete).jpg|''De Albina y Español, Torna atrás''. Attributed to Juan Patricio Morlete Ruiz. |
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Image:Mestizo.jpg|''De español e india, produce mestizo'' (From a Spanish man and an indigenous woman, a Mestizo is produced). |
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File:Castas 08tentenelaire max.jpg|Spaniard and Torna atrás, Tente en el aire. Miguel Cabrera. |
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Image:Coiote.jpg|''De mestizo e india, sale coiote'' (From a Mestizo man and an indigenous woman, a [[Cholo]] is begotten). |
Image:Coiote.jpg|''De mestizo e india, sale coiote'' (From a Mestizo man and an indigenous woman, a [[Cholo]] is begotten). |
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File:Castas 04mulata max.jpg|Spaniard + ''Negra'', Mulatto. Miguel Cabrera. |
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Image:Cabrera Pintura de Castas.jpg|''De español y mulata, morisca''. [[Miguel Cabrera (painter)|Miguel Cabrera]], 1763, oil on canvas, 136x105 cm, private collection. |
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Image:José Joaquín Magón - La Mulata.jpg|José Joaquín Magón, IV. Spaniard + Negra = Mulata. "The pride and sharp wits of the Mulata are instilled in her white father and black mother" |
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Image:Luis berrueco-castas.JPG|''Canbujo con Yndia sale Albaracado / Notentiendo con Yndia sale China'', óleo sobre lienzo, 222 x 109 cm, [[Madrid]], [[Museo de América]] |
Image:Luis berrueco-castas.JPG|''Canbujo con Yndia sale Albaracado / Notentiendo con Yndia sale China'', óleo sobre lienzo, 222 x 109 cm, [[Madrid]], [[Museo de América]] |
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File:BMVB - anònim - "12 De Mestizo y Alba razada, Barsina" - 9349.jpg|''De Mestizo y Albarazada, Barsina''. Anon. 18th c. |
File:BMVB - anònim - "12 De Mestizo y Alba razada, Barsina" - 9349.jpg|''De Mestizo y Albarazada, Barsina''. Anon. 18th c. |
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File:BMVB - anònim - "11. De Chino y Mulata, Alvarrazada" - 9352.jpg|''De Chino y Mulata, Alvarazada''. Anon. 18th c. |
File:BMVB - anònim - "11. De Chino y Mulata, Alvarrazada" - 9352.jpg|''De Chino y Mulata, Alvarazada''. Anon. 18th c. |
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File:Francisco_Clapera_-_De_Chino,_e_India,_Genizara.jpg|''De Chino, e India. Genizara.'' |
File:Francisco_Clapera_-_De_Chino,_e_India,_Genizara.jpg|''De Chino, e India. Genizara.'' "From Indigenous and African Mixed father, and Indigenous mother. Genizara." by Francisco Clapera |
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File:José Joaquín Magón - La Sambayga.jpg|[[José Joaquín Magón]]. Indio + Cambujo Zambaiga - "No la Entienda". "The Indian and Cambujo Zambaigo woman produce the one no person understands who he is." |
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File:José Joaquín Magón - Tente en el Ayre.jpg|[[José Joaquín Magón]]. Tente en el aire + Torna atrás - Albarazado. |
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</gallery> |
</gallery> |
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==Scholarly literature== |
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In the scholarly literature, how racial distinction, hierarchy, and social status functioned over time in early Spanish America has been an evolving and contested discussion.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Giraudo |first1=Laura |title=Casta(s), 'sociedad de castas' e indigenismo: la interpretación del pasado colonial en el siglo XX |journal=Nuevo Mundo Mundos Nuevos |date=14 June 2018 |doi=10.4000/nuevomundo.72080 |doi-access=free |hdl=10261/167130 |hdl-access=free }}</ref><ref name="Vinson, Ben III 2018">Vinson, Ben III. ''Before Mestizaje: The Frontiers of Race and Caste in Colonial Mexico''. New York: Cambridge University Press 2018.</ref> In a 1977 article, anthropologist John K. Chance and historian [[William B. Taylor (historian)|William B. Taylor]], discuss the ''"sistema de castas"'', describing it as "a cognitive and legal system of hierarchically arranged socioracial statutes created by Spanish law and the colonial elite in response to the growth of the [[miscegenation|miscegenated]] population in the colonies."<ref>Chance, John K. and William B. Taylor, William B. Tayl''or, "Estate and Class in Colonial Oaxaca: Oaxaca in 1792". ''Comparative Studies in Society and History'', 19, no. 3 1977, 454-87. quote on p. 460''</ref> Although the concepts of ''sistema de castas'' (system of castes) or ''sociedad de castas'' ("society of castes") have been utilized in historical analyses to describe the social hierarchy based on race, with Spaniards at the apex, archival research shows that there is not a rigid "system" with fixed places for individuals and that plebeians contested their situation.<ref>Cope, R. Douglas. ''The Limits of Racial Domination: Plebeian Society in Colonial Mexico City, 1660–1720''. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994.</ref><ref>Rappaport, Joanne. ''The Disappearing Mestizo: Configuring Difference in the Colonial New Kingdom of Granada''. Durham: Duke University Press 2014.</ref> Mexican historian [[Pilar Gonzalbo]] dismisses the idea of the existence of a "caste system" or a "caste society" in New Spain, understood as a "social organization based on the race and supported by coercive power".<ref name="Gonzalbo Aizpuru 2013, p. 15">Gonzalbo Aizpuru, Pilar, "La trampa de las castas" in Alberro, Solange and Gonzalbo Aizpuru, Pilar, ''La sociedad novohispana. Estereotipos y realidades, México'', El Colegio de México, 2013, p. 15–193.</ref> |
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The findings recent scholarship have appeared in works for the general reader. A 1996 encyclopedia article summarizes research on caste and class structure, noting that while some scholars had focused on casta paintings as a depiction of a fixed, hierarchical system, other scholars have shown how restrictions were overcome. "A humble origin could be overcome by reputation and wealth."<ref>Seed, Patricia. "Caste and Class Structure in Colonial Spanish America" in ''[[Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture]]'', vol. 2, 10</ref> A standard textbook on colonial Latin America states that there was no "rigid and racist 'caste system'", but by 1700 that socioracial "qualities" (''calidad'') of "ancestry, skin color and physical features, occupation, wealth, degree of Hispanization, public reputation and honor" could be "bent".<ref>Restall, Matthew and Kris Lane, ''Latin America in Colonial Times''. 2nd edition. New York: Cambridge University Press 2018, 229</ref> |
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During the conquest era, the names of some Black participants have been recorded, including [[Juan Valiente]] and [[Juan Garrido]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ferro |first=Redes Desperta |date=2019-05-22 |title=Los conquistadores negros. El papel africano en la conquista de América |url=https://www.despertaferro-ediciones.com/2019/conquistadores-negros-africanos-conquista-america/ |access-date=2023-06-20 |website=Desperta Ferro Ediciones |language=es}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Álvarez |first=Jorge |date=2016-04-23 |title=Los conquistadores españoles de 'raza' negra |url=https://www.labrujulaverde.com/2016/04/los-conquistadores-espanoles-de-raza-negra |access-date=2023-06-20 |website=La Brújula Verde |language=es-es}}</ref> The [[Royal Decree-Law (Spain)|Royal Decree]] of [[Philip II of Spain|Philip II]] in 1559 prescribes that "the mestizos who come to these kingdoms [in Spain] to study, or for other things of their use (...) do not need another license to return [to the New World]."<ref>{{Cite book |last=García |first=Juan Andreo |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sLYxdYzCJxkC&dq=los+mestizos+que+vinieren+a+estos+reinos+a+estudiar%2C+o+a+otras+cosas+de+su+aprovechamiento+%28%E2%80%A6%29+no+necesiten+de+otra+licencia+para+regresar&pg=PA31 |title=Familia, tradición y grupos sociales en América Latina |date=1994 |publisher=EDITUM |isbn=978-84-7564-151-5 |language=es}}</ref> Passage from Spain to the New World required travellers to obtain a license from the [[Casa de Contratación]], certifying the individual had no Jewish or Islamic ancestry. This edict indicates that mestizos could return without further examination. |
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==See also== |
