boyer richard - negotiating calidad

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Negotiating Calidad: The Everyday Struggle for Status in MexicoAuthor(s): Richard BoyerSource: Historical Archaeology, Vol. 31, No. 1, Diversity and Social Identity in ColonialSpanish America: Native American, African, and Hispanic Communities during the MiddlePeriod (1997), pp. 64-73

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64

HISTORICAL

ARCHAEOLOGY,

VOLUME

31

(1)

RICHARD

BOYER

Negotiating

alidad:

The

Everyday

Struggle

for

tatus

in

Mexico

Introduction

The

historical

literature

mainly

on

17th-century

Mexico

has

stressed

an

apparent

regularity

of

life

and

institutional routines

as

backdrop

for

discussions

of the

period (Boyer

1977:457^59).

Seldom,

however,

have

scholars

noticed this

as

a

rhetorical

device.

Given

the

colonial

period,

the 17th

century

stands

in

the

middle,

bracketed

on one side by invasion, conquest, and devasta

tion

and

on

the other

by

18th-century

structural

changes

in

production,

commerce,

administration,

and

geopolitics.

In

relative

terms,

therefore,

the

17th

century,

if

not

static,

looks

like

a

long

duree of

slow

incremental

change,

and

mostly

of

orderly,

predictable

existence.

And

what could be

more

stable

in

this

middle

period

than the

well-entrenched

regimen

de

castas,

an

apparent

system

within which

people

were

graded hierarchically by

racial

or

ethnic criteria?

Over

time,

most

scholars

agree,

the basis for

status

in

Mexico shifted

from

caste

to

class.

Thus,

by

ca.

1800,

social

structure

seems more

evidently

linked

to

the solid

footing

of economic

determinism.

Yet,

in

the rush

to

get

to

that solid

ground,

the

preceding period

has sometimes been

skipped

over as mere

pre

cursor

to

the

more

rational

system

of social

or

dering,

or,

because the

ordering categories

were

applied

in

unpredictable

ways,

as an

irrational

system of racial determinism, but one difficult to

decipher.

This

essay

assumes

the

continuing

need

to

think

about

caste,

and nonclass

criteria,

as ma

jor

determinants of

identity

and

status

in

the

period

before 1800. It views the

use

of

caste

terms,

however,

as

situational

more

than

sys

temic. Its

starting point

is the

now

standard

postmodern

view

that

historical

actors

are con

structs

rather than

essences.

They placed

them

selves and others within a range of categories,

not

a

single

one.

In

doing

this

they

were

not

trying

to

sketch

reality

accurately

but

were

staking

out

place

relative

to

others. If

catego

ries

deriving

from

class

and

caste

remain

useful

for

certain

purposes?most

obviously

to

charac

terize

social

organization

in

broad

terms?they

hide much as well.

Who-I-am

and

who-you-are

came

wrapped

in

a

standard

vocabulary

of

strati

fication,

but

one

must not

forget

they

were

rela

tive

to

the

beholder.

In

this

way,

one's defini

tion

of

another

was

always

a

kind

of

self-defi

nition.

Self,

in

terms

of

the

other,

should

there

fore

be viewed

as

negotiated,

an

impromptu,

perhaps

not

even

fully

conscious,

stocktaking

of

one's

status

using

the

shorthand

of

racial

labels.

These,

more

broadly

as

indicators

of

calidad,

pulled together a composite judgment having to

do

with

lineage,

wealth,

honor,

and

manliness?

or

for

women,

virtuousness

associated

with

se

clusion

and

controlled

sexuality?work,

and

pa

tronage

links.

Although

historians have known

this for

a

long

time,

this

article

stresses

it in

the

strongest

terms

for

our

purposes

here:

individuals,

to

a

greater

degree

than

normally

assumed,

arranged

their

own

identities. How

they

did

so

is

diffi

cult

to

document,

but

hints of it

may

be inferred

from

a

close

reading

of

some

archival records

that

document

commonplace exchanges

and in

teractions

in

colonial

Mexico.

In

particular,

this

essay

relies

on

bigamy

files

compiled by

the

Holy

Office of the

Inquisition.

In

them,

one

may

view

standard

legal

and

customary

vocabu

lary

used

to

define

or

contest

definitions of

people,

as more a

discursive

resource

than

re

flective

of

a

self-evident

structure

of

society.

Some references

to

the

historical

literature

begin

this essay which then proceeds with a discussion

of

categorizing

processes

taken

from

Inquisition

records of

Mexico's middle

period.

Terminology

and the

Historians:

System

or

Discourse?

But first the discursive

resources.

As is well

known,

social

identity

in colonial

Mexico

came

as a

composite judgment.

It drew

on

legal

(tributaryversus non-tributary?in effect a plebe

Historical

Archaeology,

1997,

31(l):64-72.

Permission

to

reprint required.

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NEGOTIATING

CALIDAD:

THE EVERYDAY

STRUGGLE

FOR STATUS

IN

MEXICO

65

ian-noble

distinction

based

on

who

was

liable

for

a

head

tax),

cultural

(Hispanic

versus

Indian),

economic

(work,

wealth,

property),

and

physical

or

racial

distinctions

(regimen

de

castas)

as

they

could

be

used

to

categorize people

and,

more

importantly

for our

purposes,

to

categorize

themselves

and their

acquaintances

(Cook

and

Borah

1971-1979,

2:188;

Chance

and

Taylor

1977:460).

As racial

terms

(e.

g.,

espanol,

mes

tizo,

mulato,

indio)

placed

people,

therefore,

they

stood

for

more

than

race.

In

this

they

were a

kind of inclusive

impression

reflecting

one's

reputation

as a

whole,

or

one's

calidad

(McCaa

1984:477).

Nuances

of such

labeling

are

there

fore

all

the

more

difficult

to

decipher

now.

