Racial Mixing in Colonial Mexico
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Racial Mixing in Colonial Mexico
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Many different ethnic groups were present in colonial Mexico, the variety of ethnic groups produced the diverse population that exists now in modern day Mexico. The ethnic groups that were the most apparent in colonial Mexico include Spanish conquistadors, and the natives. It was not long before the racial mixing began in the New World. Cortés himself and his translator named an indigenous woman named Malintzin, who accompanied him on his conquest, produced two mestizo children. Though racial mixing in colonial Mexico began as early as 1519, when Cortes son Martín was born creating the first generation of Mestizaje's. The term Mestizaje's was not popularized until the eighteenth century with casta paintings, which provided a visual representation of racial mixture. Casta is the term used to describe mixed race persons in Spanish America. Spanish and Indian couples with their mestizo child were usually portrayed in the casta paintings as sophisticated with a middle class standing. Miguel Cabrera who is considered the master of casta paintings is a mestizo himself . As mentioned before the term Mestizo, refers to offspring derived from Spanish and Indian blood and is the most common racial mixture which produces the majority of modern day Mexico’s population.. The relationship between European conquistadors and natives is somewhat contradictive. Natives were originally intended to be used as a source of labor during the conquest but, with exceptions like Malintzin and Caciques, or an indigenous political boss, which contributed to the success of the European conquest of Mexico. Mestizos culture can be described as “floating uncertainly” between Indigenous and Spanish culture. In some cases skin tone of the child and the social lass of the parental Spanish bloodline are factors that contribute to the sociability of the mestizo offspring.
Sources: Carrera, Magali Marie. “The Faces and Bodies of Eighteenth-Century Metropolitan Mexico” in Imagining Identity in New Spain : Race, Lineage, and the Colonial Body in Portraiture and Casta Paintings. Vol. 1st ed, University of Texas Press, 2003. Ebook Duran, Diego. “Cap 71” Historia De Las Indias De Nueva-España Y Islas De Tierra Firme , Volume III. 1867. MS, Special Collections, Texas Christian University, Mexico. MacLeod, Murdo J. “The Two Republics, Indians and Spaniards, in the Age of Encomienda” in Spanish Central America: A Socioeconomic History, 1520-1720. “LLILAS Special Publications. (Austin (Tex.): University of Texas Press, 2008.) 125-150 Mills, Kenneth, William B. Taylor, and Sandra Lauderdale Graham “ Two casta Paintings from eighteenth- century Mexico,” in Colonial Latin America: A Documentary History. (Wilmington, Del: Scholarly Resources, 2002), 322-327 Townsend, Camilla.” The concubine Speaks” in Malintzins Choices: An Indian Woman in the Conquest of Mexico. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006. Ebook
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Items with "Relation: Racial Mixing in Colonial Mexico"
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 “Cap 71” |
Still Image
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