==See also== |
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* [[Dominant minority]] |
* [[Dominant minority]] |
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* [[Filipino Mestizos]] |
* [[Filipino Mestizos]] |
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* [[ |
* [[Mestizo]] |
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* [[Mexican art]] |
* [[Mexican art]] |
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* [[Ordenanzas del Baratillo de México]] |
* [[Ordenanzas del Baratillo de México]] |
Revision as of 01:41, 30 June 2024
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e8/Casta_painting_all.jpg/290px-Casta_painting_all.jpg)
Casta (Spanish: [ˈkasta]) is a term which means "lineage" in Spanish and Portuguese and has historically been used as a racial and social identifier. In the context of the Spanish Empire in the Americas, the term also refers to a now-discredited 20th-century theoretical framework which postulated that colonial society operated under a hierarchical race-based "caste system". From the outset, colonial Spanish America resulted in widespread intermarriage: unions of Spaniards (españoles), indigenous people (indios), and Africans (negros). Basic mixed-race categories that appeared in official colonial documentation were mestizo, generally offspring of a Spaniard and an Indigenous person; and mulatto, offspring of a Spaniard and an African. A plethora of terms were used for people with mixed Spanish, Indigenous, and African ancestry in 18th-century casta paintings, but they are not known to have been widely used officially or unofficially in the Spanish Empire.
Etymology
Casta is an Iberian word (existing in Spanish, Portuguese and other Iberian languages since the Middle Ages), meaning 'lineage'. It is documented in Spanish since 1417 and is linked to the Proto-Indo-European ger. The Portuguese casta gave rise to the English word caste during the early modern period.[1][2]
Use of casta terminology
In the historical literature, how racial distinction, hierarchy, and social status functioned over time in colonial Spanish America has been an evolving and contested discussion.[3][4] Although the term sistema de castas (system of castes) or sociedad de castas ("society of castes") are utilized in modern historical analyses to describe the social hierarchy based on race, with Spaniards at the apex, archival research shows that there is not a rigid "system" with fixed places for individuals.[5][6][7] rather, a more fluid social structure where individuals could move from one category to another, or maintain or be given different labels depending on the context. In the 18th century, "casta paintings", imply a fixed racial hierarchy, but this genre may well have been an attempt to bring order into a system that was more fluid. "For colonial elites, casta paintings might well have been an attempt to fix in place rigid divisions based on race, even as they were disappearing in social reality."[8]
Examination of registers in colonial Mexico put in question other narratives held by certain academics, such as Spanish immigrants who arrived to Mexico being almost exclusively men or that "pure Spanish" people were all part of a small powerful elite, as Spaniards were often the most numerous ethnic group in the colonial cities[9][10] and there were menial workers and people in poverty who were of complete Spanish origin.[11]
In New Spain (colonial Mexico) during the Mexican War of Independence, race and racial distinctions were an important issue and the end of imperial had a strong appeal. José María Morelos, who was registered as a Spaniard in his baptismal records, called for the abolition of the formal distinctions the imperial regime made between racial groups, advocating for "calling them one and all Americans."[12] Morelos issued regulations in 1810 to prevent ethnic-based disturbances. "He who raises his voice should be immediately punished." In 1821 race was an issue in the negotiations resulting in the Plan of Iguala.[13]
"Colonial Caste System" debate
The degree to which racial category labels had legal and social consequences has been subject to academic debate since the idea of a "caste system" was first developed by Polish-Venezuelan philologist Ángel Rosenblat and Mexican anthropologist Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán in the 1940s. Both authors popularized the notion that racial status was the key organizing principle of Spanish colonial rule, a theory which became commonplace in the anglosphere during the mid and late 20th century. However, recent academic studies in Latin America have widely challenged this notion, considering it a flawed and ideologically-based reinterpretation of the colonial period.
Pilar Gonzalbo, in her study La trampa de las castas (2013) discards the idea of the existence of a "caste system" or a "caste society" in New Spain, understood as a "social organization based on the race and supported by coercive power".[14] She also affirms in her work that certain subliminal and derogatory messages in caste paintings were not a general phenomenon, and that they only began to be carried out in particular environments of the Criollo oligarchies after the Bourbon Reformism and the influx of ideas of scientific racism from the illustration within some encyclopedic environments of the colonial bourgeoisie.
Joanne Rappaport, in her book on colonial New Granada, The Disappearing Mestizo, rejects the caste system as an interpretative framework for that time, discussing both the legitimacy of a model valid for the entire colonial world and the usual association between "caste" and "race".[15]
Similarly, Berta Ares' 2015 study on the Viceroyalty of Peru, notes that the term "casta" was barely used by colonial authorities which, according to her, casts doubt on the existence of a "caste system". Even by the 18th century, its use was rare and appeared in its plural form, "castas", characterized by its ambiguous meaning. The word did not specifically refer to sectors of the population who were of mixed race, but also included both Spaniards and indigenous people of lower socio-economic extraction, often used together with other terms such as plebe, vulgo, naciones, clases, calidades, otras gentes, etc.[16]
Ben Vinson, in a study of the historical archives of Mexico carried out in 2018, addressing the issue of racial diversity in Mexico and its relationship with imperial Spain, ratified these conclusions.[17]
Often called the sistema de castas or the sociedad de castas, there was, in fact, no fixed system of classification for individuals, as careful archival research has shown. There was considerable fluidity in society, with the same individuals being identified by different categories simultaneously or over time. Individuals self-identified by particular terms, often to shift their status from one category to another to their advantage. For example, both mestizos and Spaniards were exempt from tribute obligations, but were both equally subject to the Inquisition. Indios, on the other hand, paid tribute yet were exempt from the Inquisition. In certain cases, a mestizo might try to "pass" as an indio to escape the Inquisition. An indio might try to pass as a Mestizo to escape tribute obligations.[14]
Casta paintings produced largely in 18th-century Mexico have influenced modern understandings of race in Spanish America, a concept which began infiltrating Bourbon Spain from France and Northern Europe during this time. They purport to show a fixed "system" of racial hierarchy which has been disputed by modern academia. These paintings should be evaluated as the production by elites in New Spain for an elite viewership in both Spanish territories and abroad portrayals of mixtures of Spaniards with other ethnicities, some of which have been interpreted as being pejorative in nature or seeking social outrage. They are thus useful for understanding elites and their attitudes toward non-elites, and quite valuable as illustrations of aspects of material culture in the late colonial era.[18]
The process of mixing ancestries by the union of people of different races is known in the modern era as mestizaje (Portuguese: mestiçagem [mestʃiˈsaʒẽj], [mɨʃtiˈsaʒɐ̃j]). In Spanish colonial law, mixed-race castas were classified as part of the república de españoles and not the república de indios, which set indigenous people outside the Hispanic sphere with different duties and rights to those of Spaniards and Mestizos.