Just

as the sum of a small number can be the prod

uct

of

many

different combinations of

numbers,

so

variables

deciding

calidad

came

together

in

different combinations

to

equal,

for

example,

the

judgment

mulato. Should students therefore de

spair

of

sorting

out

what

they

meant?

No,

but

it

should be

kept

in mind

that labels varied with

time,

place,

and circumstance which

means

that

the

process

of

labeling

mattered

as

much

as

the

label

itself.

Plebeians

and

others in

colonial

society

were

making complex

and

impromptu

placements

of each

other,

not

as

disinterested

observers,

but

to

flatter

patrons

and diminish ri

vals. This

was

an

ordinary

part

of

daily

life,

and the

labels

the

currency

of

an

everyday

Hob

besian

discourse of

actors

jockeying

for

position

in the

social

struggle.

Because

these

judgments

are

difficult

to

sort

out

now,

scholars have

reduced

them

to

a

sys

tem -concentrating

on

types

rather than

nuance,

variation,

and

apparent

contradiction

in

usage.

Partly this reflects the nature of the sources tra

ditionally

used

to

study

stratification:

parish

registers

and

census

listings.

In

a

study

based

on

the

latter,

for

example,

Patricia

Seed

(1982:573)

speaks

of

the five

basic

[emphasis

added]

terms

in

use

in

colonial

Mexico

by

the

middle

of

the

eigteenth

century.

.[:]

Spanish,

Black,

Indian,

mestizo,

and

mulatto.

Her

catego

ries

seem

to

follow

the

respected

reductionism

of

Gonzalo

Aguirre

Beltran

who

divided

theMexi

can

population

into

the three

unmixed groups

of

European,

African,

and

Indian,

and the three

dominant

cultural/phenotypic

combinations of

Euro-,

Afro-,

and

Indo-mestizo

(Aguirre

Beltran

1946:153-196, 270-271;

Cook and Borah 1971

1979:188-189).

Aguirre

glosses

his

biological

categories

with what

he

calls

a

cultural

observa

tion,

saying

that Afro- and Indo-me stizos were

united

(unidos)

by

a common

culture under

the

term castas

.

He

therefore

posits

an

overlap

of

function and

phenotype.

If

castas

served

as

mostly

unskilled workers

(obreros),

Euro-mesti

zos

served

as

skilled artisans who

escaped

casta

identification

and,

to

varying degrees,

shaded

into the white

strata

of

Europeans.

The

conflation

of

racial and

functional

categories

thus

subsumes racial within

functional racial

catego

ries. It is almost a class analysis under the ru

bric

of

culture,

the latter

not

concerned with lan

guage,

ethnic

consciousness, tradition,

or

organiz

ing

beliefs,

but with the

castas'

permanent

as

cription

as

an

underclass with reference

to

white

society.

However

well-taken

these

points,

they

under

state

the

nature

of

status

and

identity

as a con

struct

by

an

essentialist

and,

except

for Euro

mestizos,

static

ordering

that blocks

out

the

ne

gotiability

of

status.

Sherburne

F.

Cook and

Woodrow Borah

(1971-1979, 2:189-190)

recog

nized

the

instability

of

racial

categories-warning

readers that

racial

designations

mean

little

more

than

ranges

of

intergrading types, -. predominant

but

not

rigidly

distinct racial

character -even

as

they

reified them

into main

types

as

they

con

structed

aggregate

population profiles.

The

point

matters

because

the

terms

constitute

reality

as

much

as

they

reflect it. The

assigning

of

them,

as

noted

above,

came

as a

political

rather than

a

descriptive

process.

Nevertheless

historians

have been

willing

to

claim,

for

example,

that

men

and

women

about

to

marry

in

18th-century

Leon,

frequently

were

mistaken

about each

other's

racial

label,

although

the errors

show

a

pattern

of coalescence in

the

categories

Indian

and

mulatto

(Brading

and

Wu

1973:9).

In

fact

the

pattern

may

show

something

quite

different:

that

racial

categories

were

assigned

not

dispas

sionately

to

describe

people

but

politically

to

place

them.







66

HISTORICAL

ARCHAEOLOGY,

VOLUME 31

(1)

Another

historian,

observing

that

racial

catego

ries

did

not

mean

what

they

literally

said,

called

them

irrational

(Carmagnani

1972:426,

445).

He

set

out,

therefore,

to

extract

[.

.

.]

the

se

mantic

and

cultural content

hidden

behind

the

terms and concluded that the terms espanol and

mestizo

refer

to

a

social

and

economic

reality

rather

than

one

of

ethnicity

or

color ;

that

mulato

or

negro

classifies

mostly

color;

and

that

indio

mainly

points

to

culture. His

work

sug

gests

that in

some

aspects

calidad

may

have

determined

caste

categories

in

a

differentiating

but

somewhat

patterned

way.

But if

true,

one

still

wonders

why,

how,

by

whom,

and for

how

long.

The age of complex criteria for determining

stratification,

let

us

remember,

was

the

17th

cen

tury

or,

more

loosely,

the

middle

period.

Eco

nomically

determined

by

the

rise of

capitalism,

criteria

for

status

by

the late

18th

century

be

came

more

straightforwardly

conomic

as

society

became

one

of

classes rather

than

castes.

Chance and

Taylor

(1977:485-486)

say

that

this

had

clearly

passed

the

'incipient'

stage

by

1792.

Thus

they

differ

with

Lyle

McAlister

on

the extent and timing of class stratification by

the late

18th

century.

McAlister

(1963:362-363)

thought

economic classes

a

merely

incipient

situation

thatwould

reach

a more

fully

realized

form

after

the

colonial

period

(author's

empha

sis).

Studies of

stratification

acknowledge

to

some

degree

an

unresolved

problem:

the

degree

to

which

outside

observer

point-of-view,

to

use

McAlister's

(1963:362)

term,

should

override

the

way

people

of

the time

conceived

of

and

defined

their

own

and

others' role

and status.

