Géneros de Gente in Early Colonial Mexico

by Robert C. Schwaller Ph.D.

Overview

On December 19, 1554, the members of Tenochtitlan’s indigenous cabildo, or city council, petitioned Emperor Charles V of Spain for administrative changes “to save us from any Spaniard, mestizo, black, or mulato afflicting us in the marketplace, on the roads, in the canal, or in our homes.” Within thirty years of the conquest, the presence of these groups in New Spain was large enough to threaten the social, economic, and cultural order of the indigenous elite. In Géneros de Gente in Early Colonial Mexico, an ambitious rereading of colonial history, Robert C. Schwaller proposes using the Spanish term géneros de gente (types or categories of people) as part of a more nuanced perspective on what these categories of difference meant and how they evolved. His work revises our understanding of racial hierarchy in Mexico, the repercussions of which reach into the present.

Schwaller traces the connections between medieval Iberian ideas of difference and the unique societies forged in the Americas. He analyzes the ideological and legal development of géneros de gente into a system that began to resemble modern notions of race. He then examines the lives of early colonial mestizos and mulatos to show how individuals of mixed ancestry experienced the colonial order. By pairing an analysis of legal codes with a social history of mixed-race individuals, his work reveals the disjunction between the establishment of a common colonial language of what would become race and the ability of the colonial Spanish state to enforce such distinctions. Even as the colonial order established a system of governance that entrenched racial differences, colonial subjects continued to mediate their racial identities through social networks, cultural affinities, occupation, and residence.

Presenting a more complex picture of the ways difference came to be defined in colonial Mexico, this book exposes important tensions within Spanish colonialism and the developing social order. It affords a significant new view of the development and social experience of race—in early colonial Mexico and afterward.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780806154879
Publisher:	University of Oklahoma Press
Publication date:	10/20/2016
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Robert C. Schwaller is Associate Professor of History at the University of Kansas, Lawrence. His research focuses on the development of racial identity in early colonial Latin America.

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Géneros De Gente In Early Colonial Mexico

Defining Racial Difference

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By Robert C. Schwaller

UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS

Copyright © 2016 University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Publishing Division of the University
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8061-5487-9

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CHAPTER 1

DEFINING DIFFERENCE IN IBERIA AND THE AMERICAS

The españoles of this land grow and multiply greatly, but in addition to the españoles born here and those that come from those kingdoms [Castile and Aragon], there are many mulatos and mestizos, people very poorly inclined but bold and capable of any shameful thing, and it is advisable that Your Majesty plant and sustain noble people here in your service to defend against them and the inconveniences that ruinous people might cause.

Letter from various conquistadors and early settlers to King Philip II, 1564

The search for difference in the New World cannot begin without understanding the ways in which Europeans, particularly Iberians, differentiated the members of their own societies. How they viewed the world in which they lived shaped and preconditioned the lands that they would come to conquer and colonize. While the Americas may have represented a vast unknown landscape populated by diverse and unique peoples, conquistadors and settlers could conceptualize the unknown and unexpected only through the cultural framework that structured their understanding of human difference. The search for Spanish American racial distinctions therefore begins in early modern Iberia in the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon.

Although scholars and laypeople alike typically categorize the conquests of the late fifteenth century as Spanish, the Iberian men and women who participated in these ventures had only recently begun to use the word españoles (Spaniards) to describe themselves and their nation. In fact, even our use of the name "Spain" to describe the state undertaking colonial expansion belies the fact that no political entity called España existed during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In 1474, the dynastic marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabel of Castile united the two largest Iberian kingdoms and started the process that would form the future state of Spain. Nevertheless, in the fifteenth century the subjects over whom Ferdinand and Isabel ruled were immensely heterogeneous.

