page_title: Mestizo
section_title: Mestizo as a colonial-era category
hierarchical_section_title: Mestizo / Mestizo as a colonial-era category
caption_attribution_description: "Pintura de Castas, 2. De español y mestiza, castiza".
context_page_description: Mestizo is a term historically used in Spain and Hispanic America that originally referred to a person of combined European and Indigenous American descent, regardless of where the person was born. The term was used as an ethnic/racial category for mixed-race castas that evolved during the Spanish Empire. Although broadly speaking, mestizo means someone of mixed European/indigenous heritage, the term did not have a fixed meaning in the colonial period. It was a formal label for individuals in official documentation, such as censuses, parish registers, Inquisition trials, and other matters. Individuals were labeled by priests and royal officials as mestizos, but the term was also used for self identification.
  The noun mestizaje, derived from the adjective mestizo, is a term for racial mixing that only came into usage in the twentieth century; it was not a colonial-era term. In the modern era, it is used to denote the positive unity of race mixtures in modern Latin America. This is ideological stance is in contrast to the term miscegenation, which usually has negative connotations.
context_section_description: In the Spanish colonial period, the Spanish developed a complex set of racial terms and ways to describe difference. Although this has been conceived of as a "system," and often called the sistema de castas or sociedad de castas, archival research shows that racial labels were not fixed throughout a person's life. Artwork created mainly in eighteenth-century Mexico, "casta paintings," show groupings of racial types in hierarchical order, which has influenced the way that modern scholars have conceived of social difference in Spanish America.
  During the initial period of colonization of the Americas by the Spanish, there were three chief categories of ethnicities: European white or Spaniard (español), Amerindian (indio), and African (negro). Throughout the territories of the Spanish Empire in the Americas, ways of differentiating individuals in a racial hierarchy, often called in the modern era the sistema de castas or the sociedad de castas, developed where society was divided based on color, calidad (status), and other factors.
  The main divisions were as follows:
  Español (fem. española), i.e. Spaniard – person of Spanish or other European ancestry; a blanket term, subdivided into Peninsulares and Criollos
  Peninsular – a European born in Spain who later settled in the Americas;
  Criollo (fem. criolla) – a person of Spanish or other European descent born in the Americas;
  Castizo (fem. castiza) – a person with primarily European and some Amerindian ancestry born into a mixed family; the offspring of a castizo and an español was considered español. Offspring of a castizo/a of an Español/a returned to Español/a.
  Mestizo (fem. mestiza) – a person of extended mixed European and Amerindian ancestry;
  Indio (fem. India) – a person of pure Amerindian ancestry;
  Pardo (fem. parda) – a person of mixed White, Amerindian and African ancestry; sometimes a polite term for a black person;
  Mulato (fem. mulata) – a person of mixed White and African ancestry;
  Zambo – a person of mixed African and Amerindian ancestry;
  Negro (fem. negra) – a person of African descent, primarily former enslaved Africans and their descendants.
  In theory, and as depicted in some eighteenth-century Mexican casta paintings, the offspring of a Castizo/a [mixed Spanish - Mestizo] and an Español/a could be considered Español/a, or "returned" to that status.
  Racial labels in a set of eighteenth-century Mexican casta paintings by Miguel Cabrera:
  De Español e India, nace Mestiza
  De Español y Mestiza, nace Castiza
  De Castizo y Española, nace Española
  De Español y Negra, nace Mulata
  De Español y Mulata, nace Morisca
  De Español y Morisca, nace Albino
  De Español y Albina, nace Torna atrás
  De Español y Torna atrás, "Tente en el ayre"
  De Negro y India, Chino Cambuja
  De Chino Cambujo y India, Loba
  De Lobo y India, Albarazado
  De Albarazado y Mestiza, Barcino
  De Indio y Barcina, Zambaiga
  De Castizo y Mestiza, Chamizo
  Indios Gentiles (Barbarian Meco Indians)
  In the early colonial period, the offspring of Españoles and Indias were raised either in the Hispanic world, if the father recognized the offspring as his natural child; or the child was raised in the indigenous world of the mother if he did not.  As early as 1533, Charles V mandated the high court (Audiencia) to take the children of Spanish men and indigenous women from their mothers and educate them in the Spanish sphere. This mixed group born out of Christian wedlock increased in numbers, generally living in their mother's indigenous communities.
  Mestizos were the first group in the colonial era to be designated as a separate category from European whites (Españoles) and enslaved African blacks (Negros) and were included in designation of "vagabonds" (vagabundos) in 1543 in Mexico. Although mestizos were often classified as castas, they had a higher standing than any mixed-race person since they did not have to pay tribute, the men could be ordained as priests, and they could be licensed to carry weapons, in contrast to negros, mulattoes, and other castas.  Unlike blacks and mulattoes, mestizos had no enslaved ancestors. In
caption: A casta painting by Miguel Cabrera. Here he shows a Spanish (español) father, Mestiza (mixed Spanish-Indian) mother, and their Castiza daughter.
exif: {}