Historians,

as

noted

above,

judged

the

terms

mistaken

or

irrational

and considered

the

categories

ambiguous

and

unstable.

Yet

histori

ans

have

to

use

whatever

sources

have survived

as

best

they

can.

And

to

do

this

they

have

to

aggregate

records

of

casta

labels

as

if

they

con

stituted

a

system

when,

as

Chance and

Taylor

(1977:464)

remind

us

in their

study

of

a

late

18th-century

city,

there

was no

one

'correct'

folk model of

the

social structure

of

Antequera,

neither

was

there

always

one

correct

racial

iden

tity

for

many

of

its

inhabitants.

The

rest

of

this

essay

will

be concerned

with

reputational,

subjective

aspects

of social

identity.

In

this

way

the

looseness

of

the

categories,

together

with

the

concern

that

they

were

of

lim

ited

value

for

structural

analysis,

can

be

set

aside

in

order

to

try

to

understand what

they

meant

as

a

contemporary

reality.

.

.in

the

con

temporary

mind

(McAlister

1963:356).

This

bypasses

the

debate

about

structures

and,

in

this

brief

discussion,

does

not

try

to

fix

with

any

particular

precision

which,

and

in

what

propor

tions, extra ethno-racial factors informed the cat

egories

in

given

times

and

places.

That

may

be

unknowable. One

can,

however,

focus

on

the

nomenclature

as

people

used it in

the street

to

place

themselves and

to

contest

their

placements

by

others.

Those

usages

can

provide

a

number

of

glosses

on

the

general

problem

of

identity

as

it

relates

to

vocabularies

of

stratification.

It

raises

the

possibility

that

so-called loose

and

apparently

contradictory

uses

of

the

categories

make

political

if not

descriptive

sense as

people

placed

each

other

in

situations

of

everyday

life.

Racial

Terms

as a

Discursive

Resource

Racial,

ascriptive

vocabulary,

like

all

language,

could

not

be

controlled

from

above. At

one

level,

it

can

be

viewed

as an

elite-defined

scheme

to

systematize

subordination.

And

they

must

have

thought

it

worked,

for the

lower

or

ders

adopted

the

vocabulary,

but

not

passively.

In

the hands

of

ordinary

people,

the

language

of

stratification

provided

a

set

of

categories

to

ma

nipulate

(Chance

and

Taylor

1979:437).

The

very

proliferation

of

caste

designations

over

time

points

to

this

process,

in

part,

perhaps,

reflecting

a

mentality

able

to

live with

a

diverse

and

un

wieldy

order of the

world

(Morse

1964:134),

but

also,

in

our

terms,

the

result of

ordinary

people

in

everyday

life

pushing, expanding,

and







NEGOTIATINGCALIDAD: THE EVERYDAY

STRUGGLE FOR STATUS

IN

MEXICO

67

testing

the

categories

by

grading

themselves

up

and others down. In

this,

they

reordered their

world

as

much

as

conformed

to

it.

New

Spain's vocabulary

of

caste

begins

with

a

basic

separation

of

Indian and

Hispanic.

The

formerwere

subject

to tribute and under

special

jurisdiction.

The

latter,

at

first

Spaniards

and

increasingly

one or

another

racial

combinations,

were

gente

de

razon,

fully

accountable for their

orthodoxy

and behavior

under

Spanish

law.

As

African

slaves

joined

with the

two

other

racial

stocks,

the

Afro-mestizo

emerged,

usually

called

mulato

even

though

the

proportion

of

African

stock in

individuals

might

be small.

As free

persons,

mulatos and blacks

were

by

definition

scoundrels and vagabonds, the cancer of New

Spain ;

as

slaves,

they

were

little

more

than

beasts of burden

(Aguirre

Beltran

1946:173).

Chance

and

Taylor

(1977:463),

for

example,

cite

colloquial

examples

of

language

that

equate

mulato

with inferior tribute

payer

or a

danger

ous,

provocative

person.

Mulato

slaves,

as

opposed

to

black

slaves,

were

tarnished with

the

same

reputation

for

troublemaking,

partly,

per

haps,

because

more

easily

than

blacks

they

could

run

away,

and

as

ladinos

(fluent

in

Spanish,

culturally

adept)

blend

in

with

a

diverse

plebe

ian

population.

For

these

reasons

mulatos

could

be

purchased

at

prices

20-25

percent

lower

on

the Mexican

slave

market

than

blacks

(Valdes

1987:177-178).

That blacks

were

presumed

to

be

more

docile

and less

troublesome

than

mulatos

( beasts

of

burden

rather

than

tricky

scoundrels ),

helps

to

explain

a

brief comment

Francisco

de

Aguilar

made

about

Petronila Ruiz

in

a

letter of

1581.

So

mistreated

as a

house

servant (he said) that she was serving like a

black,

she has

therefore

begged

him

to

take

her

away

(Archive

General

de la

Nation,

Inquisition

[AGNI]

1581).

The comment

presumes

that

because

she

was

not

black,

the

beast-of-burden

treatment

was

inappropriate, unjust,

and

reason

to

run

away.

In contrast

to

Afro-mestizos,

Euro-mestizos

(combinations

of

European plus

Indian,

known

simply

as

mestizos)

were

not

infamous

by

defi

nition.

They

could

emphasize

their

European

side

by

dressing,

speaking,

and

behaving

as

Spaniards,

as

in

varying degrees they

did.

And

Indians,

like

mestizos,

could

also sometimes ben

efit from

their classification

to

take

refuge

under

the umbrella of

their

special jurisdiction

in colo

nial

law. Blacks

or

mulatos,

on

the

other

hand,

never benefited from their

categorization.

