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Contested Mestizos, Alleged Mulattos: Racial Identity and Caste Hierarchy in Eighteenth Century Pátzcuaro, Mexico*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Aaron P. Althouse
Aaron P. Althouse*
Affiliation:
University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, Tennessee
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Extract

Late one December afternoon in 1731, Antonio Méndes and his friend Joseph Miguel de Alcaras made their way through the west central Mexican city of Pátzcuaro toward the plaza mayor. Their course took them past the house of the Spaniard don Vacilio Botello Mobellán. There, don Vacilio called out to Antonio and Joseph, inquiring after a harness and several other items he said Alcaras had borrowed from him and not yet returned. According to Don Vacilio, he presented his request jovially, but Alcaras denied still having the goods on loan, the two “mulattos” responded to him discourteously, and Méndes even brandished a knife. In their own defense, both Alcaras and Méndes mentioned don Vacilio’s accusations, insisted that Alcaras had previously returned the materials in question, and emphasized that Méndes did not pull the knife, but rather that it was taken from him by don Vacilio’s two assistants who had intervened in the exchange. Ultimately, don Vacilio leveled criminal charges against Méndes, who he and the criminal authorities labeled a “mulatto,” for threatening him with a knife since “being of inferior calidad” he should never have carried the weapon.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 62 , Issue 2 , October 2005 , pp. 151 - 175
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 2005

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Footnotes

*

Many individuals have provided valuable and constructive criticism regarding this study. At various conferences, Doug Cope, Tamar Herzog, Cynthia Radding, Ann Twinam and John Chuchiak posed difficult questions that served to sharpen my analysis and reframe key lines of inquiry. I owe a special debt to John Kicza, Margaret Chowning, Jim Ward, and the anonymous reader at The Americas for their careful reading of and commenting on later versions of this manuscript.

References

1 Archivo Histórico del Ayuntamiento de Pátzcuaro, Caja 30, Expediente 4, Fojas 736-749.

2 Honor and race were often closely linked. For a variety of perspectives on the notion of honor in colonial Latin America, see Johnson, Lyman L. and Lipsett-Rivera, Sonya, eds., The Faces of Honor: Sex, Shame, and Violence in Colonial Latin America (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1998)Google Scholar.

3 See Jackson, Robert H., Race, Caste, and Status: Indians in Colonial Spanish America (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1999), p. 4 Google Scholar, for a concise rundown of the range of restrictions against Indians and people of mixed background

4 AHAP, C 21, E 4, F 683-687.

5 The phenomenon of contested mestizo identity is most clear in these cases from the first half of the eighteenth century. This is likely the case because, through the middle of the 1700s, informal passing was the best means to improve one’s racial status, and likewise, informal attempts to pass as mestizo invited the scrutiny of local elites. Later in the eighteenth century, caste categories were delineated in the legal code, and at the same time, formal releases from “impediments” like African descent and illegitimacy were more widely available. These special concessions from the Spanish Crown were known as gracias al sacar, and though never widespread, nonetheless provided official removal of undesired personal characteristics.

6 The most significant recent contribution is Douglas Cope’s, R. The Limits of Racial Domination: Plebeian Society in Colonial Mexico, 1660-1720 (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994)Google Scholar. Cope contends that in Mexico City, “the urban poor rejected the notion of a racial hierarchy; instead, as in other areas of culture, the plebeians demonstrated their creativity by redefining ‘race’ in a way that made sense to them and served their purposes.” For a more complete sense of the chronological development of the race, caste, and class debate, see Mörner, Magnus, Race Mixture in the History of Latin America (Boston: Little Brown, 1967)Google Scholar; Chance, John K. and Taylor, William B., “Estate and Class in a Colonial City: Oaxaca in 1792,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 19:4 (October 1977), pp. 454–487 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Chance, , Race and Class in Colonial Oaxaca (Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, 1978)Google Scholar; McCaa, Robert, Schwartz, StuartB., and Grubessich, Arturo, “Race and Class in Colonial Latin America: A Critique,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 21:3 (July 1979), pp. 421–433 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Seed, Patricia, Rust, Philip F., McCaa, Robert and Schwartz, Stuart B., “Measuring Marriage by Estate and Class: A Debate,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 25:4 (October 1983), pp. 703–724 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Rust, and Seed, , “Equality of Endogamy: Statistical Approaches,” Social Science Research 14 (March 1985), pp. 57–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Bruce A. Castleman’s recent work on late eighteenth century Orizaba provides an important regional perspective on racial mobility, as he cites significant upward racial movement from both the castizo and mestizo ranks to Spanish status between 1777 and 1791. Castleman, , “Social Climbers in a Colonial Mexican City: Individual Mobility within the Sistema de Castas in Orizaba, 1777-1791,” Colonial Latin American Review 10:2 (December 2001), pp. 229–249 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Two recent works prove interesting and illustrative in this regard. Vinson III, Ben, Bearing Arms for His Majesty: The Free-Colored Militia in Colonial Mexico (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001 ), p. 4 Google Scholar, states “the corporate entity [of the militia] became the modality through which a racial identity was preserved and expressed.” Bennett, Herman L., Africans in Colonial Mexico: Absolutism, Christianity, and Afro-Creole Consciousness, 1570-1640 (Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press, 2003)Google Scholar, offers a re-examination of Africans’ and Afro-Mexicans’ relationship with the institutions of the Church and slavery, and the author persuasively argues that Africans and their descendants in early colonial Mexico were subject to the Church’s expectations of Christian orthodoxy and the restrictions related to slave status, yet still managed to shape and fashion exclusively Afro-Mexican social associations.