As descendants of Phoenicians, Celts, Romans, Vandals, Visigoths, Berbers, and Arabs, the subjects of Ferdinand and Isabel manifested almost every possible human variety of skin, hair, and eye color. They spoke any number of languages — Arabic, Basque, Castilian, Catalan, Galego, Ladino, and Valencian — and practiced at least three different faiths, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Moreover, unlike other parts of Europe, the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon never developed fully articulated feudal societies. While there was a distinction between nobility, commoners, and the church, corporate associations and unique political arrangements mediated the relationships between individuals within society. As Teofilo Ruiz has argued, the complex social order of early modern Iberia grew out of "social filiations" that were tied to "privilege, tax-exemption and power."

When Iberians expanded into the Atlantic world, their conception of the social order mediated the ways in which they constructed difference among the new peoples they encountered. Importantly, just as earlier notions of difference were rooted in culture and society, so too would their new understandings of difference take shape via the complex interaction between cultural belief and social interactions. This chapter argues that prior to Atlantic expansion, Castilians had developed a complex set of categories to define and describe their contemporaries. The pluralistic nature of this framework predisposed Iberians to incorporate the new groups of people they encountered into a social order that anticipated diversity. In the Americas, new categories were imbued with certain stereotypical attributes, each shaped by its own particular historical development.

To illustrate the unfolding of this process, this chapter is divided into two parts. The first highlights the pluralistic nature of medieval Iberian society and argues that social difference could be mapped into three semantic domains: socioeconomic, ethno-religious, and ethnogeographical (see figure 1). These domains represent a useful means of understanding the matrix of social difference that individuals in Iberia used to define and contextualize their contemporaries. The second part of this chapter traces the evolution of the primary New World categories of socio-racial difference and argues that these colonial notions of difference were formed through interplay between Iberian preconceptions and the particular historical forces that brought Iberians into contact with new groups of people.

IBERIAN ANTECEDENTS

Socioeconomic Terms

Categories of socioeconomic difference represented some of the clearest markers of an individual's overall social position and served as a catchall for political and economic status. These categories were not directly tied to any modern class model of society but tended to elide social status with general economic position. Socioeconomic categories served to define all individuals, from the wealthiest noble to the poorest peasant or slave. Importantly these terms were not just markers of wealth and status, they also conveyed moral valuations that privileged those with higher status.

The highest rungs of the socioeconomic hierarchy were held by individuals who could lay claim to hereditary titles of nobility such as "duke," "marquess," or "count." With title frequently came land and seigniorial privilege. The financial benefits of those privileges led their contemporaries to call them los ricos hombres (the rich men). Below this elite group were the hidalgos (petty nobility). The men and women that constituted the untitled nobility could vary in their wealth and status. Membership in this level of nobility was based the complex interrelation between lineage, privilege, and lifestyle. In general, members of the petty nobility could trace their lineage to a titled forbear, held privileges granted by the monarch, and were publicly reputed to lead noble lives. Yet the vagaries of membership ensured that entrance into the noble ranks was possible for the upwardly mobile. Conversely, individuals with diminishing resources and social capital could see their claim to nobility contested by their contemporaries.

Below the nobility were the commoners. Like the nobility, the common classes manifested a range of socioeconomic diversity. The greatest division between commoners existed between those who held some form of privilege or tax exemption and those who did not. Most commoners were required to pay a head tax called the pecho, and because of this they were known as pecheros. The exempt, los francos, tended to work in professions privileged by the state, such as mint workers, textile producers, and servants of religious institutions. Just as entrance into the petty nobility was possible for those of some means, the acquisition of exempt status represented a viable strategy for upward mobility among non-nobles.

Importantly these divisions not only represented markers of increasing or decreasing wealth and social status, they carried with them moral valuations tied to their relative position in the socioeconomic hierarchy. Those at the top of the hierarchy viewed the majority of the population as lacking honor, social grace, and personal virtue. From this perspective commoners could be glossed with the term gente común (commoners), gente baja (lowborn people), gente vil (vile people), or gente perdida (lost people). All four terms, in order of increasing disdain, could be used to reflect the condescension that elites had of those below them. At the opposite end of the spectrum, those with noble titles or claim to exemptions and prerogatives could be glossed under the terms gente honrada (honored people), de buenas costumbres (well-mannered), or de buena vida y fama (renowned). Within this framework, one's place on the socioeconomic hierarchy implied a certain moral character. The tendency to imbue social difference with moral value would continue in the creation of new categories in the Atlantic world.