But within

the

categories

based

on

African

descent

they

could

at

lest

present

themselves

as

free

rather than

slave,

as

did

so

many runaway

slaves.

On

running

away

from

his

master

early

in the

18th

century,

for

example,

a

black

slave

named

Juan Lorenzo

immediately began

to

pass

as a

free mulatoT As

a

slave

he had been

married

to

a

slave;

as a

free

man,

he

married

an

Indian.

Changing

his

civil

status

also

advanced

his calidad (AGNI 1707). As a broad tendency,

the

following

generalization

may

be

proposed:

Afro-mestizos

had

every

reason

to

pass

as

Euro

mestizos

and

Euro-mestizos

to

draw

ever

closer

to

full

European

status.

The

statement

assumes

that

mulatos retained little

of

African,

and

mes

tizos,

little

of

Indian,

culture.

Instead,

interme

diate

groups

tended

to

integrate

ever

more

tightly

into the

Hispanic

world,

hierarchically

graded

into

subgroups

but

not

mainly

according

to

a

logic

of

ethnic

identification.

(Mestizos

who

were

reabsorbed

into the

Indian

population

are

diffi

cult

to

track;

in

effect

they

no

longer

were

mes

tizos

but

Indians. )

Aboriginal

peoples,

who

had the

best

chance

to

retain

an

ethnic

identifi

cation,

sometimes

tried

to

pass

as

mestizos

and

sometimes did

not.

That

they

often

did

not,

reflects

the

presence

of

the

cultural

resources

of

a

sizable

population

base,

in

spite

of

the

ravages

of

epidemic

disease,

in

communities,

towns,

and

the

barrios

of

large

cities where

they

spoke

their

own languages and adhered to their customs.

They

also

had

an

opportunistic

incentive

to

iden

tify

themselves

as

Indians:

their

special

status

under

Spanish

law.

From

Slave

to

Free

A

fundamental

aspect

of

calidad

was

whether

one

was

slave

or

free.

About

1725,

Juan

Bautista

Aleman,

slender,

almost

black,

with

tightly waved black hair (de pasa apretada),

more

Negro

than

mulato,

ran

away

from

his







68

HISTORICAL

ARCHAEOLOGY,

VOLUME

31

(1)

Dominican

masters

in

Guatemala

(AGNI 1746).

To

the

Inquisitors

he testified that in his 10

years

as a

fugitive

he

always

has

passed

as a

free man. In

fact,

he settled

in

the

town

of

San Christobal

Tacotalpan

(in

the district of

Vera

Cruz)

and,

using

the alias

Alegria,

married

Monica de la

Cruz,

a

free

mulata,

and

fathered

a

daughter.

A

self-confessed

slave, therefore,

constructed

himself

as

free and lived

as

if he

were.

Only

after

about

two

years,

because

a

paisano

from

Guatemala

saw

him married and

accused

him of

bigamy,

did

Juan abandon

Monica.

At about

age

20,

Sebastian

de

Moxica,

a

slave

born about

1665,

made the transition

to

free

mulato as provided for by his master's will

(AGNI

1702).

When Sebastian

gave

his

gene

alogy

to

the

Inquisitors

in

1702

he knew

a

few

facts about his deceased

Spanish

father,

that his

name was

Diego

de

Castaneda,

native of the

mountains of

Spain,

formerly

a

merchant

in

Sayula

(probably

with

a

small

retail

store).

Yet,

he had

no

actual

contact

with his father's side of

the

family.

His mother and

grandmother

were

both slaves

of

Domingo

Moxica,

a

merchant

in

the

pueblo

of

Cocula

(in

the

jurisdiction

of

Sayula,

now

south

central

Jalisco).

But

some

gradations

may

be noted

within this

family:

Sebastian

termed

his

grandmother

a

bozal

(with

out

doubt

to

designate

that she had been

born

in

Africa),

his mother

a

mulata,

and his

uncle

(his

mother's

brother)

a

black

(casta

negro).

His

mother and uncle

therefore,

may

have been fa

thered

by

two

different

men?one

black,

the

other

white

or

mulato.

Or,

other determinants

of

calidad,

unavailable

to

the

uncle,

may

have

graded his mother up. Sebastian himself had

been

removed

further

from his

African forebears

with

a

Spanish

father.

The

shift from slave

to

free

was

both

an

event

and

a

process,

for free blacks

had

to

act

the

part

as

well

as

make the

claim.

Substantively they

had

to

overcome

their

vileness,

without

a

doubt

the dominant

perception

of them

embed

ded

in

hispanic

culture.

Dennis N.

Valdes

(1987:193), summarizing

five

similar

cases

of

runaway slaves, observes that they seldom

achieved

significant

upward

mobility

because

they

almost

invariably

assumed the

same

jobs

that

they

had

performed

as

slaves.

Yet

doing

the

same

job

as a

slave

or a

free

person

could

make

considerable difference

in

status,

dignity,

and

quality

of life.

How else

can one

explain why

so

many

slaves

ran

away?

A

free

person

could

quit

one

job

and

move

to

another,

look for

a

lenient

em

ployer

or an

openhanded

patron,

more

easily

draw

support

from

a

community

of

plebeians,

and

perhaps

overcome

vileness. None of

this

presumes

it

common

that

escaped

slaves

made

more

than minor

jumps

within

the

categories

of

social stratification.

Most would

have

shunned

more ambitious aspirations. For one thing, in

flating

their

calidad,

which

usually

meant

claim

ing

precedence

over

peers,

would have

called

attention

to

themselves

by

creating

friction,

in

vited others

to contest

their

claims,

and

set

in

motion

a

self-policing

mechanism

over

status

(Valdes

1987:193).

An

escaped

slave

passing

as

a

free

mulato risked

an

unmasking

by

a

rival.

Multiple

Labels,

One

Person

As Chance

and

Taylor

(1977:465)

noted,

indi

viduals

commonly enough

shifted labels

to

gain

advantage.

