Castizo [lower-alpha 1] (fem. Castiza) was a racial category used in 18th-century Spanish America to refer to people who were three-quarters Spanish by descent and one-quarter Amerindian. The category of castizo was widely recognized by the 18th century in colonial Mexico [1] and was a standard category portrayed in eighteenth-century casta paintings.
In the taxonomic chart accompanying a work on casta paintings, castizo is given as "uncertain origin". It appears in 1543 with the meaning "class, condition, social position" (calidad, clase o condición). [2]
The term castizo applied to the offspring of a union of a Spaniard and a mestiza (offspring of a Spaniard and an indigenous woman); that is, someone who is of three-quarters Spanish and one-quarter Amerindian ancestry. During this era, various other terms (mestizo, cuarterón de indio, etc.) were also used.
Most scholars do not view the racial labels and hierarchical ordering as a rigid or official "system of castes," [3] since there was considerable fluidity in the designations. Individuals might be classified or identify themselves with different categories at different points in their lives. Sometimes different labels were used simultaneously in the same documentation.
Marriage licenses required a declaration of racial status for each partner. The category castizo "was widely recognized by the eighteenth century; castizos still did not appear in great numbers [in parish documentation] even though they were widely distributed throughout New Spain." [4] In colonial censuses, officials sought to keep track of certain categories, particularly where a person could claim to be a Spaniard. "In the [colonial Mexican] censuses of white/mestizo households, provisions were made to keep accurate records of castizos. The flexibility of having three categories (mestizo, castizo, and español) provided census takers a broader framework within which to capture differences of phenotype — presumably in hopes of closely regulating entry into the coveted español caste." Some were classified as castizos rather than españoles, but "their castizo status allowed them to maintain social elevation with the broader mestizo mainstream." [5]
In the 1778 census that was carried out in the territory of present-day Argentina during the mandate of King Carlos III of Spain, the castizos were counted as whites along with the criollos. In total there were 69,804 whites, which represented 37.54% of the population, this census was carried out by Viceroy Juan José de Vértiz y Salcedo. [6]
An eighteenth-century visitor to colonial Mexico published the following observation about race mixture between Spaniards and Amerindians:
"If the mixed-blood is the offspring of a Spaniard and an Indian, the stigma [of race mixture] disappears at the third step in descent because it is held as systematic that a Spaniard and an Indian produce a mestizo; a mestizo and a Spaniard, a castizo; and a castizo and a Spaniard, a Spaniard. [Note: This person is 7/8 Spanish by ancestry]. The admixture of Indian blood should not indeed be regarded as a blemish, since the provisions of law give the Indian all that he could wish for, and Philip II granted to mestizos the privilege of becoming priests. On this consideration is based the common estimation of descent from a union of Indian and European or creole Spaniard." [7]
In the early 21st century, the term castizo has also come to mean mixed-race people with light skin, in comparison to mulattos , pardos , cholos, moriscos and coyotes, who would be mixed-race people with darker skin. [8]
Terms like "Castizo", "Cholo" and "Mestizo" were once seen as derogatory or demeaning, however many people now use this word with a sense of pride for their heritage.
Mestizo is a person of mixed European and Indigenous non-European ancestry in the former Spanish Empire. In certain regions such as Latin America, it may also refer to people who are culturally European even though their ancestors are Indigenous. The term was used as an ethno-racial exonym for mixed-race castas that evolved during the Spanish Empire. It was a formal label for individuals in official documents, such as censuses, parish registers, Inquisition trials, and others. Priests and royal officials might have classified persons as mestizos, but individuals also used the term in self-identification. With the Bourbon reforms and the independence of the Americas, the caste system disappeared and terms like "mestizo" fell in popularity.
Mulatto is a racial classification that refers to people of mixed African and European ancestry only, beginning in the United States of America. Its use is considered to be outdated and offensive in some countries and languages, such as English with the exceptions of some Anglophone Caribbean or West Indian countries and Dutch, but it does not have the same associations in languages such as Spanish and Portuguese. Among Latin Americans in the US, for instance, the term can be a source of pride. A mulatta is a female mulatto.
Cholo is a loosely defined Spanish term that has had various meanings. Its origin is a somewhat derogatory term for people of mixed-blood heritage in the Spanish Empire in Latin America and its successor states as part of castas, the informal ranking of society by heritage. Cholo no longer necessarily refers only to ethnic heritage, and is not always meant negatively. Cholo can signify anything from its original sense as a person with one indigenous parent and one Mestizo parent, "gangster" in Mexico, an insult in some South American countries, or a "person who dresses in the manner of a certain subculture" in the United States as part of the cholo subculture.
In the colonial societies of the Americas and Australia, a quadroon or quarteron was a person with one-quarter African/Aboriginal and three-quarters European ancestry. Similar classifications were octoroon for one-eighth black and quintroon for one-sixteenth black.
Zambo or Sambu is a racial term historically used in the Spanish Empire to refer to people of mixed Amerindian and African ancestry. Occasionally in the 21st century, the term is used in the Americas to refer to persons who are of mixed African and Indigenous American ancestry.