The caste system for these revisionists would have been misconstrued as being analogous to the castes of India. Given that in viceregal Spanish America there was never a closed system based on birth rights, where the birth rate and, therefore, wealth, created a "caste system" difficult to penetrate; but, rather, the statute of Limpieza de sangre (a concept of religious root and not biological or racial) was given, in which the Indian and the mestizo, as a new Christian, had limitations on access to certain trades until assimilation full of his conversion to Catholicism; but that did not prevent his social ascent, and he would even receive protections that would benefit his social mobilization, protections that the old Christian of the Republica de españoles would not enjoy (such as being free from all the taxes of the whites, with the exception of the indigenous tribute, or be exempt from the Holy Inquisition). Then, those conceptions of a "caste society" or a "caste system" as characteristic of colonial society would be completely anachronistic formulations and could be part of the Spanish Black Legend. Given this, in works prior to those of Rosenblat and Beltrán, one would not find references to the notion that the Spanish empire was a society founded on racial segregation. Neither in Nicolás León, Gregorio Torres Quintero, Blanchard, nor in the Catalog of Herrera and Cicero (1895), nor in the article "Castas" of the Dictionary of History and Geography (1855), nor in Alexander von Humboldt's Political Essay on the Spanish-American territories that he visited on his scientific expeditions. Among other works that refer to the existence of castes and caste paintings, without implying connotations with modern racism, which would come to America after the French Enlightenment.[19]
This would make these critics conclude that those colonial societies were rather of the class type, that although there was a relationship between class and race through castes, that was not in a cause relationship, but in a consequence relationship ( not being an end in itself the race, which was understood in the Hispanic tradition as something purely spiritual, not so much biological). The purpose of the castas was to register the identity of lineages to register them in the republic of Spaniards, the republic of Indians, with the services and privileges acquired, which would not disturb the economic potential of the individual of the caste, nor would they have the purpose of to formally segregate them from positions of power, but to hierarchize them in feudal society (not equivalent to the same thing, as long as they were not prevented from ascending to the nobility or being part of the commercial petty bourgeoisie). Then, the viceroyalty society would be a society of "quality", estate, corporate, patronage and trade union, where each social group was not conditioned by their race, and neither did this establish the labor relations of its inhabitants. In the parish registers there would never have been the tendency to classify in so many innumerable mixtures as seen in the caste charts, which would be an artistic phenomenon typical of the Age of Enlightenment.[20][21]
Some examples of blacks, mulattoes and mestizos who climbed socially would be used as evidence against these misrepresentations, such as: Juan Latino, Juan Valiente, Juan Garrido, Juan García, Juan Bardales, Sebastián Toral, Antonio Pérez, Miguel Ruíz, Gómez de León,[22][23] Fran Dearobe, José Manuel Valdés, Teresa Juliana de Santo Domingo. Names of indigenous chiefs and noble mestizos are also mentioned: Carlos Inca, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Manuela Taurichumbi Saba Cápac Inca, Alonso de Castilla Titu Atauchi Inga, Alonso de Areanas Florencia Inca, Gonzalo Tlaxhuexolotzin, Vicente Xicohténcatl, Bartolomé Zitlalpopoca, Lorenzo Nahxixcalzin , Doña Luisa Xicotencatl, Nicolás de San Luis Montañez, Fernando de Tapia, Isabel Moctezuma Tecuichpo Ixcaxochitzin, Pedro de Moctezuma. The Royal Decree of Philip II on 1559 is also often mentioned, in which it is prescribed that "the mestizos who come to these kingdoms to study, or for other things of their use (...) do not need another license to return." The document is important, because laws are not made for particular cases and it shows that the existence of multiple castes did not impede social mobilization within the Hispanic monarchy, the same mobilization that must have been significant to require the attention of a royal edict of the person of the Spanish king.[24]
"Purity of blood" and the evolution of racial classification
Certain authors have sought to link the castas in Latin America to the older Spanish concept of "purity of blood", limpieza de sangre, originating under Moorish rule, developed in Christian Spain to denote those without recent Jewish or Muslim heritage or, more widely, heritage from individuals convicted by the Spanish inquisition for heresy.
It was directly linked to religion and notions of legitimacy, lineage and honor following Spain's reconquest of Moorish territory and the degree to which it can be considered a precursor to the modern concept of race has been the subject of academic debate.[25] The Inquisition only allowed those Spaniards who could demonstrate not to have Jewish and Moorish blood to emigrate to Latin America, although this prohibition was frequently ignored and a number of Spanish Conquistadors were Jewish Conversos. Others, such as Juan Valiente, were Black Africans or had recent Moorish ancestry.
Both in Spain and in the New World Conversos who continued to practice Judaism in secret were aggressively prosecuted. Of the roughly 40 people executed by the Spanish Inquisition in Mexico, a significant number were convicted of being "Judaizers" (judaizantes) .[26] Spanish Conquistador Luis de Carvajal y de la Cueva was prosecuted by the Inquisition for secretly practising Judaism and eventually died in prison.
In Spanish America, the idea of purity of blood also applied to Black Africans and indigenous peoples since, as Spaniards of Moorish and Jewish descent, they had not been Christian for various generations and were inherently suspect of engaging in religious heresy. In all Spanish territories, including Spain itself, evidence of lack of purity of blood had consequences for eligibility for office, entrance into the priesthood, and emigration to Spain's overseas territories. Having to produce genealogical records to prove one's pure ancestry gave rise to a trade in the creation of false genealogies, a practice which was already widespread in Spain itself.[27]
This was no impediment for intermarriage between Spaniards and indigenous people, just as it had not been between Old and New Christians or different racial groups coexisting in late medieval and early modern Spain. The result was generations of mixed-race children who were typically considered Spaniards, and many of whom returned to Spain to join the ranks of the nobility, a notable example being Juan Cano Moctezuma.
