Casta

For other uses, see Casta (disambiguation).

Las castas. Casta painting showing 16 racial groupings. Anonymous, 18th century, oil on canvas, 148×104 cm, Museo Nacional del Virreinato, Tepotzotlán, Mexico

Casta (Spanish: [ˈkasta]) is a term meaning 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 Empire in the Americas. The Spanish crown created a basic legal division between Hispanic society (República de Españoles) and Indigenous peoples (República de Indios). In the Hispanic sector were Spaniards, "Indians", Black Africans, and mixed-race castas. Many scholars have examined whether there was a rigid, racially-based, social hierarchy in Spanish America 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. With the encounter in the New World between European Spaniards, enslaved Africans (negros) forcibly brought by Spaniards, and indigenous people (indios), sexual unions produced offspring that colonial officials classified in newly created legal racial categories. Mixed-race categories that appeared in official Spanish documentation were mestizo, generally offspring of a Spanish man and an Indigenous woman; and mulatto, offspring of a Spanish man and an African woman. Many other terms are found 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.

Etymology

Casta is an Iberian word (existing in Spanish, Portuguese and other Iberian languages since the Middle Ages), meaning race, 'lineage', or breed. It is documented in Spanish since 1417 and is linked to the Proto-Indo-European ger. For the term in Spanish for Spanish America, the Oxford English Dictionary states it "applies to the several mixed breeds [sic] between Europeans, Indians, and Negroes". The Portuguese word 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. However, the strict system of hierarchy in India, the caste system, differs significantly from the more fluid, multiracial situation in colonial Spanish America.

Historical use of casta terminology

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." 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.

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, which the Oxford English Dictionary quotes in its definition of "caste." 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."

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."

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.

"Purity of blood", gender, and racial classification

Spanish (español) father, Mestiza (mixed Spanish-Indian) mother, and their Castiza daughter. Miguel Cabrera

From Spaniard and Castiza, Spaniard, anonymous (1799), Biblioteca Museu Víctor Balaguer

José Joaquín Magón, IV. Spaniard + Negra = Mulata. "The pride and sharp wits of the Mulata are instilled in her white father and black mother"

Spanish father and Albina mother, Torna atrás. Miguel Cabrera

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.

In early Spanish America, "purity of blood" came to apply to racial and ethnic classification, formalized in the legal system. 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.

In the Hispanic sphere, the existence of a Black population, originally brought as enslaved people with the Spanish conquerors, complicated the situation as sexual unions between Spaniards and Blacks created a mixed-race population. Starting in the late 16th century, some investigations of ancestry classified as "stains" any connection with Black Africans ("negros", which resulted in "mulattoes) and sometimes mixtures with indigenous. Visiting Mexico in 1774, Spanish nobleman Don Pedro Alonso O'Crouley recorded his understanding of races and race mixture. "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. 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. "

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. Initially, the Spanish saw indigenous men as being fully capable of being ordained as priests. Because of that, the early 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.

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." 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, but there were no such religious establishments for women of Black ancestry.

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. 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)

Casta classifications and legal consequences

From Spaniard and Indian woman, Mestiza. Miguel Cabrera, 1763

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.

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. 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.

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. 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. 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.

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, Spanish American society.

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." 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." 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.

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.

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 mestizos and Spaniards were exempt from tribute obligations, but were both 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. 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. In 1569, when the formal tribunal of the Inquisition was established in Mexico City, indigenous peoples were removed from its jurisdiction. 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.

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 militar, the first time non-whites were eligible for such a privilege. 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. 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.

Race and Casta paintings

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

Spaniard + Negra, Mulatto. Miguel Cabrera

.

Spanish father, Torna atrás mother, Tente en el aire ("floating in mid air") offspring

Indios Gentiles. Miguel Cabrera

In the 18th century, "casta paintings" were created by American-born and Iberian Spaniards showing a fixed racial hierarchy. 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." 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."

For approximately a century, casta paintings were created by elite artists for an elite viewership. They ceased to be produced following Mexico's independence in 1821, when legal 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. 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," at a point when American-born Spaniards began forming a clearer identification with their place of birth rather than metropolitan Spain. 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. 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.

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." 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.

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.

Some scholars 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," or "racial mending" was seen visually in many sets of casta paintings. There is not same narrative of restoration of racial purity does not occur over generations for European-African offspring marrying whites. 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 within casta paintings.

In casta paintings the pairing of Blacks with others 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).

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.

Often, casta paintings depicted commodity items from Spanish America such as 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 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. 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.

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." 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." The image "functions as an allegory for the 'civilizing' and Christianizing process."

