Calidad and clase in Spanish America, 17-18th centuries

  • Verbal insults in a multi-racial, colonial society

    • types: animal, racial, sexual
    • responses: fights, complaints, and murder

  • Social hierarchy based in : calidad (race), class, wealth, occupation, honor, reputation, condition

  • Marriageways: Spain vs. Spanish America

    • unions blessed by church and state vs. informal ones
    • “natural” children: race and patrimonialism
    • the nuptial fair--gender and calidad

  • Accommodation, resistance and reform

Last class: Rural economy: patterns of production from consumption (see Bauer, Schwartz and Hoberman)

  • Persistence of native features of land holding, labor, and technology

  • Emergence of haciendas, ranchos and estancias required population of wheat and beef eaters.

  • Interdependence of Native and Hispanic worlds

  • Dual economy model (imperial vs. local) compared with integrated economy (local, regional, inter-colonial, imperial)

  • Economy of early Spanish America: feudal, capitalist, or patrimonial?

Notice: The next 2 slides contain language some people might find objectionable. Students who do not wish to view (or hear) such material should close their eyes and ears or absent themselves from the room for the next few minutes.

Verbal insults in hierarchical, multi-racial New Spain (18th c.)

  • Types (used by/against both sexes):

    • animal: perro (dog), cochino (pig), gallina (chicken)
    • racial: judío (Jew), chichimeca (wild Indian), indio, mulato, negro, gachupín (greenhorn), pícaro (rogue)
    • sexual-familial honor: cornudo, cabrón (cuckold) consentidor (consent to wife’s infidelity) alcahuete (pimp--applied to husband, widow) hijo de puta (son of a whore)

  • Responses: fights, lawsuits, homicide, evasion

  • Change (late 18th century), more aggressive:

    • pendejo (pubic hair), carajo (male genitalia), joder (copulate), chinga tu madre (fuck your mother)

  • Sexual insults: memories of primordial rape or daily frustrations in a hierarchical, multi-racial, colonial society?

Testimonies, 18th c. Chihuahua

  • Man in reply to being called “alachuete” and his wife “puta”: “Soy casado…I am married and I have maintained myself with good opinion and fame, guarding and watching over my home, teaching my family members good life and customs, and striving to maintain my obligations by the sweat of my brow.”

  • 1730, wives of striking mine workers stiffened their husbands’ spines by calling them “gallinas” (hens) and “cocineras” (cooks) when they considered relenting.

  • 1753, frustrated shopkeeper to a customer who had examined an entire supply of stockings without buying a thing: “Mira perro que eres un mulato y yo soy muy español [Look, dog, you are a mulatto and I am very Spanish].” --CE Martin, CSSH (April 1990), 305-324.

Multi-racial, hierarchical colonial society based on rank

  • Calidad (reputation, race): from 16th century simplicity to 18th century diversity based on dress, speech, comportment, as well as physical appearance: Lima, Cochabamba, Oaxaca, Parral

  • Class, wealth, occupation intertwined with calidad.

  • Honor, reputation: “people of reason”

  • Condition: slave, free

  • Even birthplace (ranking of places from peninsula cities to remote hamlets)

Jorge Juan and Antonio de Ulloa, A Voyage to South America (1748) on Lima

  • “The inhabitants of Lima are composed of whites, or Spaniards, Negroes, Indians, Mestizos, and other castes, proceeding from the mixture of all three.”

  • “The Spanish families are very numerous…[some] sixteen or eighteen thousand whites…”

  • “The Negroes, Mulattos, and their descendants, form the greater number of the inhabitants; and of these are the greatest part of the mechanics; tho' here the Europeans also follow the same occupations, ... for gain being here the universal passion , the inhabitants pursue it by means of any trade, without regard to its being followed by Mulattos.…”

Jorge Juan and Antonio de Ulloa, A Voyage to South America (1748) on Lima

  • “The third, and last class of inhabitants are the Indians and Mestizos, but these are very small in proportion to the largeness of the city, and the multitudes of the second class. They are employed in agriculture, in making earthen ware, and brin ging all kinds of provisions to market, domestic services being performed by Negroes and Mulattos, either slaves or free, though generally by the former.”