A conventional

moment

for such

shifts

came

at

marriage

when the

calidades

of

prospective

spouses

were

often

made

to

corre

spond.

But

this is

only

one

kind of

event,

a

formal occasion

that left

a

documentary

trail.

It

is

important

to

remember

that countless

informal

incidents

also took

place

when labels

were

as

signed with no particular polemical intent.

These

nevertheless

amounted

to

on-the-spot

per

ceptions

that

in

some

way

suited

the situation

and

the

purposes

of

a

labeler.

In

1617,

for

ex

ample,

Christobal

de

Toro,

formerly

of Seville

but

in the

Indies since

about

1600,

referred

to

his

compatriot

Christobal

de

Castroverde

in the

following

way:

a mulato

although

white,

and

of

good

body,

round

face,

and

light

beard

(AGNI

1616).

The

although

here

is crucial.

It

signals that the categorization of Christobal as







NEGOTIATING

CALIDAD:

THE EVERYDAYSTRUGGLE

FOR STATUS

IN

MEXICO

69

mulato,

a

reference

to

his

calidad,

overrides

his

phenotype.

Reality

and

appearance,

in other

word,

did

not

coincide.

This

glossing

of

categories

happened

all the

time,

as a

few

examples

will illustrate.

In

1615,

Anton Martinez described Juan Luis as a

mulato,

slender

and

of

good

body,

and

not

very

mulato,

[with]

aquiline

face

(AGNI

1616).

In

1707,

a

mestizo

named

Teresa de la Cruz

labeled

her

husband Juan

Lorenzo

del Castillo

as

lobo

in

caste,

tending

more

to

mulato

than

to

mes

tizo

(AGNI

1707).

Little

is

at

stake

in

these

two

examples

beyond shading

the

first Juan

to

ward

a

more

European

status

and

clarifying

the

second Juan's

intermediate

category

lobo

toward

mulato-ness. Beyond that, in the second case,

the

description

notes

Juan's

shortness,

large

black

eyes,

straight

hair,

and the fact

that he has

six

fingers

on one

hand.

In another

example,

Matias

Martinez de

Torres,

a

Spanish

immigrant

who in 1663 had

been

in

New

Spain

for three

years,

placed

Sebastian

de

Loaysa

as

a mulato

bianco,

very

ladino

(AGNI

1663).

Here white

as a

gloss

on

the

category

mulato,

seems

to

come

from the

cultural

judgment

very

ladino ?meaning,

in

rough

terms,

fully integrated

into

hispanic

soci

ety.

Sebastian's

wife,

Michaela

de

San

Joseph,

was

classified

as a

mulata

with the additional

notation that

she had been

a

slave but

was now

free. She referred

to

three

of

her

four

children,

apparently

all fathered

by

Sebastian,

in racial

terms: two

as

mulatos and the other

as

lobo

(the

last

usually

implying

an

Indian

component).

Here,

however,

the labels

surely

characterize

appearance

only,

differentiating

her lobo

from

her mulatos, perhaps, by his straighthair or skin

tone.

Like

Michaela,

Sebastian's second

wife,

Tomasa,

also

bordered

on

two caste

categories.

In

1671,

when she first

appeared

before

the

Holy

Office,

the

court

identified

her

as a

mes

tiza, but,

as

elaborated

by

the

notary,

she is

a

woman

who

goes

about

dressed

as a

mestiza

The

classification

thus

derives from

dress,

an

indication that

cultural rather than

phenotypic

criteria

dominate the

assigning

of

it. Tomasa

was

able

to

push

her

cultural

persona

even

fur

ther

when

she married Sebastian

in

1659,

for

the

officiating priest

entered her

into the

register

as

Spaniard,

single,

natural

daughter

of

Diego

de

Orduna.

From such

designations,

however

briefly

noted,

it is possible to tease out some clues to identity.

On

the

whole,

however,

they

remain

too

frag

mentary

to

yield

very

solid

judgments

without

the

cross-referencing

of situations and

other

in

formation

on

the

perceiver

and the

perceived.

Their

flat matter-of-factness

may

minimize the

extreme

exaggeration

of

designations

made

in

anger

and

mainly

with

hostile

intent,

but

they

nevertheless

are

political

in the

sense

that

cat

egorizing

people

in

a

hierarchical

arrangement

was always about worth and precedence. One

would stand

on

firmer

ground

methodologically

to

examine instances of the

use

of

terminology

when

they

can

be

placed

in

more

detailed

con

texts

and have

a

dialogic

dimension

showing

the

contestation

as

well

as

the

assigning

of labels.

As

an

example,

one

may

consider the

case

of

Juan Gutierrez de

Estrada,

a

Spaniard

who

in

1600

said that the calidad of his wife Ines

had

been falsified when he

was

about

to

marry

her

(AGNI

1600).

Before the

marriage,

he

com

plained, they

told him she was a

castiza,

but

she is

only

a

mulata. The

former,

implying

Spanish-Indian

descent

in

a

ration

of three

to

one,

made

Ines

nearly

a

Spaniard.

So

why,

pre

suming

that

Juan

had observed Ines and her

demeanor,

had he failed

to

judge

for himself

whether she

was a

castiza

or

a

mulatal

Most

likely

because

Juan

and Ines

were

both

serving

a

common

master

who

patronized

and

encour

aged

the match. The

master,

to

solidify

his

household, undoubtedly inflated Ines's calidad to

approximate

Juan's.

Juan,

a

peninsular Spaniard

but

a

no-account

and

marginal figure

who had

worked

only

as a

sailor and

soldier,

accepted

this fiction in

anticipation

of

receiving

other

benefits

later.

This situation

made

for

a

rough

parity,

but

an

unstable

one

dependent

on

patron

age.