Sample sets of casta paintings

Presented here are casta lists from two sets of paintings 16 separate 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	Andrés de Islas, 1774
De Español y d'India; Mestiza De Español y Mestiza, Castiza De Español y Castiza, Español [missing] De Español y Negra, Mulata De Español y Mulata; Morisca De Español y Morisca; Albina De Español y Albina; Torna atrás De Español y Torna atrás; Tente en iel aire De Negro y d'India, China cambuja. De Chino cambujo y d'India; Loba De Lobo y d'India, Albarazado De Albarazado y Mestiza, Barcino De Indio y Barcina; Zambuigua De Castizo y Mestiza; Chamizo De Mestizo y d'India; Coyote Indios gentiles (Heathen Indians)	De Español e India, nace Mestizo De Español y Mestiza, nace Castizo De Castizo y Española, nace Española De Español y Negra, nace Mulata De Español y Mulata, nace Morisco De Español y Morisca, nace Albino De Español y Albina, nace Torna atrás De Indio y Negra, nace Lobo De Indio y Mestiza, nace Coyote De Lobo y Negra, nace Chino De Chino e India, nace Cambujo De Cambujo e India, nace Tente en el aire De Tente en el aire y Mulata, nace Albarazado De Albarazado e India, nace Barcino De Barcino y Cambuja, nace Calpamulato Indios Mecos bárbaros (Barbarian Meco Indians)

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.

Luis de Mena (ca. 1750)	Ignacio María Barreda (1777)	Anonymous (late 18th c?)
Española + Indio - Mestizo Mestizo + Española - Castizo Castizo + Española - Española Español + Negra - Mulato Mulato + Española - Morisca Morisca + Español - Albino Torna atrás Mestiza + Indio - Lobo Lobo + India - Indio	Español + India - Mestizo or Cholo Español + Mestiza - Castizo or cuarterón Castizo + Española - Español Criollo Negro + Española - Mulato Mulato + Española - Morisco Morisco + Española - Albina Español + Tornatras Negro Tornatras + India - Lobo o Zambo Indio + Loba - Chino Chino + India - Zambaiga Zambaiga + Chino - Cambujo Cambuja + Chino - Genízara Genízara + Chino - Albarazado Albarazado + Negra - Calpamula Calpamula + Albarazado - Gíbaro Gíbaro + Albarazao - Tente en el aire Mecos and Mecas, even though they are many, they are all similar	Español con India, Mestizo Mestizo con Española', Castizo Castiza con Español, Española Español con Negra, Mulato Mulato con Española, Morisca Morisco con Española, Chino Chino con India, Salta atrás Salta atrás con Mulata, Lobo Lobo con China, Gíbaro (Jíbaro) Gíbaro con Mulata, Albarazado# Albarazado con Negra, Cambujo Cambujo con India, Sambaiga (Zambaiga) Sambaigo con Loba, Calpamulato Calpamulto con Cambuja, Tente en el aire Tente en el aire con Mulata, No te entiendo No te entiendo con India, Torna atrás

Gallery of Casta paintings

• 
  De español e india, produce mestizo (From a Spanish man and an indigenous woman, a Mestizo is produced).
• 
  De español y mulata, morisca. Miguel Cabrera, 1763
• 
  Spaniard and Torna atrás, Tente en el aire. Miguel Cabrera, 1763
• 
  De español, Alvina, Torna atrás. Juan Patricio Morlete Ruiz (1701-1770)
• 
  Spaniard and Torna atrás, Tente en el aire. Miguel Cabrera.
• 
  De Albina y Español, Torna atrás. Attributed to Juan Patricio Morlete Ruiz.
• 
  De mestizo e india, sale coiote (From a Mestizo man and an indigenous woman, a Cholo is begotten).
• 
  Canbujo con Yndia sale Albaracado / Notentiendo con Yndia sale China, óleo sobre lienzo, 222 x 109 cm, Madrid, Museo de América
• 
  De Mestizo y Albarazada, Barsina. Anon. 18th c.
• 
  De Chino y Mulata, Alvarazada. Anon. 18th c.
• 
  De Chino, e India. Genizara. Francisco Clapera
• 
  José Joaquín Magón. Indio + Cambujo Zambaiga - "No la Entienda". "The Indian and Cambujo Zambaigo woman produce the one no person understands who he is."
• 
  José Joaquín Magón. Tente en el aire + Torna atrás - Albarazado.

Scholarly literature

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. In a 1977 article, anthropologist John K. Chance and 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 miscegenated population in the colonies." 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. 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".

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." 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".

During the conquest era, the names of some Black participants have been recorded, including Juan Valiente and Juan Garrido. The Royal Decree of 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]." 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.

See also

• Caste system
• Castizo
• Dominant minority
• Filipino Mestizos
• Mestizaje
• Mexican art
• Ordenanzas del Baratillo de México
• Race and ethnicity in Latin America
• La Raza
• Zambo

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

• "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.