Sistema or Sociedad de Castas
Miguel Cabrera, 1763
Ilona Katzew, "New World Orders: Casta Painting and
Colonial Latin America",
Americas Society Art Gallery,
New York, 1996, Plate 6, India x Lobo, Torna atras, p. 77
To the reader: please do not take offense at the terminology
below. This terminology is clearly racist, and should be insulting
to many, many people. This terminology is here as it is a record
of how people were viewed.
Aside from terminology, members of each "casta" were more or less
distinguishable by their dress. Sumptuary laws specified dress that
would be illigal for members of specific castas to wear. Other ways
in which the castas were distinguished were as follows:
1
"The viceroy of Peru during the eighteenth century received
visitors in two rooms, one for whites, another for Indians
and mixed-bloods"
"... the whites went to mass in the cathedral, the pardos
to another church, and the Negroes to a third." Note: The
use of different churches by different "castas" may be seen
in the Brazilian film Xica da Silva.
"... the elementary school in Buenos aires was strictly
discriminatory. The teacher should teach only white and
Indian children to read and write, whereas mestizos and
mulattoes should be instructed only in Christian dogma,
and the groups were to be kept apart when the teacher
brought them to public functions."
cofradías (religious brotherhoods) and
consulados, and universities, guilds, etc. were
also limited to specific castas.
Parents
Offspring
Español
×
India
Mestiza
Español
×
Mestiza
Castiza
Español
×
Castiza
Español
Español
×
Negra
Mulata
Español
×
Mulata
Morisca 2
Español
×
Morisca 2
Albina
Español
×
Albina
Torna atrás 3
Español
×
Torna atrás 3
Tente en el aire 4
Negro
×
India
China 5 cambuja
Chino 5 cambujo
×
India
Loba
Lobo
×
India
Albarazado
Albarazado
×
Mestiza
Barcino
Indio
×
Barcina
Zambuigua
Castizo
×
Mestiza
Chamizo
Mestizo
×
India
Coyote
Indio (gentiles)
×
India
Indios (Heathens)
1
Magnus Mörner, "Race Mixture in the History of
Latin America", Little, Brown and Company, Boston, pp. 62-63.
.
2
"A royal decree in 1700 prohibited the use of this term
[morisco] to avoid confusion with the identical Spanish
word for 'converted Moor'." See Magnus Mörner,
"Race Mixture in the History of Latin America", Little,
Brown and Company, Boston, p. 58, footnote 21.
.
3
"Torna atrás" means "return backwards".
.
4
"Tente en el aire" means "very much in the air" or of
dubious standing. See Pedro Alonso O'Crouley (Sean
Galvin, trans.), "A Description of The Kingdom of New
Spain, 1774", John Howell, 1972, p. 19, footnote 3.
.
5
While "Chino" was often used as a simple casta label,
since Nueva Espana included the Phillipines, it was
sometimes also used for people who had derived from
the Phillipines or even China, especially when Chinese
were brought in to create the beginnings of a silk
industry using the support of the Jesuit galleon
trade between Manila and San Blás and Acapulco.
Also, see María Elena Martínez,
"Genealogical Fictions: Limpieza de Sangre, Religion,
and Gender in Colonial Mexico", Stanford U. P., 2008,
p. 342, footnote 97. Also, a chino grifo is a
frizzly-headed chino; a chino cambujo
means a very swarthy (dark-complexioned) chino.
See See Pedro Alonso O'Crouley (Sean Galvin, trans.),
"A Description of The Kingdom of New Spain, 1774",
John Howell, 1972, p. 19, footnote 1. Also, the term
"Japoneses" and "Indios chinos" were
used (Magnus Mörner, "Race Mixture in the History
of Latin America", Little, Brown and Company, Boston,
p. 66, footnote 50).
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