SPAIN’S RACIAL ORDER
In the aftermath of the conquest, the Spanish military strategy of “divide and conquer” effectively created disunity among the Indians of central Mexico and opened the path to a new social order. At first, the Spanish left the indigenous economy and lifestyle relatively undisturbed, allowing elites who pledged allegiance to the crown of Spain to continue governing their peoples (Díaz del Castillo 1963). About twenty-five million Indians inhabited central Mexico at that time (Borah 1983:26; Meyer and Sherman 1995:212; Miller 1985:141). Within fifty years of the conquest, Spanish-Indian relations were redefined and race became a principal factor in the social and economic organization of Spanish colonial society. Exemptions were made for the Indian nobility, and this tokenism effectively served to entrench a racial order that solely benefited White people. Interracial political and marital alliances commenced the restructuring process (Gibson 1964; Liss 1975). My focus here is on central Mexico, because during the sixteenth century Spaniards concentrated their efforts on populating and stabilizing this zone before launching their assault upon the present southwestern United States. Most of central Mexico constituted the former Aztec Empire.
After the conquest, the Spanish chose present Mexico City as their principal administrative center and placed their Tlaxcalan allies in positions of power throughout Mexico (Frye 1996). Tlaxcalans were given land formerly belonging to the Aztec Empire as well as the right to govern the people living in those regions. To further undermine the political confederacy established by the Aztec, the emperor was killed and the regional kings were replaced when they did not accept Spanish rule (Liss 1975; Lockhart 1991). These kings were called tlatoques (singular tlatoani) and under their command was a cacique cadre that directly governed the villages. The cacique was in charge of overseeing one or more villages, depending on his relation with his tlatoani. The tlatoques resided in the cabeceras, the regional capitals. After the conquest, the tlatoques who were loyal to Spain were allowed to continue governing and collecting tribute from the villages and towns they controlled (Gibson 1964). If their caciques were also loyal, they in turn were allowed to continue to oversee the communities they supervised (Aguirre Beltrán 1991; Vigil 1984). When a tlatoani rebelled, it was common for the royal government to replace him and reconfigure the political boundaries of that region. Often the governance of a region was broken apart and distributed among several lower-ranking caciques. In this way the Spanish crown rewarded its most faithful Indian subjects.
To demonstrate their loyalty tlatoques and caciques often repressed anti-Spanish political revolts (Gibson 1964; Powell 1952). Through this process of repression, the Spanish were able to create a “middleman” political infrastructure to govern the masses. Though it was sometimes necessary to replace tlatoques with caciques, the Spanish knew that it was more effective to co-opt rulers, as this generated a semblance of legitimate rule and political continuity. Spaniards rewarded their allies and outfitted the tlatoques’ armies with weapons and horses (Powell 1952).
The Spanish also retained the tlatoques’ families—the indigenous nobility—in power as a means of averting regional revolts (Vigil 1984). By retaining the Aztec nobility in positions of power they placated the masses. Political continuity created a facade, hiding from the people the fact that the ruling families were under the control of Spain (Aguirre Beltrán 1991; Lafaye 1974). In most places the nobility accepted the lifestyle introduced by the Spanish and the political transition. For them, accommodation became a survival strategy and a safety net to maintain the privileges their families had enjoyed for centuries. In return for their postconquest complicity members of the indigenous nobility were allowed to retain control of their property and were awarded additional land (Gibson 1964). They were also exempt from paying tribute to the Spanish crown and were given gifts including clothing, furniture, literature, utensils, and other European commodities.1
After the defeat of the Aztec, the royal crown rewarded the conquistadores by giving them encomiendas (Meyer and Sherman 1995), agricultural estates carved out of land occupied by Indians. As part of their reward, Spaniards also received tribute from the Indians living in the encomiendas in the form of free labor and material goods such as money, crops, farm animals, textiles, ceramics, and beverages. Of most importance to the conquistadores was Indian labor, since land was useless unless it had people to farm, construct buildings, and work as domestic servants. The encomienda system was clearly an abuse of the Indians’ property rights, but was rationalized under the pretense that it was the most effective method of acculturating them. Such a rationalization was necessary because in 1512 the Spanish crown passed the Laws of Burgos, establishing the procedures and laws to govern Indians (Hanke 1949:24). These laws decreed that Indians, like orphans, widows, and the wretched, would be protected and Christianized.2 Indians were legally declared wards of the crown and church. The laws also contained additional stipulations with respect to Indian laborers and the acculturation process they would be subjected to.3 Though the encomiendas were beneficial to the conquistadores, many clergy opposed them and charged that in effect they were a legal method of enslaving Indians and dispossessing them of property. The Catholic Church, after hearing many complaints from New World clergy, launched a campaign to limit the growth of the encomiendas and to delineate the legal rights of the Indians. Such a legal battle was necessary to avoid their enslavement, for unless Indians were legally declared human Spaniards could treat them as beasts of burden.