However, starting in the late 16th century, some investigations of ancestry classified as "stains" any connection with Black Africans ("negros", which resulted in "mulatos") and sometimes mixtures with indigenous that produced Mestizos.[28] While some illustrations from the period show men of African descent dressed in fashionable clothing and as aristocrats in upper-class surroundings, the idea that any hint of black ancestry was a stain developed by the end of the colonial period, a time in which biological racism began to emerge throughout the western world. This trend was illustrated in 18th-century paintings of racial hierarchy, known as casta paintings which led to 20th-century emergence of theories on a "Caste System" existing in Colonial Spanish America.
The idea in New Spain that native or "Indian" (indio) blood in a lineage was an impurity may well have come about as the optimism of the early Franciscans faded about creating Indian priests trained at the Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco, which ceased that function in the mid-16th century. In addition, the Indian nobility, which was recognized by the Spanish colonists, had declined in importance, and there were fewer formal marriages between Spaniards and indigenous women than during the early decades of the colonial era.[28] In the 17th century in New Spain, the ideas of purity of blood became associated with "Spanishness and whiteness, but it came to work together with socio-economic categories", such that a lineage with someone engaged in work with their hands was tainted by that connection.[29]
Indians in Central Mexico were affected by ideas of purity of blood from the other side. Crown decrees on purity of blood were affirmed by indigenous communities, which barred Indians from holding office who had any non-Indians (Spaniards and/or Black peoples) in their lineage. In indigenous communities "local caciques [rulers] and principales were granted a set of privileges and rights on the basis of their pre-Hispanic noble bloodlines and acceptance of the Catholic faith."[30] Indigenous nobles submitted proofs (probanzas) of their purity of blood to affirm their rights and privileges that were extended to themselves and their communities. This supported the república de indios, a legal division of society that separated indigenous from non-Indians (república de españoles).[31]
Casta classifications and legal consequences
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fb/Castas_01mestiza_max.jpg/170px-Castas_01mestiza_max.jpg)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/49/De_espa%C3%B1ol_y_mestiza%2C_castiza.jpg/170px-De_espa%C3%B1ol_y_mestiza%2C_castiza.jpg)
In Spanish America racial categories were registered at local parishes upon baptism as required by the Spanish Crown. Initially in Spanish America there were three ethnic categories. They generally referred to the multiplicity of indigenous American peoples as "Indians" (indios). Those from Spain called themselves españoles. The third group were black Africans, called negros (lit. "blacks"), brought as slaves from the earliest days of Spanish Empire. Although intermarriage was widespread from the beginning of the colonial period, mestizos only slowly began to be recognized as a distinct ethnicity 150 years after the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, prior to which they had simply been identified as Spaniards.[citation needed]
Although the number of Spanish women emigrating to New Spain was far higher than is often portrayed, they were fewer in number than men, as well as fewer black women than men, so the mixed-race offspring of Spaniards and of Black people were often the product of liaisons with indigenous women. The process of race mixture is now termed mestizaje, a term coined in the modern era.[citation needed]
In the 16th century, the term casta, a collective category for mixed-race individuals, came into existence as the numbers grew, particularly in urban areas. Nevertheless, during the first century and a half of the colonial era, the offspring of mixed marriages were registered as Spaniards and only Africans were registered as "Castas". The registry of "Mestizos" as "Castas" rather than "Spaniards" only become widespread in the last century of colonial rule.
The crown had divided the population of its overseas empire into two categories, separating Indians from non-Indians. Indigenous were the República de Indios, the other the República de Españoles, essentially the Hispanic sphere, so that Spaniards, Black people, and mixed-race castas were lumped into this category. Official censuses and ecclesiastical records noted an individual's racial category, so that these sources can be used to chart socio-economic standard, residence patterns, and other important data.
General racial groupings had their own set of privileges and restrictions, both legal and customary. So, for example, only Spaniards and indigenous people, who were deemed to be the original societies of the Spanish dominions, had recognized aristocracies.[32][33] In the population at large, access to social privileges and even at times a person's perceived and accepted racial classification, were predominantly determined by that person's socioeconomic standing in society.[34][35][36]
Official censuses and ecclesiastical records noted an individual's racial category, so that these sources can be used to chart socio-economic standards, residence patterns, and other important data. Parish registers, where baptism, marriage, and burial were recorded, had three basic categories: español (Spaniards), indio, and color quebrado ("broken color", indicating a mixed-race person). In some parishes in colonial Mexico, indios were recorded with other non-Spaniards in the color quebrado register.[37] Españoles and mestizos could be ordained as priests and were exempt from payment of tribute to the crown. Free black people, indigenous people, and mixed-race castas were required to pay tribute and barred from the priesthood. Being designated as an español or mestizo conferred social and financial advantages. Black men began to apply to the Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico, but in 1688 Bishop Juan de Palafox y Mendoza attempted to prevent their entrance by drafting new regulations barring black peoples and mulattoes.[38] In 1776, the crown issued the Royal Pragmatic on Marriage, taking approval of marriages away from the couple and placing it in their parents' hands. The marriage between Luisa de Abrego, a free black domestic servant from Seville and Miguel Rodríguez, a white Segovian conquistador in 1565 in St. Augustine (Spanish Florida), is the first known and recorded Christian marriage anywhere in the continental United States.[39]
Long lists of different terms found in casta paintings do not appear in official documentation or anywhere outside these paintings. Only counts of Spaniards, mestizos, black peoples and mulattoes, and indigenes (indios), were recorded in censuses.[40]
Casta paintings of the 18th century
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/29/Casta_Painting_by_Luis_de_Mena.jpg/170px-Casta_Painting_by_Luis_de_Mena.jpg)
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Artwork created mainly in 18th-century Mexico purports to show race mixture as a hierarchy. These paintings have had tremendous influence in how scholars have approached difference in the colonial era, but should not be taken as definitive description of racial difference. For approximately a century, casta paintings were by elite artists for an elite viewership. They ceased to be produced following Mexico's independence in 1821 when casta designations were abolished. The vast majority of casta paintings were produced in Mexico, by a variety of artists, with a single group of canvases clearly identified for 18th-century Peru. In the colonial era, artists primarily created religious art and portraits, but in the 18th century, casta paintings emerged as a completely secular genre of art. An exception to that is the painting by Luis de Mena, a single canvas that has the central figure of the Virgin of Guadalupe and a set of casta groupings.[41] Most sets of casta paintings have 16 separate canvases, but a few, such as Mena's, Ignacio María Barreda, and the anonymous painting in the Museo de Virreinato in Tepozotlan, Mexico, are frequently reproduced as examples of the genre, likely because their composition gives a single, tidy image of the racial classification (from the elite viewpoint).
