Between Casta and Raza: the example of colonial Mexico

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Description/Abstract

Colonial Latin American individuals were legally and socially classified using a number of different terms that today we think of as ›racial‹. During the initial centuries of colonial rule, casta (caste) was among the most prominent of those terms. This chapter analyzes its significance from the late sixteenth to the late seventeenth centuries, a period during which the ›caste system‹ (sistema de castas) was most stable and widely used. Above all the chapter is concerned with the meaning of casta in context, and with the ways in which colonial subjects and colonial officials ›performed‹ it. Focusing principally on Mexico, the chapter concludes with thoughts as to how casta remains a figurative model for contemporary notions of raza (race).