When

Juan determined the latter

too

little,

he

cast

Ines

as a

mulata

to

show that his worth

had

been

depreciated by

his wife's low

calidad.

With the

marriage

confirmed

as

beneath

him,

Juan effected

a

self-divorce

by

deserting

Ines.







70

HISTORICAL

ARCHAEOLOGY,

VOLUME

31

(1)

Juan

restored his

identity

fully

to

Spaniard

by

discarding

a

mulato

wife;

Marcos

Calderon

stretched his

to

Spaniard

by

denying

his

place

ment

as

mestizo

(AGNI

1751).

Marcos

can

be

seen

in

1751

(pushing

the

middle

period

here

to the

limit)

presenting

himself as a

Spaniard

when he

was

arrested

and

put

in

the

public

jail

of

Merida

as

a

suspected

bigamist.

Yet this

assessment

had

earlier

been

challenged.

An in

strumental

witness

to

Marcos's

second

marriage,

don

Francisco

Lopez

Sarmiento,

described

Marcos

as a

man of

average

height,

broad

shouldered,

with the

coloration

of

a

mestizo,

black hair like

an

Indian,

a narrow

face,

about

40,

and

I

don't

take him

for

a

Spaniard.

The

statement deflates Marcos more emphatically

than it

might

at

first

appear,

associating

him

both with Indians

(hair)

and

mestizos

(skin

col

oration).

And,

to

spell

out

such

inferences

even

more

directly,

don

Francisco

concludes that such

characteristics

do

not

amount to

being

a

Span

iard. A

second

witness,

don

Diego

de la Cruz

Rosado,

captain

of the

militia in

Espita

(Hondu

ras),

also

struckMarcos from

the

category

Span

iard because

he had black

hair like

an

Indian

and

regarded

neitherMarcos

nor

Andrea

Novelo,

his second

wife,

as

Spaniards.

Don

Diego's

mention of

Andrea's

non-Spanish

status

in

conjunction

with

Marcos's adds

to

judgments

based

on

physical

appearance.

It

pre

sumes

that like married

like,

and that

categories

of

spouses

(especially

for

purposes

of

registration

in

parish

records)

matched.

That Andrea failed

to

rank

as a

Spaniard helped

confirm

Marcos's

exclusion

as

well.

In

this

way,

then,

a

criterion

of calidad

played

some

part

in

don

Diego's

ranking ofMarcos.

That neither don

Diego

nor

don Francisco

at

tempted

to

give

Marcos

a

precise

racial label

reveals that this mattered little

to

them. What

did

matter

was

that he

was

not;

for the

rest,

he

could

remain

amorphously

with

the

mestizos.

This fits

with

Edward

Said's

(1978:54)

observa

tion that

societies tend to

derive their

identities

negatively.

Hispanic

society

of

early

modern

times,

obsessed with

proving lineages

untainted

by Jewish, Moorish, African, or Indian descent,

fits

this ethos.

Don Francisco and don

Diego,

unworried about

slight

shiftswithin

the

plebeian

rankings

of

the social

order?notwithstanding

the

importance

of

minor

shifts

to

other

plebeians,

firmly

excluded

Juan

from

their

own

category

of

Spaniards.

From

Indian

to

Mestizo

In

the

historical

literature

one

routinely

sees

statements

such

as

the

following:

the demo

graphic

crisis

of

1726-1727

[in

the

Guadalajara

region].

.

.drove

Indians in

the north

to

cities

and

haciendas,

thus,

in

some

cases,

acculturating

them

away

from

the

Indian

village

towards

the

non-Indian

population

(MacLeod

1983:43).

It

might be well, however, to think further about

the

meaning

of

a

phrase

such

as

acculturating

them

away.

It

implies

a

kind of

environmen

tal

determinism in

the

shaping

of

culture,

here

formulated

as a

polarity:

on

the

one

hand the

Indian

village,

on

the

other,

the

Spanish city

or

hacienda. But

MacLeod

(1983)

qualifies

this

process

of

acculturation

by

saying

that it

hap

pens

in

some

cases.

Although

he

does

not

specify

which

cases,

the notion

that

people

had

several

identities,

not

a

single

fixed

one,

and the

fact

that

individuals

chose and

shifted identities

situationally

can

help

to

explore

the

question.

One

may

consider,

for

example,

an

instance of

an

Indian

becoming

a

mestizo

(AGNI

1706).

His

name was

Matias

Cortes,

and

we

learn

about

him

because,

in

mid-career

as a

mestizo,

he

hastily

backtracked and

declared himself In

dian

to

escape

the

jurisdiction

of the

Holy

Of

fice of the

Inquisition.

The

Holy

Office,

there

fore,

had

to

decide:

was

he

mestizo

(and

under

its jurisdiction) or Indian (and not under it)?

His

history

of

representing

himself

as

ladino,

officials

thought,

put

the burden of

proof

on

him

to

establish that he

was

not

a

mestizo.

At first

Matias asked them

to

overlook

superficial

as

pects

of

his

appearance.

Although

in his de

meanor

(en

el

porte

de

su

persona),

he testified

in

1706,

he has been considered

a

mestizo,

he

is

an

Indian

and he contracted

his

second

mar

riage

as an

Indian. Thus

Matias

distinguishes

between appearance and reality, between

a con

structed

identity

and

an

inherent

one.

In the end







NEGOTIATING

CALIDAD:

THE

EVERYDAY STRUGGLE

FOR

STATUS

INMEXICO

71

the

Holy

Office

got

him

to

admit

that

his

father

was a

mestizo,

yet

in

spite

of

this,

Matias

clung

to

his

Indian

identity

by insisting

that

while

he

had

always

gone

about

as

a

mestizo

in

reality

he is

not

because

his mother

is Indian

(AGNI

1706).

The

argument,

held

so

tenaciously,

can

hardly

surprise;

it

is

exactly

the

self

presentation

one

would

expect

given

his situation.

