The Workings of Calidad: Honor, Governance, and Social Hierarchies in the Corporations of the Spanish Empire

In her study on the configuration of difference in colonial New Granada, Joanne Rappaport contends that many studies “tend to ignore how different practices of distinguishing one individual from another came into play in concrete situations,” and as a result they “end up labeling as ‘race’ something that was much more multifaceted.” Subsequently, she urges scholars to interpret colonial subjects and their identities on their own terms.¹ This study responds to Rappaport’s call by analyzing the workings of the historical concept of calidad in colonial Spanish America.

The article addresses three interrelated points. First, it maintains that the concept of calidad is the appropriate framework to analyze the construction of difference and social hierarchies in colonial Spanish America. Second, in contrast with the most common trend of the scholarship that shows how calidad was expressed locally, this essay stresses the imperial significance of calidad as a means of governance by using a wide array of sources from across the Spanish world. Third, by analyzing disputes between Catholic brotherhoods in Guadalajara, the work demonstrates that the concept of calidad was pervasive throughout society. Even if people from the lower ends of society did not speak directly about their calidad, they understood the basic tenets of this concept, and used them as instruments of social advancement.

One might deem it unnecessary to stress the first point, considering the most recent scholarship on the subject.² Indeed, most scholars working on colonial Latin America would say that the construction of difference in that context was a complex process involving distinct social dynamics. Yet, in trying to convey their message to a specific audience, landmark works used race as a shorthand to analyze social difference in Spanish American societies. Despite their many strengths, works based on this concept resulted in imbuing historical analyses of Spanish America with North American notions of difference, such as equating being Spanish with whiteness.³ Additionally, they made the argument that during the eighteenth century Spanish notions of difference shifted away from concerns regarding religion, to differentiation based on ideas closely resembling race.⁴

To move forward in scholarly debates about difference in colonial Spanish America, and overcome misunderstandings created by an anachronistic use of the concept of race, this article proposes that we borrow from the Spanish historical vocabulary of difference, as we have on previous occasions with concepts that do not have an exact English translation, or whose translation evokes social dynamics or historical processes that do not quite correspond with those of Spanish America (for example cacique, caudillo, or mestizaje). The point, however, is not just to displace English words with Spanish ones. Indeed, it is one contention of this article that calidad and race are two different concepts that should remain analytically distinct. Using calidad as a category of analysis, then, this article sheds new light on the processes of construction of difference and complicates the narrative that the scholarship has presented about late-colonial Spanish America.⁵

One could say that there is a gap between the historiographies on the Spanish imperial apparatus—characterized by macro-scale studies—and the historiography that has considered the social structure in Spanish America and examined the workings of society through mostly locally based microanalysis.⁶ An example from the latter group: a focus on the local, and on the malleability of social categorization has led authors, including Rappaport, to downplay the imperial character of this process and the centrality of social difference for the Spanish empire. To be clear, imperial structure has factored in many studies, but the latter group of scholars is more concerned with how people on the ground managed to navigate colonial rule, and with stressing local differences in the processes of social classification, rather than viewing the construction of difference as a means of governance.⁷ In doing so, they fail to see that individual or collective actions intended to get social recognition actually served instead to legitimize the empire. This essay is an attempt to bridge that gap by analyzing both...