Calidad in Cochabamba district, categories were manipulated: passing and drift; identity and community

Calidad in Antequera, a city in Southern New Spain, 1777

Parral mining district (Chihuahua): Calidad and Clase, 1788

  • Elite occupations (10%): husbandman (labrador 42), merchant (11), administrator (6), mercury dealer (5), hacendado (5), governor, vicar, royal judge, royal scribe, notary, etc.

  • Middling occupations (14%): mine boss (57), ranchero (28), ore dealer (7), priest (5), soldier (4), etc.

  • Plebians (76%): mine laborer (293), servant (56), wood cutter (45), amalgamator (38), pickman (37), … slave (8), errand boy (5) … lazy vagrant (1), etc.

Parral mining district (Chihuahua): Calidad and Clase, 1788 (1,066 males)

  • Calidad and inter-twingings of race and class

  • lower front: Indian-menial laborers

  • top back: Spanish merchants, officials

Elite’s view (graph rotated 180?)

  • Elite position is a hillock

  • Mass is a broad plain

  • Elite/plebeare separated by a narrow trench

Calidad in the household Indians were twice as likely to live as dependents

Calidad in the household Indians were twice as likely to live as dependents

Calidad and gender over the life course compare Indias with españolas

Calidad and gender over the life course compare Indias with españolas

Males over the life course compare indios with españoles

Males over the life course compare indios with españoles

Marriageways: Spain vs. Spanish America

  • Unions blessed by church and state vs. informal ones

    • community to religious marriage (Council of Trent, 1545-63)
    • barrangana (formal contract, Spain) vs. amancebados (casual word, colonies)

  • “natural” children: race and patrimonialism

    • illegitimacy
    • the double standard

  • The nuptial fair--gender and calidad

    • courtship: hurried, almost furtive
    • seduction: promise of marriage sealed with sex
    • parental consent vs. free will of children (upheld by church)
    • widows: ardent desire, poor prospects

Nuptial fair: calidad and gender Anterquera, 1693-99

  • How common were inter-racial marriages? Table: calidad of bride by calidad of groom bride Groom española mestiza mulata india

    Español 219 39 21 10

    Mestizo 30 48 33 17

    Mulato 16 30 132 36

    Indio 3 23 8 111

  • Homogamy (like-marry-like) was the rule: Ss =219, Ii=111, Ll=132, and even Mm=48

  • Heterogamy (out-marriage) was the exception

    • Least: Is=3, Si=10, Ls=16, Sl=21
    • More: Sm=39, Ms=30, Li=36, Ml=33, Lm=30, Im=23

Picture the nuptial fair, Antequera 1693-9:

  • Homogamy (like-marry-like) was the rule

    • peaks: Ss, Ii, Ll
    • knoll: Mm

  • Heterogamy was uncommon:

    • canyons: Is, Si, Ls, Sl
    • sunken plain: Im, mI, Ml, Lm

  • Heterogamy knolls

    • Li (but not Il), Sm, Ms

Antequera 1793-7: softening at the center; extremes continue strong

  • Ii and Ss pairings remain almost caste-like (Is and Si crossings remain unlikely)

  • Ll and Mm ruled by chance, along with mL and Lm

  • At the rate of change 1693/1793, calidad would no longer matter… in a couple of centuries!

    Ll

    Mm

    Lm

    Ml

Mexico City, 1727: Calidad strongly determined pairings

  • Homogamy was a strong rule for all groups (Ll and Mm as well as Ss and Ii)

  • Positive attraction between Indians and mulatos: Li, Il

  • Spanish out-marriage (S-, -s) was uncommon

  • Caste society remained strong

    Ll

    Mm

    Lm

    Ml

Nuptial fairs in the countryside differ from the cities

  • Calidad structures were more homogeneous

    • Indian villages had fewer españoles, mestizos, etc.
    • Haciendas and mines had more

  • Heterogamy was as uncommon--even less so--as in the cities.

  • Country folk married at younger ages and were more influenced by parents, kin and community

  • Royal Pragmatic on marriage, 1778

    • parental consent for minors
    • support for parental objections to unequal marriages
    • suits restricted to secular courts

  • Royal Pragmatic, 1803: written consent of parents; undermined oral promise; cont’d. in Republican codes

End

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