More

impor

tantly

for

our

purposes,

it demonstrates

that

Matias

could

have

two

identities

at

once.

At

least

in this

opportunistic

way,

for

without

the

accident

of

an

Inquisitorial

proceeding,

the

direction

of

Matias's

life,

as a

young

man

living

in

Mexico

City

and

practicing

a

trade,

had been

to become mestizo. That process, moreover, can

be followed

from

testimony

in Matias's file.

Born

in

1665,

Matias

declared

that

his

parents

and

grandparents

were

Indians,

on

his

mother's

side

from

Tacuba,

on

his

father's

side

from

Toluca.

He

grew

up

in

Toluca,

learned

to

read

but

not

to

write,

and

at

age

eight

went

to

Mexico

City

to

live

with

his

padrino

of

confir

mation,

Pedro

Lopez

Guerrero,

a

lawyer.

As

a

servant

in Mexico

City

and

then

a

lacemaker

(bordador),

Matias

shed his Indianness

and took

on

the

ways

of

the

Hispanic

world.

Teresa

Martinez

observed

this

transition.

She,

a

Spaniard,

wife

of the

weaver

Cleto

Marzelino,

and

the

madrina

of

Matias's

marriage,

knew

Matias

a

little

as a

neighbor

in the

area

of

Alameda,

and then

at

closer

range,

when her

husband

Cleto hired

Matias

to

make

some

lace

for

a

dress,

and he

worked

in

her

house.

Here

is

how

he described

him: Matias

is

more

Indian

than

mestizo

although

he

spoke

fluent

Spanish.

When she first knew him he went around in

coarse

cotton

(mantas)

and

barefoot

like

the

other

Indians;

but

after

he

became

a

lacemaker

he

dressed

in

a

cape

(capote)

and

wore

shoes

and

stockings

as

mestizos

do. Teresa's

husband

Cleto

remembered Matias

and his

betrothed

wife

Hypolita

as

reputed

to

be Indians

and

as

such

they

married. Elsewhere he

calls

Hypolita

a

mestizo-ed

Indian,

although

others

consistently

called

her

mestizo or,

as

in Teresa's

case,

white

mestiza.

Matias,

however,

termed

Hypolita

castiza,

adding

that she

is

tall

and

with

a

fair

complexion,

black

eyes,

[and

was

the]

daughter

of

Pedro

de

Alcantaro,

castizo,

master

shoe

maker

(AGNI

1706).

This

optimistic

version of his wife's calidad

helped

Matias

solidify

his

own

place

in

Hispanic

society.

That

he did

so

mattered

little

to

obser

vant

Spaniards

such

as

Cleto and

Teresa, who,

in

conceding

his calidad

as

mestizo,

had

nothing

to

lose.

They

nevertheless

retained

a

clear

awareness

it

was a

construct. For

its

part,

the

Inquisition

strictly

used

the

criterion

of

biologi

cal

descent,

rejecting

Matias's

plea

for

Indian

status

because

of

his

mestizo

father.

They

there

fore tried and punished him for bigamy.

The

Self

as a

Social and

Individual

Construct

Although

the evidence

is

spotty,

students

can

find

ways

to

read

the

documentary

record

to

see

people

struggling

for

position

and

preference.

Their

behaviors,

existential

in

the

root

sense

of

that

term,

to

stand

out,

were

profoundly

social

in

that

one

might only

stand

out

with

reference

to

another.

The

complex

differs

little

from

be

haviors

associated

with

hidalgma:

the

drive

to

be

a

somebody.

Put

in

slightly

different

terms,

one

might

view the

drama

of

identity

in

daily

life

as,

in

Stephen

Greenblatt's

(1980:159)

phrase,

a

schema

of

communication.

By

this he

seems

to

mean

that

relative

status

among

individuals,

although

roughly agreed

on,

was

not

fixed

abso

lutely. People

had

to

be

ever

vigilant:

they

de

fended

against

slights

and

insults,

and

they

at

tacked

to

claim

precedence.

As

dependent

on

situations and a social context, then, identity

played

out

as a

drama

of

daily

existence,

espe

cially

for

plebeians

who

enjoyed

no

automatic

deference

from their

peers,

no

unassailable

place

in

the social

landscape,

as can

be

documented

in

criminal

as

well

as

in

Inquisition

records.

As

for

the

former,

Pablo

Escalante

(1990),

William

Taylor

(1979),

Cheryl

Martin

(1990),

and

John

Chasteen

(1990)

have

shown

what

can

be

ac

complished

by

looking closely

at

the

exact







72

HISTORICAL

ARCHAEOLOGY,

VOLUME

31

(1)

words

attributed

to

one

or

another

party

in

the

exchange

of

insults

that

sometimes

led

to

assault

and

homicide.

Two

final

observations

conclude

this

essay.

First,

it is

important

that

the

verbal

currency

of

insults is so often sexual in nature.

Why

this is

so

has

to

do with

order

and

ordering.

Order

was

the

goal.

Householders

and

communities

wanted,

above

all,

to

live

a

settled

and

predict

able

existence.

Metonymically,

the

principle

that

men

controlled

women,

should

be

seen as

equivalent

to

order

itself. In

application,

a man

who

failed

to

protect

or

control

the

sexuality

of

wives and

daughters

had

no

claim

to

an

honor

able

place

in

society.

Thus,

to

call

a

man

cornudo or cabron (cuckold) defamed him in an

essential

way.

And in

a

different

way,

to

call

a

woman

puta

or

soltera

rather

than

doncella

(Lavrin

[1993]:2-5),

did the

same,

for

it

re

moved

her,

together

with

the

man

who

should

have

protected

her from

such

depreciation,

from

the

standards

of

orderly

respectability.