Ethno-religious Terms

As a result of the almost eight centuries of conflict and cohabitation between Christians, Jews, and Muslims, religion and religious categories of difference played a crucial role in ascribing to an individual a place in the social world. The basic terms for describing a person's religious place in society were cristiano, judío, and moro. Through the centuries many Jews and Muslims living in Christian kingdoms converted to Christianity. The need to describe these newly converted Christians led to the creation of several other terms of difference. Generically, converts were called cristianos nuevos (New Christians) to distinguish them those whose families had always been Christian — cristianos viejos (Old Christians). Beyond that basic distinction the terms converso and morisco were used to describe converted Jews and Muslims respectively. Importantly, these terms were not limited to individuals who converted. These categories became multigenerational markers used to describe individuals whose ancestors had converted previously. This tendency to elide lineage with religious ancestry was made manifest through two ethno-religious concepts central to Iberian thought: casta and raza.

In the Americas, by the mid-seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the term casta would come to refer to individuals with some degree of mixed ancestry. Yet four centuries earlier this term referred not to mixed ancestry but rather to untainted lineage. During the late medieval period casta was used to define a particular type, and was used for both animals and humans. In Covarrubias's 1611 dictionary, casta was defined as "representing noble lineage," and it could be applied to plants, animals, and people to describe purity in breeding or ancestry. This Iberian root would enter the English language via its use by the Portuguese to describe the social divisions, castas, found in India during the sixteenth century — the caste system.

Closely related to casta was the term raza. More so than casta, raza defined an individual's religious lineage. Covarrubias gives three definitions for the word: "Raza: the breed of purebred horses, those that are branded so that they are known. Raza, in cloth, the thread which is different than the rest. Seems to have been almost like reaza because aza, in Tuscan, means thread, and the raza of cloth is similar. Raza, in that of lineages, is taken to be the bad part, such as having raza of Moors or Jews." The first definition is directly tied to casta and its implication of pure, unblemished lineage, a purebred horse. The second definition suggests the notion that raza referred to something unlike the rest, a thread that stands out. The third definition shares several aspects with the previous two: the inherent notion of lineage or descent and that of pejorative difference.

At their core, these terms reflect the blending of cultural categories with genealogical ones. Religious belief and practice came to be seen as an attribute that could be passed down from generation to generation. In Iberia this confusion was institutionalized through the belief in limpieza de sangre (purity of blood). This phrase encapsulated the view that religious impurity, specifically descent from Jews, Muslims, and heretics, was transmitted from generation to generation. Broadly speaking, the emphasis on limpieza de sangre evolved as a means to circumscribe the social and economic advancement of New Christians.

From the late fourteenth century through the sixteenth century, various religious and secular institutions passed ordinances that required individuals to prove their limpeza de sangre. The existence of these statutes and of the hardened distinction between cristianos nuevos and cristianos viejos, mandated that individuals wishing to hold secular or religious posts, take religious orders, receive university degrees, or enter guilds provide a probanza de limpieza de sangre, or proof of blood purity. These probanzas used both written documentation such as censuses, tax records, and birth and marriage registers, as well as oral testimony from community members to determine an individual's religious lineage. According to María Elena Martínez, the oral component of these examinations helped shape the way that Iberians began to view their contemporaries. The increasing emphasis on genealogy and its relationship to religious difference increased the salience of those differences and led individuals to see the world through that prism. In other words, even though only some institutions required limpieza de sangre, the need to prove an individual's blood purity through publica voz y fama (public reputation) placed the issue of genealogy and ancestry into the realm of communal discourse. The increased salience of religious descent in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries helped transpose the conception of genealogical purity (or taint) onto the diverse new society developing in the Americas.