9 Mestizos played much more prominently into conquest era social dynamics. Chapter one, “Gender and the Politics of Mestizaje,” in Burns, Kathryn, Colonial Habits: Convents and the Spiritual Economy of Cuzco, Peru (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999)Google Scholar highlights the central role played by mestiza offspring of conquistadors and native elite women in the political and social formation of conquest era Peru. Scholars have argued that over time, “mestizo” lost a distinct sense of meaning. John Chance, Race and Class in Colonial Oaxaca, p. 138, states that “mestizos did not constitute a group in the sociological sense, and … they did not share a common identity.” Lockhart, James, “Social Organization and Social Change in Colonial Spanish America,” in Bethell, Leslie, ed., The Cambridge History of Latin America, II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 296 Google Scholar, builds upon Chance’s perspective, adding that “mestizos in particular lacked every hallmark of corporate identity.”

10 Despite the inequalities inherent in the sistema de castas, its function required the participation of non-Spaniards. Consequently, defining the social structure was not strictly a unilaterally Spanish venture. Although imposed, the caste system represented a “voluntary” form of control, which Susan Kellogg has aptly described as “a product of complex processes of conflict, negotiation, dialogue, and accommodation.” Kellogg, , “Hegemony Out of Conquest: The First Two Centuries of Spanish Rule in Central Mexico,” Radical History Review 53 (Spring 1992), p. 29.Google Scholar

11 Avoidance of African background was not uncommon, although this work breaks new ground regarding racial passing from mulatto to mestizo. For example, in his classic work on African slaves in early colonial Peru, Frederick P. Bowser observes the habit of Afro-Peruvians to “whiten” themselves when possible. See The African Slave in Colonial Peru, 1524-1650 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1974), p. 333 Google Scholar. More recently, Herman L. Bennett notes Afro-Mexicans’ “racial ambivalence, if not outright contempt for their racial ancestry.” Bennett, , “Lovers, family and friends: The formation of Afro-Mexico, 1580-1810,” Ph.D. dissertation, Duke University, 1993, p. 114 Google Scholar. These occurrences support the recent argument of Elizabeth Anne Kuznesof, who points to “extreme level[s] of social anxiety related to race-related privilege.” Kuznesof, , “Ethnic and Gender Influences on “Spanish” Creole Society in Colonial Spanish America,” Colonial Latin American Review 4:1 (June 1995), p. 156 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Several quality works relate the conquest era history of Michoacán and Pátzcuaro’s key position in these events. See Ugarte, José Bravo, Historia Sucinta de Michoacán, II: Provincia Mayor e Intendencia (Mexico City: Editorial Jus, 1963)Google Scholar; Sarrelangue, Delfina Esmeralda López, La Nobleza Indígena de Pátzcuaro en la Epoca Virreinal (Mexico City, UNAM: 1965)Google Scholar; Warren, J. Benedict, The Conquest of Michoacán: The Spanish Domination of the Tarascan Kingdom in Western Mexico, 1521-1530 (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985)Google Scholar.

