During the colonial period, even disregarding the extremes of royalty and slavery, there was no assumption of individual equality. Rather, individuals’ status derived from their membership in groups, each of which had distinct fiscal obligations, civil rights, and economic prerogatives. Heredity, occupation, and race (or the perception of race) formed the basis of these groups. Occupational groupings included the military and the Church, each of which enjoyed separate legal systems, orfueros. People of the same occupation formed guilds. The Crown expected each group to accept its assigned status and live in harmony with other groups.63
After the Conquest, Europeans and Indians formed the two major social groups. Europeans born in Spain held higher status than those born in the New World. The Spanish-born generally received appointments such as viceroy and archbishop, the highest positions in New Spain. All those considered European enjoyed privileged access into certain guilds and the university.
In what historian Nancy Farriss described as “a benevolent form of apartheid,” the Crown prohibited non-Indians from living in Indian villages. This residential segregation policy attempted to protect Indians from what officials considered to be morally contaminating contact with non-Indians. Legally mandated spatial separation sought to minimize ill-treatment, which seemed inevitable in inter-racial relations. In the words of historian J. H. Elliott, “Indians were to be incorporated into, but not integrated with, the newly evolving colonial society.”64
Black slaves occupied the lowest position in the social hierarchy. Although considered inferior to both Indian and European, many slaves worked in skilled occupations and served their masters in positions of trust that involved supervising Indian workers.65
In the period immediately after the conquest, children of mixed race simply moved into the community of one of their parents and did not seriously upset the system of racial classification. Later in the colonial period, mixed-race individuals formed a sizable group and generally intermarried.
Even though racial categories appeared to be rigid, in practice they could be manipulated. Individuals, or their children, would often declare themselves to be members of a racial category into which they or their parents were not born. Generally those changing racial category would declare themselves to be in the next whiter category than the one that had been ascribed to them or their parents.
Stratification by wealth existed alongside the racial hierarchy. Shortly after the Conquest, Indian nobles, Spanish conquistadores, and encomenderos formed the elite. Eventually with the decline of the Indian nobility, Indian stratification lessened. However, as Europeans made fortunes in commerce and mining, they became increasingly stratified. A strong, but not absolute, correlation existed between wealth and racial classification. A few Indians became wealthy, and many Spaniards remained or became poor. Nonetheless, wealth remained overwhelmingly in the hands of those of European descent. In 1792, there were only four non-whites in the 327-member elite of Antequera (today Oaxaca City).66
Colonial administrators desired neither legal nor economic equality. Rather, they rationalized social stratification as the key to stability. In an 1806 opinion, the Council of the Indies stated:
It is undeniable that the existence of various hierarchies and classes is of the greatest importance to the existence and stability of a monarchical state, since a graduated system of dependence and subordination sustains and insures the obedience and respect of the last vassal to the authority of the sovereign. With much more reason such a system is necessary in America, not only because of its greater distance from the throne, but also because of the number of that class of people who, because of their vicious origin and nature, are not comparable to the commoners of Spain and constitute a very inferior species.67
World History