Ginés de Sepúlveda, a juridical scholar, became the most influential spokesman in Spain arguing in favor of enslaving Indians. Sepúlveda wrote several inflammatory books demonizing Indians; his most famous text, Democrates Alter, received a favorable reception throughout Spain (Hanke 1949). He asserted that Indians were savages without souls—a view that countered the Catholic Church’s interpretation of Indians as descendants of the lost tribe of Israel (Lafaye 1974). The divergent positions of the church and Sepúlveda came to be known as the Noble Savage debate (Stocking 1968). Although Sepúlveda and his followers concurred that Indians probably were from the “promised land,” he argued that on their exodus from Israel they came in contact with the devil and entered a stage of demonic savagery, citing the iconography found in hieroglyphic texts and on buildings as proof of his assertions. He claimed that Spaniards in the New World therefore had the right to enslave these savages.
On the other side of the debate was Father Francisco de Vitoria, who challenged Sepúlveda’s demonization of Indians. Vitoria has been credited with having been the most influential legal philosopher to persuade the Catholic Church and crown to classify Indians as humans and thus to bestow on them the legal rights of human beings (Borah 1983; Hanke 1949). These rights included not being enslaved, being able to marry anyone they chose, being Christianized, being allowed to own property, and being allowed to live in towns and villages. Essentially, Vitoria argued that Indians had the right to pursue happiness. His philosophy was reflected in the political activism of other clergy, such as Father Bartolomé de Las Casas, who moved from theory to activism by obtaining field evidence to support the position that Indians were rational beings with souls.
In 1502 Las Casas arrived in the New World in Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and Dominican Republic) and later observed the mistreatment of the Indians throughout Latin America (Haring 1963:10–11). In his travels he observed the colonists overworking the Indians and treating them as animals. In essence, the colonists were breaking the religious and labor laws by denying Indians time to rest and to learn Christian doctrines (see Recopilación de leyes de los reynos de las Indias 1774, Book 1, Title 1, Laws 3, 5, 9, 10, and 12). Most of the atrocities were committed by encomenderos.
Although in theory the encomiendas were acculturation sites to civilize and Christianize Indians, they became unofficial slave institutions (Vigil 1984). Many missionaries who were concerned about the suffering of the Indians intervened. They sent countless complaints to the Spanish king and began to lobby to end the encomienda system (Borah 1983). The king sent investigators to the New World to determine whether Indians were indeed being mistreated. Las Casas became the most outspoken critic of the encomiendas and launched an attack on them. Knowing that he needed evidence to prove the Indians’ humanity if Sepúlveda’s claims were to be discredited, he refined the hypothesis that the Indians had migrated from Israel to the New World by adding a cognition argument. Las Casas’s main argument centered on the Indians’ capacity to learn Christian doctrine. He asserted that since Indians were able to learn Christian doctrines and many were able to read Spanish, they had the capacity to think abstractly, thus proving they were human (Wagner and Parish 1967).4 As a consequence of the Las Casas research, Vitoria successfully obtained the legal classification of the Indians as human beings.
The enslavement of Indians became illegal in 1537, when Pope Paul III, in the papal bull Sublimis Deus, proclaimed Indians to be human, with the rights to be Christianized and to own property (Hanke 1949:72–73). The Spanish crown endorsed the proclamation and over time imposed additional protectionist legislation. The liberal position taken by the Catholic Church and crown was not shared by the entire Spanish population or by most of the countries of Europe (Menchaca 1997). Not until 1859 did most European countries accept that Indians and other people of color were not animals (Menchaca 1997:30).5
Although the church succeeded in obtaining the legal status of human being for the Indians, it also endorsed the crown’s position that they must be governed and protected. The crown therefore named the church the Indians’ legal protector and gave it the responsibility of Christianizing and converting them into loyal tax-paying subjects (Cutter 1986; Polzer 1976; Recopilación de leyes de los reynos de las Indias 1774: Book 1, Title 1, Laws 1, 3, and 9).6 These legal rights, which came to be known as Vitoria’s Natural Laws, in theory became standard practice in Mexico by 1550 (Hanke 1949:150–154; Liss 1975:38–43). As long as Vitoria’s Natural Laws did not conflict with the crown’s colonization plans, officials were instructed to extend Indians their legal rights; if Indians resisted colonization, however, they were not to be given any legal rights and could be enslaved (Recopilación de leyes de los reynos de las Indias 1774: Book 1, Title 1, Law 1).
