Mestizaje and the castas

El mestizaje y las castas

c. 1519–1821. From the first years of the conquest Spaniards, Indigenous people and enslaved Africans had children together; Martín, the son of Cortés and his interpreter…

What happened

From the first years of the conquest Spaniards, Indigenous people and enslaved Africans had children together; Martín, the son of Cortés and his interpreter Malintzin, is often called the first recognised mestizo. Colonial law divided society into a república de españoles and a república de indios, and added legal labels for mixtures: mestizo (Spanish and Indigenous), mulato (Spanish and African), castizo and others. In the eighteenth century painters in Mexico produced casta paintings, usually sets of sixteen canvases showing a father, mother and child of each 'mixture', often idealised and sent to Spain. Historians warn that these images show how elites wanted to see society rather than how it worked: in practice the categories were fluid and people moved between them. Mexico abolished the legal hierarchy at independence in 1821. Today most Spanish speakers in the Americas descend from this mixing, and mestizaje is a founding idea of several national identities.

Events along the way

Sources

  1. Casta Paintings — Not Even Past, Department of History, University of Texas at Austin
  2. Guadalupe and the Castas: The Power of a Singular Colonial Mexican Painting (Sarah Cline) — Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos, via UC Santa Barbara
  3. La Malinche — World History Encyclopedia