Ethno-geographic Terms

The complex political history of Iberia also helped spur the development of categories that defined individuals based upon their place of birth and residence. The two most important terms used to describe ethno-geographic diversity were naturaleza and vecinidad. The former described one's place of birth, one's natal home, while the latter referred to formal membership (citizenship, in modern terms) within a corporate community. Tamar Herzog has explored the complex evolution of both terms and their uses in Iberia and Latin America from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. She argues that these terms were essential to defining individuals' positions as members of communities and as bearers of specific rights and privileges. Due to the varied history of conquest, reconquest, and incorporation, different political jurisdictions and cities had different legal systems and particular privileges vis-à-vis the monarchy. Consequently, residents and natives of different parts of Iberia could lay claim to a diverse array of rights depending on their naturaleza and vecinidad.

Intricately tied to the maintenance of power and authority within a complex and heterogeneous empire, naturaleza served as shorthand for defining difference between the disparate regions of the Spanish kingdoms. Naturaleza in a given community was required in order to hold appointments to certain public offices or benefices. In legal proceedings witnesses were identified by their names and naturalezas. For vassals of Castile and Aragon the mention of community of origin and kingdom were all that was necessary to define one's naturaleza.

On the other hand, foreigners living within these kingdoms were very often described by their nación (nation) of origin rather than by their natal community. Terms such as catalán, portugués, genovés, piamontés, milanés, and veneciano were used to describe various individuals from areas outside Castile. Additionally, sixteenth-century Inquisition cases from Mexico record the use of terms such as vizcaíno, flamenco (to refer to the Dutch), francés, inglés, and alemán. These national terms served to localize non-Castilian naturalezas. Whether based in an Iberian locality or a nación, these terms played a vital role in establishing an individual's social identity.

During the fifteenth century, as the Portuguese slave trade began to bring more and more African slaves to the Iberian peninsula, residents there began to incorporate African naciones into their schema of difference. Sub-Saharan African slaves were collectively grouped under the Castilian term negro. This somatic marker reflected their distinct phenotypical appearance as well as differentiated them from other slaves, in particular esclavos blancos. Despite the glossing of all sub-Saharans as negros, Iberians did recognize distinctions among these slaves. For example, slave records from Valencia include references to categories including jalof, bañul, beafer, berbesi, calabres, and sapi. Similar documentation from Andalusia lists terms such as jalof, manicongo, iburon, capi, and jolongo. Iberians integrated these terms into their matrix of difference as new naciones. In some cases, slaves received the label of the geographic region that they came from. For example, guinea, cabo verde, and terranova referred to specific regions of the West African coastline stretching from modern-day Gambia to the Bight of Benin. In general, the phrases negro de (negro from) or negro de tierra de (negro from the land of) preceded the ethnic marker or general region. In other cases, the ethnic name or region served as a surname (for example, "Juan Angola").

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Géneros De Gente In Early Colonial Mexico by Robert C. Schwaller. Copyright © 2016 University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Publishing Division of the University. Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix

List of Tables xi

Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction 3

Part I Ideology and Law

Chapter 1 Defining Difference in Iberia and the Americas 17

Chapter 2 Shaping Society 50

Part II Lived Experience

Chapter 3 Tacit Espanoles 87

Chapter 4 Afro-indigenous Mulatos 111

Chapter 5 Marriage 147

Chapter 6 Occupation 185

Conclusion 223

Notes 229

Bibliography 263

Index 277

Editorial Reviews

“More than a history, Géneros de Gentein Early Colonial Mexico stands as a veritable clarion call summoning historians and laypersons alike to fathom new ways of assessing caste, as well as new ways of envisioning how race came to be configured in the Spain’s New World colonies. This book will transform readers’ views and assumptions.”—Ben Vinson III, author of  Bearing Arms for His Majesty: The Free-Colored Militia in Colonial Mexico

From the Publisher