It is unclear why casta paintings emerged as a genre, why they became such a popular genre of artwork, who commissioned them, and who collected them. One scholar suggests they can be seen as "proud renditions of the local,"[42] at a point when American-born Spaniards began forming a clearer identification with their place of birth rather than metropolitan Spain.[43] The single-canvas casta artwork could well have been as a curiosity or souvenir for Spaniards to take home to Spain; two frequently reproduced casta paintings are Mena's and Barreda's, both of which are in Madrid museums.[44] There is only one set of casta paintings definitively done in Peru, commissioned by Viceroy Manuel Amat y Junyent (1770), and sent to Spain for the Cabinet of Natural History of the Prince of Asturias.[45]
The influence of the European Enlightenment on the Spanish empire led to an interest in organizing knowledge and scientific description might have resulted in the commission of many series of pictures that document the racial combinations that existed in Spanish territories in the Americas. Many sets of these paintings still exist (around one hundred complete sets in museums and private collections and many more individual paintings), of varying artistic quality, usually consisting of sixteen paintings representing as many racial combinations. It must be emphasized that these paintings reflected the views of the economically established Criollo society and officialdom, but not all Criollos were pleased with casta paintings. One remarked that they show "what harms us, not what benefits us, what dishonors us, not what ennobles us."[46] Many paintings are in Spain in major museums, but many remain in private collections in Mexico, perhaps commissioned and kept because they show the character of late colonial Mexico and a source of pride.[47]
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Some of the finer sets were done by prominent Mexican artists, such as José de Alcíbar, Miguel Cabrera, José de Ibarra, José Joaquín Magón, (who painted two sets); Juan Patricio Morlete Ruiz, José de Páez, and Juan Rodríguez Juárez. One of Magón's sets includes descriptions of the "character and moral standing" of his subjects. These artists worked together in the painting guilds of New Spain. They were important transitional artists in 18th-century casta painting. At least one Spaniard, Francisco Clapera, also contributed to the casta genre. In general, little is known of most artists who did sign their work; most casta paintings are unsigned.
Certain authors have interpreted the overall theme of these paintings as representing the "supremacy of the Spaniards", the possibility that mixtures of Spaniards and Spanish-Indian offspring could return to the status of Spaniards through marriage to Spaniards over generations, what can be considered "restoration of racial purity,"[48] or "racial mending"[49] was seen visually in many sets of casta paintings. It was also articulated by a visitor to Mexico, Don Pedro Alonso O'Crouley, in 1774. "If the mixed-blood is the offspring of a Spaniard and an Indian, the stigma [of race mixture] disappears at the third step in descent because it is held as systematic that a Spaniard and an Indian produce a mestizo; a mestizo and a Spaniard, a castizo; and a castizo and a Spaniard, a Spaniard. The admixture of Indian blood should not indeed be regarded as a blemish, since the provisions of law give the Indian all that he could wish for, and Philip II granted to mestizos the privilege of becoming priests. On this consideration is based the common estimation of descent from a union of Indian and European or creole Spaniard."[50]
O'Crouley says that the same process of restoration of racial purity does not occur over generations for European-African offspring marrying whites. “From the union of a Spaniard and a Negro the mixed-blood retains the stigma for generations without losing the original quality of a mulato."[51] Casta paintings show increasing whitening over generations with the mixes of Spaniards and Africans. The sequence is the offspring of a Spaniard + Negra, Mulatto; Spaniard with a Mulatta, Morisco; Spaniard with a Morisca, Albino (a racial category, derived from Alba, "white"); Spaniard with an Albina, Torna atrás, or "throw back" black. Negro, Mulatto, and Morisco were labels found in colonial-era documentation, but Albino and Torna atrás exist only as fairly standard categories in casta paintings.
In contrast, mixtures with Black people, both by Indians and Spaniards, led to a bewildering number of combinations, with "fanciful terms" to describe them. Instead of leading to a new racial type or equilibrium, they led to apparent disorder. Terms such as the above-mentioned tente en el aire ("floating in midair") and no te entiendo ("I don't understand you")—and others based on terms used for animals: coyote and lobo (wolf).[52][53]
Castas defined themselves in different ways, and how they were recorded in official records was a process of negotiation between the casta and the person creating the document, whether it was a birth certificate, a marriage certificate or a court deposition. In real life, many casta individuals were assigned different racial categories in different documents, revealing the malleable nature of racial identity in colonial, Spanish American society.[54]
Some paintings depicted the supposed "innate" character and quality of people because of their birth and ethnic origin. For example, according to one painting by José Joaquín Magón, a mestizo (mixed Indian + Spanish) was considered generally humble, tranquil, and straightforward; while another painting claims "from Lobo and Indian woman is born the Cambujo, one usually slow, lazy, and cumbersome." Ultimately, the casta paintings are reminders of the colonial biases in modern human history that linked a caste/ethnic society based on descent, skin color, social status, and one's birth.[55][56]
Often, casta paintings depicted commodity items from Latin America like pulque, the fermented alcohol drink of the lower classes. Painters depicted interpretations of pulque that were attributed to specific castas.
The Indias in casta paintings depict them as partners to Spaniards, Black people, and castas, and thus part of Hispanic society. But in a number of casta paintings, they are also shown apart from "civilized society," such as Miguel Cabrera's Indios Gentiles, or indios bárbaros or Chichimecas barely clothed indigenous in a wild, setting.[57] In the single-canvas casta painting by José María Barreda, there are a canonical 16 casta groupings and then in a separate cell below are "Mecos". Although the so-called "barbarian Indians" (indios bárbaros) were fierce warriors on horseback, indios in casta paintings are not shown as bellicose, but as weak, a trope that developed in the colonial era.[58] A casta painting by Luis de Mena that is often reproduced as an example of the genre shows an unusual couple with a pale, well-dressed Spanish woman paired with a nearly naked indio, producing a Mestizo offspring. "The aberrant combination not only mocks social protocol but also seems to underscore the very artificiality of a casta system that pretends to circumscribe social fluidity and economic mobility."[59] The image "would have seemed frankly bizarre and offensive by eighteenth-century Creole elites, if taken literally", but if the pair were considered allegorical figures, the Spanish woman represents "Europe" and the indio "America."[60] The image "functions as an allegory for the 'civilizing' and Christianizing process."[61]
Sample sets of casta paintings
Presented here are casta lists from three sets of paintings. Note that they only agree on the first five combinations, which are essentially the Indian-White ones. There is no agreement on the Black mixtures, however. Also, no one list should be taken as "authoritative". These terms would have varied from region to region and across time periods. The lists here probably reflect the names that the artist knew or preferred, the ones the patron requested to be painted, or a combination of both.
Miguel Cabrera, 1763[62] | Andrés de Islas, 1774[63] | Anonymous (Museo del Virreinato)[64] | |
|
|
|
Casta paintings
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De español, Alvina, Torna atrás. Juan Patricio Morlete Ruiz (1701-1770)
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De Albina y Español, Torna atrás. Attributed to Juan Patricio Morlete Ruiz.
