Jose Antonio de Alzate, Nuevo Mapa Geografico de la America Septentrional española, 1767. [New Geographic

Map of Spanish North America]

•  Spanish and Criollo Elites: Royal and Church Officials, mix of wholesome merchants and big miners, and in Brazil sugar-mill owners. Almost all of European ancestry, but some exceptions of mixed and full Indian ancestry.

•  Urban Middle Groups: People of middle sorts, retail merchants, small-scale miners, ranchers who lived in the city, priests, lawyers, tavern owners, master artisans in the upper ranks and apprentices in the lower rank. Mostly white, but increasingly of people of mixed ancestry as time went on.

•  Rural Middle Groups: small farms and cattle ranches, in Brazil owners of small sugar cane farms. Indian caciques in Peru. Less white, and increasingly people of mixed ancestry as time went on.

•  The Free Urban Poor: the majority of the town’s population. Laborers of all origins, Indian, African, and to a lesser extent Spanish and their mixed ancestry. Market women, journeymen, unskilled laborers, and beggars.

•  The Free Rural Poor: Though free, subject to some forms of coerced labor benefiting colonial officials, priests, and to a lesser extent, Indian leaders. Overwhelmingly Indian population in colonial Mexico and Peru.

•  Urban Slaves: Most in Brazil than Spanish America, yet a significant minority in every Spanish America city. Some possibilities of reaching freedom.

•  Rural Slaves: The economic base of Brazil and in certain places in Spanish America. Very limited possibilities of reaching freedom.

Elites: Royal and Church Officials, big merchants and miners, sugar-mill owners

Archangel St Michael with Portrait of Indigenous Donor, Peru, c. 1630s

Pedro Peralta y Barnuevo, Chancellor of the University of San Marcos, Lima, Peru, 1751

Friar Martín de Andrés Perez, Vice-Bishop of Lima, Peru, 1770.

Urban Middle Groups: People of middle sorts, retail merchants, small-scale miners and ranchers, lawyers, master artisans.

Rural Middle Groups: small farms and cattle ranches, lavradores de cana in Brazil, Indian caciques.

Unknow artist, De mulato y española sale morisco [Mulatto and Spaniard make a Morisco]. Mexico City, ca. 1780

The Free Urban Poor: the majority of the Population. Laborers of all origins, Indian, African, and to a lesser extent Spanish and their mixed ancestry. Market women, journeymen, unskilled laborers, criminals, and beggars.

The Free Rural Poor: Though free, subject to some forms of coerced labor benefiting colonial officials, priests, and to a lesser extent, Indian leaders. Overwhelmingly Indian population in colonial Mexico and Peru.

Unknown artist, Mexico City, ca. 1780.

Urban Enslaved men and women: Mostly in Brazil, yet a significant minority in every Spanish American city.

Rural Enslaved men and women: The economic base of Brazil and some places in Spanish America.

Rio de Janeiro, 1840. Scene in Direita Street, by Paul Harro-Harring

“God orders every man…so that the lower state shall not rise itself above the higher, as once did Satan and the first man...God divided his people on earth into different estates, just as his angels in Heaven are divided into different groups...”

St. Hildegard of Bingen, 12th Century

“It is impossible to deny that the different hierarchies and strata are of the greatest value to the monarchical state, because their gradual and connected links of subordination and dependence support and substantiate the obedience and respect of the lowest vassals towards the King; this system in required for many more reasons in America. This is so, not only because of the great distance from the Throne but because of the great number of people who by their vicious origin and nature cannot be compared with simple people in Spain and do constitute a very inferior species.”

Council of Indies, 1806

Miguel Cabrera, 1763, Mexico.

Attributed to José de Ibarra, ca. 1725, Mexico.

Juan Morlete, 1761, Mexico

Casta painting artists of mixed ancestry

“It is virtually impossible today to distinguish the noble from the plebeian, the rich from the poor, the honorable from the low; and from here originates vanity, arrogance, the abandonment of agriculture and of all work; and ultimately evil altogether… My Lord [The King] provide that each dress according to his class so that his dress bespeak his profession, and nobles not to be confused with plebeians, nor rich with poor.”

In 1689, the Bishop of Michoacán, Mexico, complained about the “notable disorder in dress, both for its scant honesty and for the indiscriminate use of silks and precious materials, as well as gold, silver and pearls, by nobles and plebeians,” and he continued:

Unknown artist, c. 1785-1790, Mexico

Casta paintings of the late colonial period,

post-1770.