MESTIZAJE: CHARACTERISTICS, TYPES AND HISTORICAL EXAMPLES - HISTORY - 2024

The mixing is racial, cultural mixture which process arise new races and phenotypes. This term designates the historical process that occurred in Latin America with the native peoples, from the Spanish Conquest and colonization. It also applies to processes of ethnic-cultural fusion experienced in the United States, the Philippines and South Africa.

The Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy (1822) recognized as "mestizo" the adjective or name applied to any "person or animal born to a father and mother of different castes." But it places special emphasis on the son of a Spaniard and an Indian (not the other way around; that is, between Indian and Spaniard).

Throughout history, miscegenation understood as a biological encounter has occurred at different degrees of depth and rhythms in different regions of the planet.

characteristics

- Mestizaje basically refers to the racial mixture between indigenous and European. By approximation, it also includes other ethnic and cultural mergers, since whites, indigenous peoples, black Africans and, later, Chinese participated in the ethnic mix.

- This process began with the arrival of Christopher Columbus in America in the Middle Ages.

- Its greatest expression -from the geographical, social and cultural point of view- has taken place in South America, from the initial crossing between European and indigenous whites.

- The term mestizo was used to designate the son of a Spaniard and an Indian during the Colony.

- It was not a unique ethnic mixture but multiple, because the indigenous peoples with whom the Spanish mixed were different.

- It was not a peaceful process of ethnic mixing, but on the contrary, the result of the violent conquest by the Europeans of the South American indigenous peoples.

- Cultural miscegenation was also imposed by the dominant culture.

- Neither is it a static but a dynamic process, which occurred at different rates in different areas of the planet, where the climate also influenced.

- The process was caused by the lack of Spanish women at the time of the Conquest and during the first phases of settlement in colonial times.

- The crossing between Spaniards and Indians was linked to factors of prestige and social position.

- Among other negative characteristics of miscegenation (understood as a cultural encounter or clash) was the looting of wealth in America.

- There was transmission of diseases from Europeans to indigenous people, causing dangerous epidemics that decimated entire tribes.

- Imposition of religion on indigenous people, mass murder and enslavement of native peoples.

- The miscegenation produced ethnic contributions (phenotypic), cultural (language), knowledge and brought modernity with it.

Types

From the mixture of the three basic human groups -white, Indian and black- to which yellow was later incorporated, a series of castes or ethnic groups arose in America.

Although innumerable ethnic crosses arose from the miscegenation, the basic castes were the following:

Source: BBC Mundo

How does the process of miscegenation occur?

With the arrival of the Spanish to America and the beginning of the settlement from 1498, this long process of miscegenation begins.

Most of those who accompany Christopher Columbus on his journey to the New World are adventurers, people with no greater social roots in Spain.

Few women

The fundamental factor that triggers the ethnic crossing between Spanish and Indian men is that there were very few women during the first decades of the Conquest. However, already on Columbus's third trip to America some women were able to come.

In the expeditions of Hernán Cortés to Mexico between 1519 and 1521, and of Pedro de Mendoza to the Río de la Plata in 1536, they were already accompanied by women.

But the process of conquest and exploration was fundamentally male. So the main cause of miscegenation was the lack of Spanish women during the first decades of the Conquest.

Prestige factor

To this must be added the “factors of prestige and position favorable to the union of the Indian woman with the Spanish”, mentioned by the historian Luis Ernesto Ayala Benítez.

During the first years of the Conquest, very few Spanish families settled in the conquered territories. For the settlement of the towns and cities that the conquerors were founding, these unions were necessary.

Abductions and rapes

The Spanish conquerors and expeditionaries were mostly people of low social extraction. To form a family, or simply procreate, they needed to unite with the indigenous women of the conquered peoples.

Then, through rape, kidnapping or mating with indigenous people, the conquerors and soldiers were creating an unprecedented population of mestizo origin.

Even during the Colony there was an ethnic mixture between landowners married to Indian women and black women. The owners of plantation estates and mines raped their own female slaves and kept them as concubines.

There were cases in which, due to the strict norms of the Catholic religion, the Spanish married native Indians.

It was something similar to the deep-rooted custom of the Spanish barraganato, where the man took charge of the barragana and his children. But in this case the woman did not enjoy inheritance rights as a wife.

The Spanish Crown and miscegenation

The miscegenation turned out to be a real surprise for the Spanish Crown, since the Spanish had a strict prohibition on interbreeding with the native population.

In 1549 King Carlos V prohibited mestizos and mulattos, or any illegitimate child, from having the right to be appointed in the colonial public administration.