Though forming political alliances with the tlatoques became the primary manner in which Spaniards maintained control of the masses in central Mexico, intermarriage was also an effective and peaceful approach to accomplish a similar goal. It was an important practice used to solidify alliances, serving as a public testimonial of the Spaniards’ trustworthiness (Liss 1975). In many societies where intermarriage served a utilitarian function, as in Mexico, this practice became a symbolic gesture to attest that Indians and Spaniards had good intentions toward each other. Claude Lévi-Strauss (1982) proposes that in precapitalist societies intermarriage has traditionally been used to form enduring alliances between political groups. The ritual of marriage becomes a public testimonial to assure communities that they are safe during a period of political transitions when mistrust between allies is common. Intermarriage becomes a stabilizing factor. Lévi-Strauss also suggests that members of the dominant group will accept wives as a symbol of peace, but will not exchange their own women. Apparently, this practice was replicated in Mexico: the Indians offered their women kin, but the Spanish did not return this symbolic gesture (Meyer and Sherman 1995).
To encourage intermarriage between Spaniards and Indians in central Mexico, the Spanish crown awarded military officers and soldiers more acreage than was commonly assigned (Meyer and Sherman 1995:209). In 1524 the crown publicly demonstrated its support of intermarriage by officially decreeing such unions to be legally valid (Recopilación de leyes de los reynos de las Indias 1774: Book 6, Title 1, Law 8). Moreover, the crown increased its pressures on Spanish men to marry Indian women by penalizing those who had concubines and refused to wed. A soldier who had a concubine was required to marry within three years of receiving his encomienda or risk losing the property (ibid.). To support the legal penalty placed on the soldiers, the church ardently professed that concubinage was a sin and temporarily refused to baptize mestizo children born out of wedlock (Seed 1988). These pressures were necessary if the colony was to be stabilized and the children of these unions were to be raised to identify with Spain. By having the father live with his family, Spanish culture and the Catholic faith could be transmitted to his children and to his wife’s kinfolk.
Fray Bernal Díaz del Castillo offered a glimpse of the widespread practice of concubinage in his account of the conquest of Mexico. Concubinage potentially posed a danger to the stability of the colony because Indian caciques did not welcome this behavior. Díaz del Castillo informs us that after Tenochtitlán fell Indian caciques visited Hernán Cortés and complained that his soldiers had forcibly taken many Indian women:
Guatemoc and his captains complained to Cortés that many of our men had carried off the daughters and wives of chieftains, and begged him as a favor that they should be sent back. Cortés answered that it would be difficult to take them from their present masters …. So he gave the Mexicans permission to search in all three camps, and issued an order that any soldier who had an Indian woman should surrender her at once if she of her own free will wished to return home. (Díaz del Castillo 1963:408–409)
Encouraging intermarriage also had an economic function for the church, since under the Laws of Burgos it was responsible for taking care of orphaned children (Haring 1963; Miller 1985). By 1527 the Catholic Church concluded that its efforts were succeeding: many encomenderos in central Mexico were marrying their concubines (Liss 1975; Meyer and Sherman 1995). Orphaned children, however, continued to be a problem because most encomenderos had more than one concubine and many children were not provided for (Bonifaz de Novello 1975). This forced the church to open orphanages throughout central Mexico.
In southern Mexico, nearly two decades later, the Maya peoples of the Yucatán Peninsula, who had remained independent after the Aztec Empire fell, also surrendered to representatives of the Spanish crown. All regional revolts had been suppressed in the Yucatán Peninsula by 1542, and Spain expanded its empire (Perry and Perry 1988:20). The process of restructuring Maya society replicated the colonial policies of central Mexico. Disloyal Indian chiefs were replaced and loyal Mayan nobles allowed to continue overseeing their communities. Unlike the situation in central Mexico, however, where Spaniards established residences, few conquistadores chose to settle permanently in the Yucatán Peninsula. Only in Mérida, Campeche, and Valladolid were encomiendas established at this time. The Maya masses were governed via the Maya nobility, the Spanish military, and a few Catholic missionaries. The process of mestizaje among the Maya was gradual and occurred much later than it did in central Mexico because few Spaniards lived there.