Casta is a term which means "lineage" in Spanish and Portuguese and has historically been used as a racial and social identifier. In the context of the Spanish Empire in the Americas, the term also refers to a now-discredited 20th-century theoretical framework which postulated that colonial society operated under a hierarchical race-based "caste system". From the outset, colonial Spanish America resulted in widespread intermarriage: unions of Spaniards, indigenous people, and Africans. Basic mixed-race categories that appeared in official colonial documentation were mestizo, generally offspring of a Spaniard and an Indigenous person; and mulatto, offspring of a Spaniard and an African. A plethora of terms were used for people with mixed Spanish, Indigenous, and African ancestry in 18th-century casta paintings, but they are not known to have been widely used officially or unofficially in the Spanish Empire.
Torna atrás or tornatrás is a term used in 18th century Casta paintings to portray a mestizo or mixed-race person who showed phenotypic characteristics of only one of the "original races", such as European or Amerindian ancestry. The term was also used to describe an individual whose parentage was half white and half "albino".
In Hispanic America, criollo is a term used originally to describe people of full Spanish descent born in the viceroyalties. In different Latin American countries, the word has come to have different meanings, mostly referring to the local-born majority. Historically, they have been misportrayed as a social class in the hierarchy of the overseas colonies established by Spain beginning in the 16th century, especially in Hispanic America. They were locally-born people–almost always of Spanish ancestry, but also sometimes of other European ethnic backgrounds.
There is no single system of races or ethnicities that covers all modern Latin America, and usage of labels may vary substantially.
Afro-Mexicans, also known as Black Mexicans, are Mexicans who have heritage from sub-Saharan Africa and identify as such. As a single population, Afro-Mexicans include individuals descended from both free and enslaved Africans who arrived to Mexico during the colonial era, as well as post-independence migrants. This population includes Afro-descended people from neighboring English, French, and Spanish-speaking countries of the Caribbean and Central America, descendants of enslaved Africans in Mexico and those from the Deep South during Slavery in the United States, and to a lesser extent recent migrants directly from Africa. Today, there are localized communities in Mexico with significant although not predominant African ancestry. These are mostly concentrated in specific communities, including populations in the states of Oaxaca, Michoacán, Guerrero and Veracruz.
Juan Rodríguez Juárez was an artist in the Viceroyalty of New Spain. He was a member of a Spanish family long noted for their accomplishments in the world of painting. His brother was Nicolás Rodríguez Juárez (1667–1734), who was like himself, an established painter in New Spain. He was the son of Antonio Rodríguez (1636–91), a notable Spanish painter. His maternal grandfather José Juárez (1617–1661) and maternal great great grandfather Luis Juárez (1585–1639) were also notable painters in Spanish history and prominent in the Baroque era.
An unpublished manuscript entitled Ordenanzas del Baratillo de México was signed and dated in 1754 by Pedro Anselmo Chreslos Jache, likely a pseudonym for an educated Spaniard. It is a satirical piece of eighteenth-century colonial literature written in New Spain, which sought to offer an alternative view of life in colonial Spanish America.
In Mexico, the term mestizo refers to an identity of those of mixed European and Indigenous Mexican descent. Some believe it can be defined by criteria ranging from ideological and cultural to self-identification, genetic ancestry, or physical appearance. According to these criteria, estimates of the number of mestizos in Mexico vary from about 40 percent of the population to over 90% who do not belong to the country's culturally indigenous minorities. A survey done by Latinobarometro in 2018 found that around 58% of Mexicans self-identify as mestizos when asked about their race, and another survey by Cohesión Social found that over 70% of Mexicans identified as mixed-race. Some genetic studies have claimed that mestizos make up over 93% of Mexico's present-day population, but this is disputed, with many Mexicans, including those of mixed ancestry, identifying more with static racial labels such as "white" or "indigenous" rather than mestizo, and a large number simply identifying as "Mexican," rejecting racialized labels.
In the former Portuguese and Spanish colonies in the Americas, pardos are triracial descendants of Europeans, Indigenous Americans and Africans.
José de Páez (1720–1790) was a Mexican painter of religious images, a history painting of the destruction of Mission Santa Cruz de San Sabá in Texas, and a set of casta paintings in the 18th century. He was of Baltazar de Páez, José is identified student of Nicolás Enríquez. He married Rosalía Caballero in 1753.
Coyote is a colonial Spanish American racial term for a mixed-race person casta that usually refers to a person born of parents, one of whom a Mestizo and the other indigenous (indio).
Lobo is a racial category for a mixed-race person used in Mexican paintings illustrating the caste (casta) system in 17th- and 18th-century Spanish America.
Ignacio María Barreda was an eighteenth-century painter from New Spain, self-identified as university graduate with a Bachiller in philosophy. Mexican art historian Manuel Toussaint noted him for his portraits, including two of elite women, reproduced in his publication, and others of elite religious men. Toussaint believed he might be the official painter for the Seminario de San Camila, His 1777 single-canvas casta painting is an exemplar of this eighteenth-century genre of secular art. It is similar in some ways to the 1750 single-canvas painting by Luis de Mena, which also includes outdoor scenes near Mexico City, particularly the Paseo de Ixtacalco.
José Joaquín Magón was a late eighteenth-century Mexican painter from Puebla de los Angeles.
Chino was a casta term used in colonial Mexico to refer to people of mixed ancestry. In the eighteenth century, individuals of mixed Amerindian and African ancestry came to be called chinos.