Who were the Creoles and the mestizos

The Spanish possessions of America, also called Indies or New World, were a territory with great diversity, due to the relationships that existed between the spanish and the natives of the American lands. The Spanish Empire created a caste system, a kind of order based on ethnic inequality, which led to a great deal of injustice. To understand this complex colonial caste systems, today in a PROFESSOR we are going to talk about who were the criollos and the mestizos.

The colonial caste system it was a social system whose function was to impose on the Spanish American territories an order based on the inequality of the different ethnic groups that made up the population of the area. A kind of pyramid was formed, where at the top were the Spanish, both the peninsular and the creoles.

Beneath the Spaniards, in the pyramid were natives and blacks, the latter coming from Africa through a slave market. Between the two groups mentioned were

the mestizos, divided into categories depending on the type of miscegenation, with terms such as "tente en el aire" or "saltapatrás".

Colonial castes have their origin in the Spanish colonies in America and the Philippines from the 18th century. Its creation is based on the fear of the most privileged groups in the region, for the progressive gain of political and economic rights on the part of the mestizo population.

Within the group of "Spaniards" there were also clashes. There was a rivalry between the peninsular Spaniards and the Creoles or Spaniards born in America. The latter had fewer rights and were relegated to the background in the administration. This fact caused a strong resentment of the Creoles against the peninsulares.

The American Creoles were, in colonial times, those people descendants of Europeans born and raised in the territories of America. The Creoles came to have control over a large part of the commerce and agrarian property of the region. It was a group with great economic muscle and a high position in the social pyramid, but relegated from political positions, which were in the hands of the so-called "peninsular", that is, those born in peninsular Spain.

The Bourbon reforms they relegated the creoles from the main political and ecclesiastical positions in the New World. This was an important factor for the American revolutions, and therefore one of the causes of the revolutions of the American colonies in Spain.

The Creole origins can be found between the 16th and 17th centuries, when around 800,000 Spaniards emigrated to the American continent. Most of the Spaniards were peasants, artisans and merchants, who sought in America a better life than they had in the Peninsula. Over the decades, the Spanish descendants in America were more and more numerous. In the seventeenth century, according to some censuses, the peninsulars and creoles were only 10% of the population of the American region.

The Creoles were dedicated to very varied professions: from low-level craft occupations to large businesses. Because of this, the Creoles could be both rich and poor, but most achieved relevant economic positions, hence their great social importance. Their influence was not only because of their economic power, but also because they became part of the public administration, until the aforementioned Bourbon reforms prevented them from accessing these posts.

To conclude this lesson on who were the Creoles and the mestizos we must talk about the mestizos, a much more underrated class than the Creoles, having far fewer rights than these.

Half Blood was the term used by the Spanish Empire for people descendants of a white parent and an Amerindian parent. In the colonial caste system, the mestizos had a diminished social status, as evidenced by the fact that they were prevented from having the rights and freedoms that the peninsulares and criollos possessed.

The mestizos could be of different types, depending on which caste each of the parents belonged to. Some types of mestizo are the following:

• Half Blood: mix of indigenous and spanish
• Moorish: Mix of mulatto and Spanish
• Coyote: Mix of mestizo and indigenous
• Mulatto: Mix of black and Spanish

It should be mentioned that in the caste system the mestizos were not at the bottom of the social hierarchy. The "Indians" and "blacks" occupied the base of the social pyramid of the colonies, having even fewer rights than the so-called mestizos.