But reality prevented the rule from being met and formal marriage and marriage became frequent. There are records of Spaniards who took responsibility for their mestizo wives and children.

Mestizaje in America

The miscegenation in America occurred with the Spanish and Portuguese Conquest and colonization on the Latin American continent. Initially, illegitimate unions and miscegenation were equivalent categories.

America is in essence a mestizo continent. Ethnic crossings produced a new culture and a caste system was created in all the conquered territories of the New World.

During the first years of the Conquest, the mestizos were people who enjoyed social prestige. Some were children of the conquerors and their mothers were princesses or women of high social rank in the indigenous culture. Many women were offered to the Spanish as peace offerings.

But this situation changed over the years; since the 16th century, mestizos were no longer socially recognized. It is when illegitimate unions not consented to by the Church begin to occur.

The mestizo children were the product of rapes and abuses by Spaniards against Indians, and vice versa. Therefore, ethnic mixes were considered inferior.

Racial superiority was given by "pure Spanish blood." Thus, the more Spanish blood a person had, the higher her social status; so much so that to enter the university, it was necessary to present a blood purity test before an admission committee or jury.

Mestizaje and mestizo

Initially, the DRAE associated the word mestizaje with the pure ethnic crossing between Spanish and Indian women. But already in 1947 the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language introduced the term "mestizar" and expanded its meaning.

"Mestizar" refers to the adulteration or corruption of castes by the copulation of people belonging to different ethnic groups. Later, in 1992, the term mestizaje acquires another meaning, no longer pejorative in nature.

Currently the term is used to characterize the cultural and ethnic mix from which a new culture originates. For its part, the term mestizar means mixing and not corrupting.

Implications

The concept of miscegenation is linked to an ideological semantic construction of the 19th century. According to this view, during the Colony there were pure races in contrast to the current appreciation that only the human race exists.

On the other hand, miscegenation as understood during the 19th century alluded to a wrong perspective. According to this view, in America there was a "unique race" that mixed with the "European race."

In reality, there were peoples with different cultures: Caribbean, Quechua, Charrúa, Aymara, Guaraní, Tupi, Nahuatl, Quiché, Naya, Mapuche, Mapundungun and Acateco. The Yuracaré, Achí, Yoruna, Chicomuselteco, Chon, Cumo, Chol, Totozoqueano, Tehuelche, Mataco and dozens of other towns also stand out.

Among the genetic origins of Native American peoples are biological records of peoples from Siberia, Europe, and Asia.

Arrival of the Africans

With the arrival of black slaves from Africa, the process of miscegenation becomes more accentuated and new ethnic groups are created. The crosses were no longer just between Spanish and Indians, but between Spanish and black, black and Indian, and other possible mixtures.

In addition, the Spanish and Portuguese colonization in Latin America meant a process of acculturation, since miscegenation also occurred culturally.

Examples of miscegenation in history

- The Inca Garcilaso de la Vega is one of the most outstanding examples of miscegenation between Spanish and Indian during the first period of the Conquest.

- Martín Cortés Malintzin, illegitimate first-born son of the Spanish conqueror Hernán Cortés y Malintzin, an indigenous woman of Nahua origin. This mestizo, despite being recognized by his father, must have been legitimized by a papal bull in 1529.

- Starting in 1544, Argentina and Paraguay also registered many cases of miscegenation between Spaniards and indigenous people from that region.

- The Spanish conqueror and governor of the Río de la Plata and Paraguay, Domingo Martínez de Irala. This not only lived with several concubines, but also allowed other Spaniards to do so. From this ethnic crossing, a great offspring would be derived in this part of South America.

References

1. The miscegenation in Latin America. Retrieved on February 26, 2018 from contents.ceibal.edu.uy
2. Criollos, mestizos, mulatos or saltapatrás: how the division of castes arose during the Spanish rule in America. Consulted of bbc.com
3. Comas-Diaz, L.: «Hispanics, Latinos, or Americanos: The evolution of identity» in: Cultural diversity & ethnic minority psychology », 2001 May. Recovered from pdfs.semanticscholar.org
4. Three approaches to miscegenation in colonial Latin America. Consulted of scielo.org.co
5. Navarro García, Luis (1989). The caste system. General history of Spain and America: the first Bourbons. Rialp editions. Consulted of books.google.es
6. Ayala Benítez, Luis Ernesto: "The miscegenation: fruit of the encounter between colonizers and colonized in the socio-political and economic composition of Central America at the end of Spanish rule." Consulted of books.google.com.ar
7. 10 characteristics of miscegenation. Consulted of caracteristicas.co