Africans, life was torment—including
branding, whipping, and other forms of
torture. Nonetheless, Africans on the
Spanish plantations of the Caribbean,
like their counterparts on British and
French islands, managed to preserve
many more aspects of their traditional
cultures than Africans in the British
colonies of North America, and later the
United States. Because the slave popula-
tions in the Spanish Caribbean often far
outnumbered the European populations,
many more African traditions managed to
survive and, in time, mix with both
Spanish and Native American traditions.
Those who had migrated freely from
the Old World to the Americas, the
Spanish themselves, had come to explore,
conquer, convert Indians, make fortunes,
and escape poverty. Most came fromAndalusia and other parts of southwestern
Spain. (Even today, the Spanish spoken in
the Americas resembles the Spanish that
was spoken in Andalusia in 16th and 17th
century colonial times.) These early
Spanish settlers brought with them their
customs, culture, religion, and lan-
guage—visible throughout the history of
Hispanic America in everything from the
baroque architecture of colonial church-
es to the widespread playing of that
homegrown Spanish instrument, the gui-
tar; from the persistence of authoritarian
political institutions in many Latin
American countries in the face of popular
strivings for democracy to the devotion to
local identity that has often thwarted
attempts at wider union.Race and Social Status
in Hispanic AmericaWith few European women present,
Spanish colonists freely—and often
forcibly—took Native American and
African women as wives and concubines.
African slaves and freedmen often married
Native Americans. The Spanish discrimi-
nated among the resulting children, with
those of entirely Spanish descent at the top
of the social ladder, and many racial grada-
tions of class below. Yet the result was the
creation of a multicultural people. By
1800, there were only 3.2 million people of
solely Spanish descent in the colonies, less
than 20 percent of the total population.
It is not surprising then that Hispanic
America bears as many traces of Native
America and Africa as it does of Spain.
The traces are everywhere: in the
Mexican shrine of the Virgin of
Guadalupe, which, according to legend,
stands where an Aztec mother goddess
was worshiped; in corn tortillas that have
been eaten in Mexico since the time of
the Aztec; in the hammock, created by
the Arawak of the West Indies; in the
Santería religion of Cuba, which blends
Yoruba gods and Catholic saints; and in
merengue music of the Dominican
Republic, born of both African and
Spanish influences.20 ATLAS OF HISPANIC-AMERICAN HISTORY
THE VIRGIN OF GUADALUPE
On December 1531, ten years after the Spanish
conquest of Mexico, a dark-skinned Virgin Mary
appeared to an Indian boy named Juan Diego
on Tepyac Hill, outside Mexico City. To prove
her divinity, she had him pick roses, which, sig-
nificantly, were in bloom in December. When
he delivered these to the Spanish bishop, the
Virgin’s picture appeared on the mantle in
which he had been carrying them. As the
news of this miracle spread through Mexico,
Indian conversion to Catholicism accelerated.
Today, the Virgin Mary is the patron saint of
Mexico, known as Our Lady of Guadalupe or
the Virgin of Guadalupe. Approximately 80 to
90 percent of Mexicans and Mexican
Americans are Roman Catholic to this day,
including roughly 30 percent of the Mexican
population that are classified as Native
American or predominantly Native American.
The story of Our Lady of Guadalupe accel-
erated Mexican Indians’ bond with Catholicism
for various reasons: she had appeared before
one of the oppressed and vanquished; she had
the physical appearance of a dark-skinned woman; she communicated in Nahuatl, the
language of the Indians; when she appeared, her face blocked the sun—the focal point
of the native religions—establishing the precedence of the new faith brought by the
Spaniards over the old Aztec religion. All of these factors emphasized to the Indians that
they were worthy of respect.