Throughout the colonial period the Catholic Church continued to encourage Spaniards to marry their Indian concubines. In 1575, however, the royal government reversed its liberal position on intermarriage and began to institute antimiscegenation laws (Recopilación de leyes de los reynos de las Indias 1774: Book 2, Title 16, Law 32). The royal crown passed a decree penalizing Spaniards of high social standing who wished to marry Indians. Viceroys, presidents, mayors, and all fiscal officers and their families were prohibited from marrying Indians. If any section of the decree was disobeyed, the crown required immediate dismissal of the official. Within a few years, the government expanded the decree to include all its employees; only military personnel were exempt. This exemption may have been necessary because the crown was in the process of conquering lands in northern Mexico and stabilizing its colony in the Yucatán Peninsula; thus intermarriage was still a useful military strategy.
Interestingly, the enactment of the first marriage prohibition law coincided with the growth of an elite Spanish class that was of noble birth and economically prosperous in comparison to the soldiers and first Spanish immigrants. By 1560 there were 20,211 Spaniards in Mexico, and a large number of them were recent immigrants (Meyer and Sherman 1995:208). Unlike most of the conquistadores, who had commoner origins, the new colonists were well educated, and many were from distinguished noble families. A large number of these colonists came at the request of the royal crown, because they were needed to administer the government, while other Spanish elites came to oversee the agricultural estates granted to their families. These two groups became the crown’s favorite subjects and were given political, economic, and social advantages not available to other colonists. These special privileges, however, were dependent upon their loyalty, including obeying the marriage prohibitions. The passage of the marriage prohibition laws also coincided with another event in Mexico City. All political movements to overthrow the Spanish had been repressed by the allies of the Spanish crown, and the rebels from Tenochtitlán, Texcoco, and Tacuba had finally been placated (Gibson 1964). These regions had previously constituted the political center of the Aztec Triple Alliance and had been zones of periodic political outbreaks.
In 1592 the crown added a harsher amendment requiring government employees to marry spouses born in Europe (Recopilación de leyes de los reynos de las Indias 1774: Book 7, Title 3, Law 5). Once again, breaking the decree meant immediate dismissal. By this time, the crown was not solely interested in creating a White elite class; it had become necessary to form a loyal class with limited social commitment to the inhabitants of Mexico. For this purpose, the crown needed to extend privileges to those Whites who were born in Spain (Miller 1985). Ironically, while the royal government was forming an elite ruling class and passing laws to ensure their racial purity, it had to continue encouraging low-ranking soldiers to marry Indian women in order to entrench Spanish culture via intermarriage. In 1627, with the approval of the Catholic Church, the crown facilitated the marriage of its lower-ranking military personnel by allowing married men with wives in Spain who did not have any children to annul their marriages and remarry in Mexico (Recopilación de leyes de los reynos de las Indias 1774: Book 3, Title 10, Law 28). By 1646 sexual relations between Spaniards and Indians had produced a mestizo population estimated at 109,042 (Aguirre Beltrán 1946:221), and approximately half of the children were born in legitimate marriages (Cope 1994:68; Seed 1988:25).
In retrospect, the marriage laws passed in Mexico signify the initial formation of a racial order where race and nativity became the basis of ascribing and denying social and economic privileges. The crown had begun to use the legal system to entrench a hierarchical racial order and place Whites as the gatekeepers.
By 1570 the political restructuring implemented by the administrators of the Spanish government in central Mexico had fueled political and territorial disputes between many tlatoques and caciques (Vigil 1984). To reward the most faithful tlatoques Spanish administrators expanded their political regional control and likewise reduced the regions overseen by disfavored tlatoques. This caused factionalism among the Indian nobility and spurred a sense of distrust among the masses. When a tlatoani was demoted, the local people did not recognize his replacement as their legitimate governor. Factionalism among the nobility was further exacerbated when the judicial function was stripped from the tlatoques and assigned to other administrators. To decentralize the power of the tlatoques, the role of juez gobernador (judge) was assigned to influential caciques (Gibson 1964:166–167). Though tlatoques were not dispossessed of their lands, this led to their political downfall and to the political ascent of many caciques. Caciques now had the power to adjudicate civil and property manners, a very important political function that for centuries had been solely the domain of the tlatoques (Aguirre Beltrán 1991).