13 Precise population counts for the city remain unclear due to the lack of systematic censuses. McGovern-Bowen, Carolyn, “Colonial Pátzcuaro, Michoacán: A Population Study,” Ph.D. dissertation, Syracuse University, 1986, p. 380 Google Scholar, claims that the population reached 3267 in 1725, and employs figures from Sarrelangue, López, La Nobleza Indígena de Pátzcuaro, pp. 72–73 Google Scholar, to place the 1750 population at 2500. An ecclesiastical survey of 1754 counted 1084 Spaniards, 1628 “mestizos, mulatos, coyotes y demas color quebrado,” and 568 Indians in the city proper, but does not further break down the castas by type. These figures do not include Indians residing in several subject barrios located very close to Pátzcuaro. Sánchez, Isabel González, ed., El Obispado de Michoacán en 1765 (Morelia, Mexico; Comité Editorial del Gobierno de Michoacán, 1985), pp. 294–295 Google Scholar. Finally, McGovern-Bowen, p. 137, reports that between 1700 and 1704, twenty percent of those baptized were Spaniards, thirteen (13.2) percent mestizos, thirteen (13.3) percent mulattos, and fifty-three (53.5) percent Indians. If we assume that there were no deaths, no immigration, no emigration, and no natural catastrophes such as earthquakes or epidemics, and therefore all these baptized individuals reached adulthood by roughly 1720-25, we can roughly extrapolate that there were about 653 Spaniards, 431 mestizos, 435 mulattos, and 1748 Indians living in the city at that time.

14 Pátzcuaro’s Indian cabildo survived until the 1760s, when the separate Indian political structure was eliminated on the heels of Indian protests against the Crown-sanctioned expulsion of the Jesuits. Sarrelangue, López, La Nobleza Indígena de Pátzcuaro, p. 126 Google Scholar.

15 Genealogical Society of Utah, Pátzcuaro Parish Registers, Film 0644958.

16 GSU, Pátzcuaro, 0644959.

17 Ironically, the term gachupín indicated both birth in Spain and a general attitude of condescension toward things American, yet don Joseph evidently was involved with the Indian María Catarina.

18 AHAP, C 25, E 3, F 524-548.

19 AHAP, C 21, E 5, F 767-776.

20 AHAP, C 21, E 4, F 630-638.

21 AHAP, C 21, E 2, F 176-204.

22 AHAP, C 26, E 1, F 178-208.

23 McGovern-Bowen, , “Colonial Pátzcuaro,” p. 332 Google Scholar.

24 GSU, Pátzcuaro, 0644958.

25 GSU, Pátzcuaro, 0644958.

26 GSU, Pátzcuaro, 0644959.

27 Sarrelangue, López, La Nobleza Indígena de Pátzcuaro, pp. 164–166 Google Scholar.

28 GSU, Pátzcuaro, 0644958.

29 GSU, Pátzcuaro, 0644958.

30 GSU, Pátzcuaro, 0644959.

31 Noting the “castizo escape hatch,” Castleman is one of few to explicitly address clear status distinctions between caste categories. “Social Climbers,” p. 235.

32 Again, see Vinson, Bearing Arms for His Majesty, and Bennett, Africans in Colonial Mexico.

33 Chance, John discusses the relationship between Indian self-identification and access to community resources in “The Caciques of Tecali: Class and Ethnic Identity in Late Colonial Mexico,” Hispanic American Historical Review, 76:3 (August 1996), pp. 475–502 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Comments by criminal officials in Pátzcuaro suggest that racially mixed people could pass as Indians, although it is not clear whether this included individuals of African descent. For example, a city official investigating the homicide of an Indian noble in 1739 described the victim’s father-in-law, an Indian elite, as a “white Indian” and the people who stood guard over the corpse, perhaps nobles themselves, as “of broken color” (color quebrado).” AHAP, C. 30, E. 1, F. 139-148.

34 Discussion of the relationship between female virginity and honor is found in Seed, Patricia, To Love, Honor, and Obey in Colonial Mexico: Conflicts Over Marriage Choice, 1574-1821 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988)Google Scholar; Twinam, Ann, “The Negotiation of Honor: Elites, Sexuality, and Illegitimacy in Eighteenth-Century Spanish America,” in Johnson and Lipsett-Rivera, The Faces of Honor, pp. 68–102 Google Scholar; and Nazzari, Muriel, “An Urgent Need to Conceal: The System of Honor and Shame in Colonial Brazil,” in The Faces of Honor, pp. 103–126 Google Scholar.

35 AHAP, C. 22, E. 4, F. 480-515. Such promises were taken seriously, for as Seed argues, “in a world that relied as much on verbal contracts as on written agreements, a spoken promise was a solemn commitment.” Seed, To Love, Honor, and Obey, p. 99.

36 AHAP, C 29, E 1, F 101-106.

37 AHAP, C.31, E. 5, F. 936-945; C. 33, E. 2, F. 215-237; C. 33, E. 5, F. 740-752.

38 AHAP, C.31, E. 5, F. 936-945.

39 AHAP, C.33, E. 5, F. 740-752.