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De español e india, produce mestizo (From a Spanish man and an indigenous woman, a Mestizo is produced).
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Spaniard and Torna atrás, Tente en el aire. Miguel Cabrera.
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De mestizo e india, sale coiote (From a Mestizo man and an indigenous woman, a Cholo is begotten).
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Spaniard + Negra, Mulatto. Miguel Cabrera.
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De español y mulata, morisca. Miguel Cabrera, 1763, oil on canvas, 136x105 cm, private collection.
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José Joaquín Magón, IV. Spaniard + Negra = Mulata. "The pride and sharp wits of the Mulata are instilled in her white father and black mother"
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Canbujo con Yndia sale Albaracado / Notentiendo con Yndia sale China, óleo sobre lienzo, 222 x 109 cm, Madrid, Museo de América
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De Mestizo y Albarazada, Barsina. Anon. 18th c.
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De Chino y Mulata, Alvarazada. Anon. 18th c.
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De Chino, e India. Genizara. "From Indigenous and African Mixed father, and Indigenous mother. Genizara." by Francisco Clapera
See also
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
- Caste system
- Castizo
- Dominant minority
- Filipino Mestizos
- Mestizo
- Mexican art
- Ordenanzas del Baratillo de México
- Race and ethnicity in Latin America
- La Raza
- Zambo
References
- ^ "Caste", Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 10th edition. (Springfield, 1999.)
- ^ "Caste", New Oxford American Dictionary, 2nd edition. (Oxford, 2005).
- ^ Giraudo, Laura (14 June 2018). "Casta(s), 'sociedad de castas' e indigenismo: la interpretación del pasado colonial en el siglo XX". Nuevo Mundo Mundos Nuevos. doi:10.4000/nuevomundo.72080. hdl:10261/167130.
- ^ Vinson, Ben III. Before Mestizaje: The Frontiers of Race and Caste in Colonial Mexico. New York: Cambridge University Press 2018.
- ^ Cope, R. Douglas. The Limits of Racial Domination: Plebeian Society in Colonial Mexico City, 1660–1720. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994.
- ^ Valdés, Dennis N., "Decline of the Sociedad de Castas in Eighteenth-Century Mexico." PhD diss. University of Michigan, 1978
- ^ Rappaport, Joanne. The Disappearning Mestizo: Configuring Difference in the Colonial New Kingdom of Granada. Durham: Duke University Press 2014.
- ^ Cline, Sarah (1 August 2015). "Guadalupe and the Castas". Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos. 31 (2): 218–247. doi:10.1525/mex.2015.31.2.218.
- ^ Sherburne Friend Cook; Woodrow Borah (1998). Ensayos sobre historia de la población. México y el Caribe 2. Siglo XXI. p. 223. ISBN 9789682301063. Retrieved September 12, 2017.
- ^ Hardin, Monica L. (2016). Household Mobility and Persistence in Guadalajara, Mexico: 1811–1842. Lexington Books. p. 62. ISBN 978-1-4985-4072-8.
- ^ San Miguel, G. (November 2000). "Ser mestizo en la nueva España a fines del siglo XVIII: Acatzingo, 1792" [To be 'mestizo' in New Spain at the end of the XVIIIth century. Acatzingo, 1792]. Cuadernos de la Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales. Universidad Nacional de Jujuy (in Spanish) (13): 325–342.
- ^ quoted in Enrique Krauze, Mexico: Biography of Power. New York: HarperCollins 1997, p. 112
- ^ quoted in Krauze, Mexico, p. 111.
- ^ a b Gonzalbo Aizpuru, Pilar, "La trampa de las castas" in Alberro, Solange and Gonzalbo Aizpuru, Pilar, La sociedad novohispana. Estereotipos y realidades, México, El Colegio de México, 2013, p. 15–193.
- ^ Rappaport, Joanne (4 April 2014). The Disappearing Mestizo: Configuring Difference in the Colonial Kingdom of New Granada. Durham: Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0822356363.
- ^ Ares, Berta, “Usos y abusos del concepto de casta en el Perú colonial”, ponencia presentada en el Congreso Internacional INTERINDI 2015. Categorías e indigenismo en América Latina, EEHA-CSIC, Sevilla, 10 de noviembre de 2015. Citado con la autorización de la autora.
- ^ Before Mestizaje: The Frontiers of Race and Caste in Colonial Mexico. Cambridge University Press. 2018. ISBN 9781107026438.
- ^ Katzew, Ilona. Casta Painting: Images of Race in Eighteenth-Century Mexico. New Haven: Yale University Press 2004.
- ^ Giraudo, Laura (2018-06-14). "Casta(s), "sociedad de castas" e indigenismo: la interpretación del pasado colonial en el siglo XX". Nuevo Mundo Mundos Nuevos. Nouveaux Mondes Mondes Nouveaux - Novo Mundo Mundos Novos - New World New Worlds (in Spanish). doi:10.4000/nuevomundo.72080. hdl:10261/167130. ISSN 1626-0252. S2CID 165569000.
- ^ "Castas y corporaciones | Víctor R. Nomberto, Doctor en Ciencias Sociales" (in European Spanish). 2014-10-18. Retrieved 2023-06-20.
- ^ Santiago Paúl Yépez
- ^ Ferro, Redes Desperta (2019-05-22). "Los conquistadores negros. El papel africano en la conquista de América". Desperta Ferro Ediciones (in Spanish). Retrieved 2023-06-20.
- ^ Álvarez, Jorge (2016-04-23). "Los conquistadores españoles de 'raza' negra". La Brújula Verde (in European Spanish). Retrieved 2023-06-20.
- ^ García, Juan Andreo (1994). Familia, tradición y grupos sociales en América Latina (in Spanish). EDITUM. ISBN 978-84-7564-151-5.
- ^ Maria Elena Martinez, Genealogical Fictions: Limpieza de Sangre, Religion, and Gender in Colonial Mexico, Stanford: Stanford University Press 2008, p. 265.
- ^ Jonathan I. Israel, Race, Class, and Politics in Colonial Mexico, 1610-1670. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1975, pp. 245-46.
- ^ Martinez, Genealogical Fictions, p. 266-67.
- ^ a b Martinez, Genealogical Fictions, p. 267.
- ^ Martinez, Genealogical Fictions, p. 269.
- ^ Martinez, Genealogical Fictions, p. 270.
- ^ Martinez, Genealogical Fictions, p. 273.
- ^ MacLachlan, Colin; Jaime E. Rodríguez O. (1990). The Forging of the Cosmic Race: A Reinterprretation of Colonial Mexico (Expanded ed.). Berkeley: University of California. pp. 199, 208. ISBN 978-0-520-04280-3.
[I]n the New World all Spaniards, no matter how poor, claimed hidalgo status. This unprecedented expansion of the privileged segment of society could be tolerated by the Crown because in Mexico the indigenous population assumed the burden of personal tribute.