Throughout central Mexico the tlatoques’ political influence further eroded during the disastrous epidemics of 1576 to 1581 (Gibson 1964:6, 138). Due to these widespread epidemic outbreaks, the Indian population of central Mexico radically declined. By 1581 the Valley of Mexico’s population had been reduced to approximately 70,000 (Gibson 1964:6, 138);7 as the epidemics spread, central Mexico’s population was reduced to 1,075,000 by 1605 (Meyer and Sherman 1995:212). During this time the epidemics did not affect the Yucatán Peninsula; yet within four decades disastrous diseases also broke out there, generating similar devastations. As villages were depopulated in central Mexico, those who survived moved. Many villages were abandoned as Indians recongregated and new communities were formed. As a result of these changing settlement patterns, the new communities refused to pay tribute to the regional tlatoques because they did not consider them to be their legitimate governors. In contrast, the jueces gobernadores became more powerful politically; only in places where a tlatoani held both titles did his power remain intact.
To respond to the depopulation crisis the crown instituted a reorganization of Indian tribute and land. The tlatoques, encomenderos, and caciques lost the right to obtain tribute from the Indians (Gibson 1964; Liss 1975). Only the crown and church retained that right. Part of the land that had been depopulated was reserved for the Indians under the corregimiento system. Sadly, a large part of the abandoned land was retained by the crown or given to influential Spaniards. In this way, many Indians in Mexico lost the land they had inhabited for centuries.8
Under the corregimiento system, the crown retained legal title to the Indian lands, yet it recognized their occupational use rights (e.g., farming, pasture) and ability to transfer land use rights from one generation to the next. Families were not given alienation rights to sell their land, however, unless they obtained permission from the crown or church. The crown also reserved communal land for the Indians (Borah 1983). Part of this communal land was to be used to erect civic buildings, the rest for communal agriculture or pasture.9 Although it was a liberal practice to reserve a large part of the depopulated land for the Indians, the crown nonetheless sold or granted most of the acreage to Spaniards (Gibson 1964). Many wealthy caciques also took advantage of the crisis and purchased large tracts of land.
Once the land was reallocated, the new landowners needed workers to farm their estates. In response to this demand, the royal administrators allowed influential Spaniards to tap into the repartimiento system, which was a rationed and rotational labor system instituted to construct buildings for the church and crown (Gibson 1964). Since 1555 Indian communities had been required to organize crews able to work on any project commanded by the crown (Gibson 1964:224–235). Because Indian labor became scarce after the epidemics, the repartimiento system was increasingly exploited, as Indian labor was virtually monopolized for private use. Because Indian labor was insufficient to fulfill labor demands, many landowners also turned to slave labor (Aguirre Beltrán 1944, 1946; Pi-Sunyer 1957). Mexico’s slave traffic grew dramatically, and the large-scale importation of Black slaves began. Nearly half of the slaves who entered Mexico during its entire history came between 1599 and 1637, totaling approximately 88,383 (Aguirre Beltrán 1946:220).
During this labor crisis, the church did not stand by idly as Indian labor was increasingly used for private purposes. When New World missionaries complained to the royal crown of the abuses, agents were sent to investigate matters. On 1 January 1633, after reviewing the evidence presented by the church, the crown concurred that the repartimiento system was corrupt and ordered its termination (Gibson 1964:235). This forced landowners to hire workers, and many supplemented their labor needs with slaves. Spaniards who had entirely relied on the repartimiento system went into bankruptcy shortly after its termination. They were unable to bear the costs of switching to a different type of agricultural production. The Spanish landowners, caciques, and tlatoques who had previously hired wage workers or purchased slaves were able to make the transition, however (Liss 1975). Many of these successful landowners supplemented their labor needs with tenant farming, allowing people to live on their estates and farm a tract of land in return for a percentage of the harvest. Because the amount to be turned over was set by the landowners, the tenant farmers’ profits were often minimal, providing only a subsistence income. By the mid-seventeenth century the majority of the Indian population in central Mexico worked for Spaniards or caciques (Gibson 1964:255). Only those Indians who owned land or remained in the corregimientos were not under the control of the landed elite.