Women

who

called

each other

puta

did

so

within

the

logic

of

male

definitions

of

order

in

conflating

illicit

sexuality

and

dishonor. These

insults

struck with

so

much

force because

they

attacked

individuals,

not

as

if

they

were

isolated

entities,

but

as

inextricably

embedded

in

a

social

context.

Reputation

mattered

more

than

an

imagined

but

hidden

inner

integrity.

Given the

above?and this is

the

second

ob

servation?one

can

explain

why

insults

spoken

publicly,

a

kind of

theater

of

contested

identity,

exaggerated

their force

tenfold.

They

amounted

to

a

restatement

or

reconstruction of

another

that if

left

uncontested

stood

as

confirmed.

If

order was the goal, ordering was a process, an

everyday

one

dramatizing

the

degree

to

which

identity

was

reputational, something

prone

to

attack

and

necessary

to

defend.

A final

example

oversteps

the

boundaries of

time

and

place

(but

not

of

mentality)

marked

out

for this

essay.

Following

an

account

by

John

Charles

Chasteen

(1990:48),

one

may

recall the

case

of

Jose,

a

young

Indian

boy

who

in

1829

was

drinking

with his

employer

in

a

rural

pulperia near Brazil's southern frontier.Without

apparent

warning

Jose

became

the

target

of his

master's

verbal

and

physical

abuse

in

the

form

of

repeated

blows

with

the

flat of

a

sword and

loud

accusations

that

he had

been

too

rough

with

a

horse

he had

been

ordered

to

break.

At

a

certain

point

the

boy

refused

to

take

this

treat

ment

any

longer. Drawing

his

knife,

he stabbed

his

master

in

the

heart and

killed

him.

The

incident

reflects

Jose's

sense

of

his

place

in

that

fragment

of

the

social

order

present

in

the

pulperia.

True,

he

was an

Indian

and

a

ple

beian

laborer,

but he

was no

less

than

a

man

among

men.

He

affirmed

this,

stopping

treat

ment

that

implied

that he

was

not,

with

his

deadly

knife

thrust,

clearly

drawing

the

line

at

being,

in

Chasteen's

(1990:48,

55)

words,

whipped like a dog in a public place. The

public

context

for

this

drama

demonstrates

once

again

that

even

tough

identity

attaches

to

indi

viduals;

it

was

maintained,

adjusted,

and de

fended

with

reference

to

society.

In

a

sense,

theatrics

such

as

the

knifing

inci

dent

can

be viewed

as

unimportant,

trivial,

and

meaningless

in

the

big

picture.

After

all,

slight

shifts

within

plebeian

rankings

seem

insignificant

now,

for

none

of this

behavior

changed

the

sys

tematic

deprivations

and

brutishness of

plebeian

existence.

Moreover,

with

hindsight

one

also

knows that

the basis

for the

middle-period

strati

fication

would

change

as

commercial

capitalism

reshuffled the

content

of

the

old labels.

Rodney

Anderson

(1988:241),

following

this

tone

of

thought,

views

Indians,

castas,

and

poor

Span

iards in

Guadalajara

as

increasingly

lumped

to

gether

as

a

proletariat

by

1821. He asks

why

it

should

therefore

matter

whether this

constituted

a

move

up

for

castas

or

one

down

for

Span

iards? Itmatters, this essay suggests, because it

mattered

to

people

at

the time.

They

saw

them

selves

as

different

and

as

agents,

even

in

a

world

changing rapidly

around

them. How

they

adapted

and

adjusted

to

capitalism

may

also

show

that

they

adapted

and

adjusted capitalism

itself.

Certainly

they

did

not

cease

to

adapt

and

adjust

to

each

other,

to

try

to

stand

out,

to

seek

order,

and

to

engage

in

ordering.

If

their

at

tempts

to

cling

to

old

distinctions based

on ra

cial labels seems anachronistic, a kind of rem

nant

of

the

soon-to-be-displaced

old

order,

that







NEGOTIATING

CALIDAD: THE EVERYDAY

STRUGGLE FOR

STATUS

IN

MEXICO

73

view

seems

more

the

teleological

overlay

of

hindsight

that

configures

what

happened

in

the

past

as

what had

to

happen.

Although

the evidence is

scattered

and

piece

meal,

the

documentary

record

can

be

read

to

view the

regime

de castas as a discursive re

source as

much

as

a

system.

People

jockeyed

for

position

and

preference

as

they

engaged

in

a

kind

of self

fashioning

(Greenblatt

1980;

Davis

1983,

1988:589).

More

of

this

posturing

took

place

in

the

plebeian

ranks

than

one

might

have

thought.

And if

social

stratification

in

the 17th

century

can

stand

metaphorically

for

the middle

period

as a

whole,

it

suggests

that

the time

has

come

to

test

systemic

views

against

the

day-to

day transactions of ordinary folk. One should

not

prejudge

these

as

unimportant

because

they

did

little

to

change

their

overall

condition

as

a

people

ruled

by

a

small

elite whose

control

stemmed

from

a

kind

of

performative,

not

sub

stantive,

paternalism

contrived,

to

use

E.

P.

Thompson's

(1993:47)

words,

to

receive

a

re

turn

in

deference

quite

disproportionate

to

the

outlay.

It is not

possible,

of course, to overturn the

conventional

periodization

of

the

colonial

pe

riod

but it is

important

to

remember

that it

has

imposed

a

kind

of

rhetorical

determinism

on

our

view of

the

17th

century.

Students

would

there

fore

do

well

not to

allow it

to

overdetermine

what

they

look

for

(and

therefore

find)

in

the

documentary

record.

The

conveniences

of

sys

temic

overlays

must

be

balanced

with

the

more

disparate

and

untidy

words and

behaviors

of

contemporaries whose horizons were limited and

open

ended.

The

study

of

the

17th

century

shows

that

the

two

approaches

complement

one

another.

boyer richard - negotiating calidad

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