The emerging colonial societies of Spanish and Portuguese America gave rise to a wide variety of recognized mixed-race groups known as castas, or “castes,” and defined in terms of the precise mixture of Native American, European, and African ancestry that an individual possessed. While this system slotted people into a hierarchical social order defined by race and heritage, it did allow for some social mobility. If individuals managed to acquire some education, land, or money, they might gain in social prestige and even pass as members of a more highly favored category (see In the Lands of the Aztecs and Incas). Adopting the dress and lifestyle of higher-ranking groups could facilitate this process.

Visual Source 14.4 shows a woman of Indian ancestry and a man of African/Indian descent as well as their child, who is categorized as a loba, or “wolf.” It comes from a series of “casta paintings” created in eighteenth-century Mexico by the well-known Zapotec artist Miguel Cabrera to depict some eighteen or more mixed-race couples and their children, each with a distinct designation. The woman in this image is wearing a lovely huipil, a traditional Maya tunic or blouse, while the man is dressed in a European-style waistcoat, vest, and lace shirt, while holding a black tricornered hat, widely popular in Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Interest in such paintings reflected both a Spanish fascination with race and a more general European concern with classification, which was characteristic of eighteenth-century scientific thinking.