The importation of Black slaves to Mexico from Africa began in 1527 (Aguirre Beltrán 1946:8). It started as a trickle, became a torrent during the epidemics in central Mexico, and dwindled by the mid-1600s (Aguirre Beltrán 1944:426, 1946:10). After the turn of the seventeenth century only a few thousand slaves entered Mexico. The last large shipments of slaves arrived between 1715 and 1738 (Palmer 1981:104). During that time, 3,816 Bantu slaves were sold in Veracruz and were then transferred throughout Guatemala and Mexico. Scholars estimate that 150,000 to 200,000 Black slaves were imported to Mexico during its entire history (Aguirre Beltrán 1944:431; cf. Meyer and Sherman 1995:215). Most slaves shipped to Mexico came from West Africa, and the vast majority of them were registered as Malinké (see Chapter 1). Dispersed among the Malinkés were other West African peoples, including Soninkés, Sosos, and Wolofs. Though slaves were sold throughout Mexico, they were shipped to four main areas: Mexico City, Tlaxcala-Puebla, Michoacán, and Zacatecas (Aguirre Beltrán 1946:209; Love 1971:79, 80; Roncal 1944: 534). Mexico City received more than 50 percent of the slaves imported throughout the country’s history (Aguirre Beltrán 1946:209, 212, 220, 221, 224). Slaves were used for varied tasks, including farm labor, mining, and household domestic work.
By the mid-1600s Mexican residents had nearly ceased importing slaves, largely due to the political activism of the Catholic Church. Since 1573 New World missionaries had condemned the slave trade and urged the crown to prohibit the sale of slaves in the New World (Palacios 1988: 9). The crown and the royal administrators in Mexico initially refused to comply. After Mexico recovered from the epidemics and Indian labor was once again plentiful, however, the administrators in Mexico began to pay attention to the church’s views on the immorality of the slave trade. Many royal administrators discouraged people from purchasing slaves and enforced the labor codes prohibiting the physical abuse of slaves. Feeling the pressure from the Catholic Church, the crown reluctantly followed suit and discouraged Spanish entrepreneurs from investing in slave trade expeditions. It did not, however, issue a proclamation discouraging people from purchasing slaves—quite the contrary. The crown was not prepared to end the slave trade and instead circumvented its agreement with the church by contracting with Portuguese and British businesses to export slaves to Mexico. In this way Spaniards were not directly involved in capturing slaves. The crown was not about to end the slave trade in Mexico, because the profits from the sale of licenses to slave traders as well as the tax revenues collected from ships docking in the Americas went directly to the royal family.
Though the Catholic Church clearly was influential in decreasing the importation of slaves to Mexico, it was prompted by political self-interest. If the slave trade did not end, the church would alienate a large number of its wealthy patrons (Aguirre Beltrán 1946; Palacios 1988; Palmer 1981). During the depopulation crisis in central Mexico, the importation of a massive number of slaves altered the traditional Indian-Spanish racial composition of the country. Mexico’s national census in 1646 indicates that there were 130,000 people of Black descent and only 114,000 to 125,000 Spaniards, most of whom were criollos born in Mexico (Meyer and Sherman 1995:208).10 Though both racial populations were relatively small in comparison to the 1,269,607 Indians in 1646, Blacks as a group were sizable enough to influence the racial composition of Mexico (Aguirre Beltrán 1946:221).11 Continuation of the slave trade would place the church in a politically precarious position because it had obtained the reluctant support of the crown and of many influential Spaniards to free the children of slaves and allow them to marry whomever they wanted. If more slaves were imported, their children could one day convert Mexico into a nation of mulattos (half Black and half Spanish) or lobos (half Black and half Indian).
When Mexico was first colonized, the Catholic Church supported the royal crown’s position on slavery (Blackburn 1998). Enslaving people imported from Africa was considered a necessity if the colonies in the New World were to prosper. It was a popular belief that a Black person could equal the labor output of four Indians (Aguirre Beltrán 1946; Palacios 1988). Spaniards, however, acknowledged they were enslaving human beings and chose to accord them some legal rights (see Cortes 1964). For example, people who were one-sixteenth Black were legally classified as Spaniards (Aguirre Beltrán 1946:174; Love 1971:79–80). Furthermore, under the Siete Partidas law code slaves were granted the right to select their spouse and slave masters were prohibited from intervening (Aguirre Beltrán 1946:261–262; Love 1976:135). This legislation was of monumental importance because it became the gateway for the children of slaves to gain their freedom. Due to the lobbying efforts of the Catholic Church the children of Black male slaves and Indian women were declared free and given the right to live with their mother. Unfortunately, the children of Black women were not given a similar privilege and were not emancipated.