- ^ Gibson, Charles (1964). The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule. Stanford: Stanford University. pp. 154–165. ISBN 978-0-8047-0912-5.
- ^ See Passing (racial identity) for a discussion of a related phenomenon, although in a later and very different cultural and legal context.
- ^ Seed, Patricia (1988). To Love, Honor, and Obey in Colonial Mexico: Conflicts over Marriage Choice, 1574-1821. Stanford: Stanford University. pp. 21–23. ISBN 978-0-8047-2159-2.
- ^ Bakewell, Peter (1997). A History of Latin America. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell. pp. 160–163. ISBN 978-0-631-16791-4.
The Spaniards generally regarded [local Indian lords/caciques] as hidalgos, and used the honorific 'don' with the more eminent of them. […] Broadly speaking, Spaniards in the Indies in the 16th century arranged themselves socially less and less by Iberian criteria or frank, and increasingly by new American standards. […] simple wealth gained from using America's human and natural resources soon became a strong influence on social standing.
- ^ Vinson, Before Mestizaje, p. 49.
- ^ Ramos-Kittrell, Jesús (2016). Playing in the Cathedral: Music, Race, and Status in New Spain. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 39–40.
- ^ J. Michael Francis, PhD, Luisa de Abrego: Marriage, Bigamy, and the Spanish Inquisition, University of South Florida, archived from the original on 2021-02-04, retrieved 2019-08-31
- ^ Sonia G. Benson, ed. (2003), The Hispanic American Almanac: A Reference Work on Hispanics in the United States. (Third ed.), Thomson Gale, p. 14, ISBN 978-0-7876-2518-4
- ^ Cline, "Guadalupe and the Castas" pp. 222-23
- ^ Katzew, Ilona, "Casta Painting: Identity and Social Stratification in Colonial Mexico," in New World Orders: Casta Painting and Colonial Latin America,ed. Ilona Katzew. New York: Americas Society Art Gallery 1996, 22
- ^ Brading, D.A. The First America: The Spanish Monarchy, Creole Patriots, and the Liberal State, 1492-1867. New York: Cambridge University Press 1991.
- ^ García Sáiz, María Concepción. Las castas mexicanas. Milan: Olivetti 1989, 20.
- ^ Donahue-Wallace, Kelly. Art and Architecture of Viceregal Latin America, 1521-1821. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press 2008, p. 221. She reproduces a letter from Amat concerning the paintings.
- ^ quoted in Katzew, Ilona, "Casta Painting: Identity and Social Stratification in Colonial Mexico, in New World Orders: Casta Painting and Colonial Latin America. exhib. cat. New York: Americas Society Art Gallery 1996, 14.
- ^ Donahue-Wallace, p. 220.
- ^ Cline, "Guadalupe and the Castas", p. 229
- ^ Katzew, Casta Painting, pp. 48-51
- ^ Sr. Don Pedro Alonso O’Crouley, A Description of the Kingdom of New Spain (1774),trans. and ed. Sean Galvin. San Francisco: John Howell Books, 1972, 20
- ^ O’Crouley, “A Description of the Kingdom of New Spain’’, p. 20
- ^ Cuevas, Marco Polo Hernández (June 2012). "The Mexican Colonial Term 'Chino' Is a Referent of Afrodescendant". The Journal of Pan African Studies. 5 (5): 124–143. S2CID 142322782.
- ^ Katzew, "Casta Painting."[page needed]
- ^ Cope, The Limits of Racial Domination and Seed, To Love, Honor, and Obey, in passim.
- ^ Martínez López, María Elena (2002). The Spanish concept of limpieza de sangre and the emergence of the 'race/caste' system in the Viceroyalty of New Spain (Thesis). OCLC 62284377. ProQuest 305466668.
- ^ Martínez, María Elena (2010). "Social Order in the Spanish New World" (PDF).
- ^ Estrada de Gerlero, Elena Isabel. "The Representation of 'Heathen Indians' in Mexican Casta Painting," in New World Orders: Casta Painting and Colonial Latin America, ed. Ilona Katzew. Exh.cat. New York: Americas Society Art Gallery 1996.
- ^ Lewis, Laura A. (June 1996). "The 'Weakness' of Women and the feminization of the Indian in colonial Mexico". Colonial Latin American Review. 5 (1): 73–94. doi:10.1080/10609169608569878.
- ^ Peterson, Jeanette Favrot, Visualizing Guadalulpe. p. 258
- ^ Cline, "Guadalupe and the Castas", p. 225
- ^ Martinez, Maria Elena. Genealogical Fictions, p. 256
- ^ Katzew (2004), Casta Painting, 101-106. Paintings 1 and 3-8 private collections; 2 and 9-16 Museo de América, Madrid; 15 Elisabeth Waldo-Dentzel, Multicultural Music and Art Center (Northridge California).
- ^ Katzew, Ilona. Program for Inventing Race: Casta Painting and Eighteenth-Century Mexico, April 4-August 8, 2004. LACMA
- ^ Gracia, J. E. and Pablo De Greiff, eds. Hispanics/Latinos in the United States: Ethnicity, Race and Rights. New York, Routledge, 2000, 53. ISBN 978-0-415-92620-1
- ^ Christopher Knight, "A Most Rare Couch Find: LACMA acquires a recently unrolled masterpiece." Los Angeles Times, April 1, 2015, A1.
Further reading
Race and race mixture
- Althouse, Aaron P. (October 2005). "Contested Mestizos, Alleged Mulattos: Racial Identity and Caste Hierarchy in Eighteenth Century Pátzcuaro, Mexico". The Americas. 62 (2): 151–175. doi:10.1353/tam.2005.0155. S2CID 143688536.
- Anderson, Rodney D. (1 May 1988). "Race and Social Stratification: A Comparison of Working-Class Spaniards, Indians, and Castas in Guadalajara, Mexico in 1821". Hispanic American Historical Review. 68 (2): 209–243. doi:10.1215/00182168-68.2.209.
- Andrews, Norah (April 2016). "Calidad , Genealogy, and Disputed Free-colored Tributary Status in New Spain". The Americas. 73 (2): 139–170. doi:10.1017/tam.2016.35. S2CID 147913805.
- Burns, Kathryn. "Unfixing Race," in Rereading the Black Legend: The Discourses of Religious and Racial Difference in the Renaissance Empires, ed. Margaret Greer et al. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 2007.
- Castleman, Bruce A (December 2001). "Social Climbers in a Colonial Mexican City: Individual Mobility within the Sistema de Castas in Orizaba, 1777-1791". Colonial Latin American Review. 10 (2): 229–249. doi:10.1080/10609160120093796. S2CID 161154873.
- Chance, John K. Race and class in Colonial Oaxaca, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1978.
- Cope, R. Douglas. The Limits of Racial Domination: Plebeian Society in Colonial Mexico City, 1660-1720. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994. ISBN 978-0-299-14044-1
- Fisher, Andrew B. and Matthew D. O'Hara, eds. Imperial Subjects: Race and Identity in Colonial Latin America. Durham: Duke University Press 2009.
