• DOI:10.1080/10609160120093796
• Corpus ID: 161154873

Social Climbers in a Colonial Mexican City: Individual Mobility within the Sistema de Castas in Orizaba, 1777-1791

@article{Castleman2001SocialCI,
  title={Social Climbers in a Colonial Mexican City: Individual Mobility within the Sistema de Castas in Orizaba, 1777-1791},
  author={Bruce A. Castleman},
  journal={Colonial Latin American Review},
  year={2001},
  volume={10},
  pages={229 - 249}
}

• Bruce A. Castleman
• Published 1 December 2001
• History
• Colonial Latin American Review

Individuals in colonial Latin American society often deŽ ned themselves according to “race”, according to their degrees of African, European, or Indian ancestry. By the middle of the eighteenth century, these socially constructed categories had become very complex because of the possible permutations over succeeding generations. This situation led the regalist Bourbon state to promulgate a directive establishing eighteen ofŽ cial calidades , the classiŽ cation labels of the well-known sistema de castas. These rules were intended to regulate access to the heightened social status that came from recognition as being of European ancestry. This essay will examine the degree to which many persons living around the Mexican city of Orizaba rendered permeable the barriers of ascriptive racial status and succeeding in moving “up” the social ladder delineated by the sistema de castas. The people of eighteenth-century Orizaba cared a great deal about calidad. Although it probably made little tangible difference to their economic well-being, hundreds of Orizabeños of modest occupational status improved their calidad during the second half of that century and, by the accumulation of their actions, deŽ ned their society as more “white” with the passing of time. I will argue that these accumulated acts of self-deŽ nition did not stem from a collective consciousness ; rather, they were individual acquisitions of some degree of increased personal status and honor. The subject of honor has loomed large in recent social historical studies of colonial Latin America, such as Ann Twinam’s (1999) study of petitions for gracias al sacar by elite persons throughout Spanish America. This study of Orizaba adds to our understanding of the notions of race, or calidad, and honor by looking at large numbers of non-elite people, and by discerning the differences in ways to challenge the sistema de castas that were available to individuals with African and Indian ancestors. This study is based largely upon analyses of census manuscripts from Orizaba that were prepared by the secular clergy in 1777 at the direction of Viceroy Antonio Marṍ a Bucareli, and by government ofŽ cials in 1791 at the direction of Viceroy the Count of Revillagigedo. Along with parish records, census manuscripts have informed a substantial number of studies of the historical demography of colonial Latin America, and especially of eighteenth-century Mexico. The corpus of census-based studies has created a collective portrait of colonial Mexicans, but that picture is still far from complete. The relative extent