Throughout Mexico’s colonial history, slave owners attempted to convince the royal crown to annul the slave marriage code, arguing that their investments were lost within one generation, as most male slaves married Indian women. Indeed that was the case: marriage registries between 1646 and 1746 in Mexico City and Veracruz indicate that 52 percent of the Black population married Indians (Love 1971:85). The slave masters’ zeal to enslave the children of Black males heightened during the depopulation crisis of central Mexico. In 1585 masters launched a lobbying campaign to change the law and convert such children into chattel (Aguirre Beltrán 1946:257). The church protested and overwhelmingly triumphed in its counter-lobbying efforts. The crown failed to annul the slave marriage code and instead issued a warning to slave masters. If a priest could demonstrate that a master had tried to prevent his slave from selecting a marriage partner, that master would be penalized financially. Slave masters were also prohibited from separating married couples (Aguirre Beltrán 1946; Love 1971).
For the church it was important to protect the rights of Black slaves, because this also affected the Indians and mestizos. Throughout Mexico Black slaves, Indians, and mestizos met while working as household domestics, and many subsequently married. In particular, this was the case in Mexico City, where a major part of the slave population worked as servants and produced a large afromestizo population (Cope 1994; Roncal 1944; Seed 1982, 1988). By 1742 the national census indicates that there was a population of 266,196 free afromestizos, a general term used to indicate a racially mixed person of partially Black descent (Aguirre Beltrán 1946:225).
Spain instituted a racial order called the casta system through which Mexico’s population came to be legally distinguished based on race. This system was used to deny and prescribe legal rights to individuals and to assign them social prestige. In particular, distinguishing the population on the basis of parental origin became an adequate legal method of according economic privilege and social prestige to Spaniards (Lafaye 1974; Mörner 1967; Vigil 1984).12 The Spaniards included both peninsulares, individuals of full European descent who had been born in Spain, and criollos, who were also of full European descent but had been born in the New World. As miscegenation increased among the Spanish elite, the criollo category eventually came to be redefined. The castas were mestizos and other persons of mixed blood. The Indian category included only people of full indigenous descent.
Of the various racial groups, the Spaniards enjoyed the highest social prestige and were accorded the most extensive legal and economic privileges. The legal system did not make distinctions between peninsulares and criollos. Nevertheless, the Spanish crown instituted policies requiring that high-level positions in the government and Catholic Church be assigned to peninsulares, with the rationale that only peninsulares were fervently loyal (Haring 1963). If the crown could not find peninsulares willing to accept appointments in the colonies established along the frontier, it made exceptions to the decree for those areas and appointed criollos, although they had to be the sons of peninsulares. As a rule, peninsulares were appointed to positions such as viceroy, governor, captain-general, archbishop, and bishop, whereas criollos were appointed to less prestigious positions, such as comptroller of the royal exchequer, judge, university professor, and mid-level administrative positions in the church (e.g., priests or directors of schools) (Haring 1963). Furthermore, only peninsulares could obtain commercial licenses for direct trade between Spain and Mexico. Criollos were limited to the domestic commercial market.
The social and economic mobility of the rest of the population was seriously limited by the legal statuses ascribed to their ancestral groups. In theory, many Indians were economically more privileged than mestizos because they held title to large parcels of communal land protected by the crown and the Catholic Church (Haring 1963; Mörner 1967). Despite their claim to property, however, the Indians were accorded little social prestige in Mexican society and were legally confined to subservient social and economic roles regulated by the Spanish elite. Most Indians were forced to live in a perpetual state of tutelage controlled by the church, state, or Spanish landowners.
Mestizos enjoyed a higher social prestige than the Indians, but were considered inferior to the Spaniards. They were also often ostracized by the Indians and Spaniards and did not enjoy certain legal privileges accorded to either group. For example, most mestizos were barred by royal decree from obtaining high and mid-level positions in the royal and ecclesiastical governments (Haring 1963; Mörner 1967). Throughout the colonial period they were prohibited from becoming priests, except in the frontier zones, where Indians and mestizos would be their parishioners (Haring 1963:201). Moreover, the Spanish crown did not reserve land for the mestizos under the corregimiento system as it did for the Indians. The best economic recourse for most mestizos was to enter the labor market or migrate toward Mexico’s northern and southern frontiers. Each migrant who was the head of a household was awarded land and exempted from taxation for a period of approximately ten years (León-Portilla 1972; Rubel 1966; Weber 1982). If they chose to move to the frontier, they were prohibited from being members of the town councils or generals of presidios or garrisons; these privileges were reserved solely for Spaniards (Poyo 1991a; Recopilación de leyes de los reynos de las Indias 1774: Book 3, Title 10, Law 12).
