Social Structure of Colonial Latin America [History notes]

Social Structure of Latin America

• After Spain cemented its influence in Spanish America, it began to set up New Spain’s social structure
  • At the beginning, there was a master-slave relationship between landowners and the native inhabitants
  • Because the native inhabitants were considered to be inferior by Spaniards and thus extremely low on the social ladder, they were treated extremely poorly
  • Theoretically, since native American society itself was stratified, it was possible for individual native American individuals (caciques) to be wealthy and powerful, since the ‘republic’ of native Americans functioned beside that of the Spaniards
  • Race, occupation and religion were the formal criteria that determined an individual’s social status
  • As the Spanish colonies expanded, a caste system developed
    • On the top level, Spaniards born in Spain (peninsulares or gachupines) held the highest posts in government and clergy, and came from titled families
    • On the second level came those born in Latin America of Spanish parents (criollos)
      • Initially they rarely occupied powerful positions, they did manage to become landowners and merchants
      • They usually used slaves so they did not have to do any labour-intensive task
      • 95% of the whites in Spanish colonies were in this class
      • However, as time passed and their numbers grew, they owned haciendas (landed estates) with hundreds of peasants, factories, mines, and other jobs in the commercial sector
      • Eventually they began competing fiercely for the jobs of the peninsulares—viceroy, archbishop, audiencia minister
      • In the early 19^th century, many criollos resisted independence movements in Latin America, instead choosing to preserve their ties to Spain, which highlighted their conservative nature
• On the third level came those born in Mexico of mixed heritage (mestizos)
  • It was a rapidly growing socioeconomic class, but many Spaniards considered them to be inferior because they were not pure-blood
  • Thus, they remained poor and uneducated for many generations
  • The Laws of the Indies assigned equality between mestizos and whites, but certain colonial guilds and schools still excluded mestizos
  • If they lived in native American communities and wore native dress, they were considered to be native Americans, but if they lived in towns and wore Spanish clothing, they were considered to be Spanish
• On the fourth level were the native inhabitants of Spanish lands
  • They were considered wards of the Crown and Church, which meant that legal authorities, the clergy and the estate owner (ecnomenderos) were theoretically responsible for their well-being
  • However, native Americans were not treated as human beings, so many of them were worked to death, or died from disease
  • Enslavement of native Americans was banned in the mid-16^th century by New Spain’s 2^nd viceroy, Luis de Velasco, though it does not appear that everybody followed this decree
• Technically African slaves were on the last level
  • Millions of native Americans died due to maltreatment or disease, so there was a labour shortage
  • They were difficult to import, but they were better at surviving hard labour and horrible work environments
  • If they were hard workers, they could earn enough money to escape slavery
• In later years, racial subgroups were created that do not really fall into any of the above categories; one could classify them as an intermediate stage between mixed heritage people and native Americans
  • They include mulattos (Spanish-African), castizos (Spanish-Mestizo), zambos (Indian-African), Filipinos, Chinese and Europeans of other nationalities
  • The caste system functioned fairly well because native American society was also hierarchical, and apparently many native Americans in Latin America were relatively submissive
    • There were three types of native Americans, each with a different type of society
      • Sedentary tribes (ones that stayed in one location for an extended period of time and practiced agriculture) shared with the Europeans not only an agricultural base and dense, quite concentrated populations but also territorial states, hereditary rulers, state religions with priesthoods, specialized craft groups, social classes including a nobility distinct from commoners, and regularized taxes or tributes
        • Similar enough to European small principalities, counties, or provinces to be able to function within a European framework
        • The household held and worked land and paid taxes. In both Spanish and native American cultures, women were in some ways subordinate to men, but in both cultures they could hold and bequeath personal and real property, and carry out various kinds of economic transactions, retaining many rights within marriage. In the matter of marriage alliances, crucial to the organization of both societies, the woman, her property and her rank were as important as the man and his.
        • Evidently, sedentary tribes were extremely vulnerable to European assimilation
    • In semi-sedentary tribes (ones that stayed in one location for a short amount of time and did practiced little or no agriculture), most characteristics of sedentary tribes were missing
      • Lacked social classes, depended on gender and age only for primary social distinctions, which prevented Europeans from gaining a potential foothold
    • In non-sedentary tribes, even more characteristics were missing; this allowed them to resist European invasion