- Garofalo, Leo J.; O'Toole, Rachel Sarah (2006). "Introduction: Constructing Difference in Colonial Latin America". Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History. 7 (1). doi:10.1353/cch.2006.0027. S2CID 161860137.
- Giraudo, Laura (14 June 2018). "Casta(s), 'sociedad de castas' e indigenismo: la interpretación del pasado colonial en el siglo XX". Nuevo Mundo Mundos Nuevos. doi:10.4000/nuevomundo.72080. hdl:10261/167130.
- Gonzalbo Aizpuru, Pilar, "La trampa de las castas," in Alberro, Solange y Gonzalbo Aizpuru, Pilar, La sociedad novohispana. Estereotipos y realidades, México, El Colegio de México, 2013, p. 15-193.
- Hill, Ruth. "Casta as Culture and the Sociedad de Castas a Literature," in Interpreting Colonialism. ed. Byron Wells and Philip Stewart. New York: Oxford University Press 2004.
- Jackson, Robert H. Race, Caste, and Status: Indians in Colonial Spanish America. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press 1999.
- Leibsohn, Dana, and Barbara E. Mundy, "Reckoning with Mestizaje," Vistas: Visual Culture in Spanish America, 1520-1820 (2015). http://www.fordham.edu/vistas.
- MacLachlan, Colin M. and Jaime E. Rodríguez O. The Forging of the Cosmic Race: A Reinterpretation of Colonial Mexico, expanded edition. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990. ISBN 0-520-04280-8
- Martínez, María Elena, Genealogical Fictions: Limpieza de Sangre, Religion, and Gender in Colonial Mexico, Stanford: Stanford University Press 2008,
- McCaa, Robert (1 August 1984). "Calidad, Clase, and Marriage in Colonial Mexico: The Case of Parral, 1788-90". Hispanic American Historical Review. 64 (3): 477–501. doi:10.1215/00182168-64.3.477.
- Mörner, Magnus. Race Mixture in the History of Latin America. Boston: Little Brown, 1967.
- O'Crouley, Pedro Alonso. A Description of the Kingdom of New Spain. Translated and edited by Sean Galvin. John Howell Books 1972.
- O'Toole, Rachel Sarah. Bound Lives: Africans, Indians, and the Making of Race in Colonial Peru. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press 2012. ISBN 978-0-8229-6193-2
- Pitt-Rivers, Julian, "Sobre la palabra casta", América Indígena, 36-3, 1976, pp. 559–586.
- Ramos-Kittrell, Jesús. Playing in the Cathedral: Music, Race, and Status in New Spain. New York: Oxford University Press 2016.
- Rappaport, Joanne. The Disappearing Mestizo: Configuring Difference in the Colonial Kingdom of New Granada. Durham: Duke University Press 2014.
- Rosenblat, Angel. El mestizaje y las castas coloniales: La población indígena y el mestizaje en América. buenos Aires, Editorial Nova 1954.
- Seed, Patricia. To Love, Honor, and Obey in Colonial Mexico: Conflicts Over Marriage Choice, 1574-1821. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988. ISBN 978-0-8047-1457-0
- Seed, Patricia (1 November 1982). "Social Dimensions of Race: Mexico City, 1753". Hispanic American Historical Review. 62 (4): 569–606. doi:10.1215/00182168-62.4.569.
- Twinam, Ann. Purchasing Whiteness: Pardos, Mulatos, and the Quest for Social Mobility in the Spanish Indies. Stanford: Stanford University Press 2015.
- Valdés, Dennis Nodín (1978). The decline of the sociedad de castas in Mexico City (Thesis). University of Michigan. OCLC 760496135.
- Vinson, Ben III. Before Mestizaje: The Frontiers of Race and Caste in Colonial Mexico. New York: Cambridge University Press 2018 ISBN 978-1-107-67081-5
- Wade, Peter (May 2005). "Rethinking Mestizaje : Ideology and Lived Experience". Journal of Latin American Studies. 37 (2): 239–257. doi:10.1017/S0022216X05008990. S2CID 96437271.
Casta painting
- Carrera, Magali M. Imagining Identity in New Spain: Race, Lineage, and the Colonial Body in Portraiture and Casta Paintings. Austin, University of Texas Press, 2003. ISBN 978-0-292-71245-4
- Cline, Sarah (1 August 2015). "Guadalupe and the Castas". Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos. 31 (2): 218–247. doi:10.1525/mex.2015.31.2.218. S2CID 7995543.
- Cummins, Thomas B. F. (2006). "Review of Casta Paintings: Images of Race in Eighteenth-Century Mexico, ; Imagining Identity in New Spain: Race, Lineage, and the Colonial Body in Portraiture and Casta Paintings". The Art Bulletin. 88 (1): 185–189. JSTOR 25067234.
- Dean, Carolyn; Leibsohn, Dana (June 2003). "Hybridity and Its Discontents: Considering Visual Culture in Colonial Spanish America". Colonial Latin American Review. 12 (1): 5–35. doi:10.1080/10609160302341. S2CID 162937582.
- Earle, Rebecca (2016). "The Pleasures of Taxonomy: Casta Paintings, Classification, and Colonialism" (PDF). The William and Mary Quarterly. 73 (3): 427–466. doi:10.5309/willmaryquar.73.3.0427. S2CID 147847406.
- Estrada de Gerlero, Elena Isabel. "Representations of 'Heathen Indians' in Mexican Casta Painting," in New World Orders, Ilona Katzew, ed. New York: Americas Society Art Gallery 1996.
- García Sáiz, María Concepción. Las castas mexicanas: Un género pictórico americano. Milan: Olivetti 1989.
- García Sáiz, María Concepción, "The Artistic Development of Casta Painting," in New World Orders, Ilona Katzew, ed. New York: Americas Society Art Gallery, 1996.
- Katzew, Ilona. "Casta Painting: Identity and Social Stratification in Colonial Mexico," New York University, 1996.
- Katzew, Ilona, ed. New World Orders: Casta Painting and Colonial Latin America. New York: Americas Society Art Gallery 1996.
- Katzew, Ilona. Casta Painting: Images of Race in Eighteenth-Century Mexico. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. ISBN 978-0-300-10971-9
External links
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- "Casta Paintings" An example of one of the many things that can be found in Breamore House that has attracted a lot of interest over the years. This collection of Casta paintings is believed to be the only one in United Kingdom. The collection of fourteen paintings, was commissioned for the King of Spain in 1715 and painted by Mexican artist Juan Rodríguez Juárez.
- Castas paintings and discussion on Nuestros Ranchos Genealogy of Mexico website
- Safo, Nova. "Casta Paintings: Inventing Race Through Art/Mexican Art Genre Reveals 18th-Century Attitudes on Racial Mixing." The Tavis Smiley Show. June 30, 2004.
- Soong, Roland. Racial Classifications in Latin America. 1999.