Free afromestizos were accorded the same legal privileges as the mestizos. Because they were of partially African descent, however, they were stigmatized and considered socially inferior to Indians and mestizos (Love 1970, 1971; Pi-Sunyer 1957; Seed 1988). For example, afromestizos were subjected to racist laws designed to distinguish them from mestizos and to impose financial and social penalties upon them. An afromestiza who was married to a Spaniard or was of noble birth was forbidden to use the traditional clothing of a Spanish woman or person of high social standing (Recopilación de leyes de los reynos de las Indias 1774: Book 7, Title 5, Law 28). She could not wear gold jewelry, a pearl necklace with more than one strand, or silk clothes, and her mantilla (veil) could not pass her waist. If she broke any part of this decree, it was lawful to humiliate her in public and confiscate the items.
Furthermore, free afromestizos were forced to pay special taxes because they were part Black (McAlister 1957; Pi-Sunyer 1957; Recopilación de leyes de los reynos de las Indias 1774: Book 7, Title 4, Law 3; Roncal 1944). To levy taxes local authorities kept registries of the afromestizos. When they traveled or lived outside of their communities for extended periods they were required to reregister and pay additional taxes. Afromestizos were also legally prohibited from walking on roads at night (Recopilación de leyes de los reynos de las Indias 1774: Book 7, Title 5, Law 14) and from carrying weapons, unless they were a peninsular’s private guard (Recopilación de leyes de los reynos de las Indias 1774: Book 7, Title 5, Law 15). Most heinous of all, if free afromestizos in Mexico City were unable to pay their bills or became paupers they could be placed in indentured servitude (Cope 1994).
Although the racially mixed populations increased in number throughout Mexico’s colonial era, the governing class in Mexico remained exclusively White, or at least its members professed that they were White (Meyer and Sherman 1995).13 Notwithstanding this fact, there were economic and prestige differences among the mestizo and afromestizo populations. Their social positions varied and were highly dependent upon the father’s social position and whether a child was born in a legitimate marriage (Seed 1988). Children whose Spaniard fathers were of high social standing but whose mothers were women of color were often fictively referred to as criollos and included as part of the White population. A similar exemption, however, was seldom available to the commoner classes. Though by law the criollo racial category was reserved for Whites, it was common for parish priests to register mestizo children of means as criollo by including in the baptismal registry only the race of the father (Meyer and Sherman 1995; Seed 1988). In this way no record was left of the mother’s race. This also applied to afromestizo children who did not appear to be Black. If children’s baptismal records indicated they were criollo, they were granted the legal privileges of Spaniards. Furthermore, it was also possible to register a child of means who was born out of wedlock as a criollo.
The case of the children of Hernán Cortés illustrates this scenario. Don Martín Cortés and Doña Isabel Moctezuma Cortés were born outside of a sanctioned marriage. Martín was the son of Doña Marina, Hernán Cortés’s Indian translator and concubine throughout the conquest of Mexico, while Isabel was the daughter of Isabel Moctezuma and the granddaughter of Emperor Moctezuma Xocoyotzin (Chipman 1977; Meyer and Sherman 1995). Both were treated as criollos and were considered noble. Martín was taken as a young boy to Spain’s royal court and treated as part of the noble class. After completing his education, he returned to Mexico and was granted an estate and a royal endowment to lead the lifestyle he was accustomed to.
Though not all mestizos were as fortunate as Martín, racially mixed women who were fair-complexioned were highly valued as marriage partners. Such fair-skinned women were called castizas because they were the daughters of Spaniards and mestizas (Chapman 1916; Liss 1975; Weber 1992). By the late 1600s there were sufficient castizas for peninsulares and criollos to marry, and it was no longer necessary for them to marry darker-toned women (Meyer and Sherman 1995:210). Although some criollos and castizas were incorporated into the social circles of Whites, similar privileges were unavailable to the rest of the non-White population. Most mestizos, afromestizos, and Indians continued to experience racial discrimination (Menchaca 1993). Blatant racial disparities became painfully intolerable to the non-White population and generated the conditions for their movement toward the northern frontier, where the racial order was relaxed and people of color had the opportunity to own land and enter most occupations.