THE STRUCTURE OF CLASS AND CASTE 111
charge of baptismal certifi cates; it was also pos-
sible for a wealthy mestizo or mulatto to purchase
from the crown a document establishing his legal
whiteness. Wealth, not gentle birth or racial pu-
rity, was the distinguishing characteristic of the
colonial aristocracy. Granted this fact, it remains
true that the apex of the colonial pyramid was
composed overwhelmingly of whites.
This white ruling class was itself divided by
group jealousies and hostilities. The Spaniards
brought to the New World their regional rivalries
and feuds—between Old Castilians and Andalu-
sians, between Castilians and Basques—and in the
anarchic, heated atmosphere of the Indies, these
rivalries often exploded into brawls or even pitched
battles. But the most abiding cleavage within the
upper class was the division between the Span-
iards born in the colonies, called creoles, and the
European-born Spaniards, called peninsulars, or
re ferred to by such disparaging nicknames as gach-
upín or chapetón (tenderfoot). Legally, creoles and
peninsulars were equal; indeed, when it came to
fi lling offi ces, Spanish law called for preference to
be given to the descendants of conquistadors and
early settlers. In practice, the creoles suffered from
a system of discrimination that during most of the
colonial period virtually denied them employment
in high church and government posts and large-
scale commerce.
The preference shown for peninsulars over
creoles sprang from various causes, among them
the greater access of Spaniards to the court, the
fountainhead of all favors, and royal distrust of the
creoles. By the second half of the sixteenth cen-
tury, the sons or grandsons of conquistadors were
complaining of the partiality of the crown and its
offi cials toward unworthy newcomers from Spain.
The creoles viewed with envenomed spite these
Johnny-come-latelies, who often won out in the
scramble for corregimientos and other govern-
ment jobs. A Mexican poet, Francisco de Terrazas,
expressed the creole complaint in rhyme:
Spain: to us a harsh stepmother you have
been, A mild and loving mother to the stranger,
On him you lavish all your treasures dear,With us you only share your cares and
danger.^2
The resulting cleavage in the colonial upper
class grew wider with the passage of time. Both
groups developed an arsenal of arguments to de-
fend their positions. Peninsulars often justifi ed their
privileged status by reference to the alleged indo-
lence, incapacity, and frivolity of the creoles, which
they sometimes solemnly attributed to the Ameri-
can climate or other environmental conditions. The
creoles responded in kind by describing the Europe-
ans as mean and grasping parvenus. The growing
wealth of the creoles from mines, plantations, and
cattle ranches only sharpened their resentment at
the discrimination from which they suffered.THE MESTIZO: AN AMBIGUOUS STATUS
The mestizo arose from a process of racial mixture
that began in the fi rst days of the Conquest. In
the post-Conquest period, when Spanish women
were scarce, the crown and the church viewed
marriages between indigenous peoples and Span-
iards with some favor; mixed marriages were not
uncommon in those years. But this attitude soon
changed as the crown, for its own reasons, adopted
a policy of systematic segregation. By the fi rst
quarter of the seventeenth century, the authori-
tative writer on Spain’s colonial legislation, Juan
Solórzano Pereira, could write, “Few Spaniards
of honorable position will marry Indian or Negro
women.” Consequently, the great mass of mestizos
had their origin in irregular unions. The stigma
of illegitimacy, unredeemed by wealth, doomed
the majority to the social depths. Some became
peons, resembling natives in their way of life; oth-
ers swelled the numerous class of vagabonds, and
still others enrolled in the colonial militia. Mestizos
also contributed to the formation of the rancheros(^2) Francisco de Terrazas, Poesías, ed. Antonio Castro Leal
(Mexico, 1941), p. 87. From The Aztec Image in Western
Thought by Benjamin Keen, p. 90. Copyright © 1971 by
Rutgers University, the State University of New Jersey.
Reprinted by permission of Rutgers University Press.