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6 The Fragility of "Success": Upwardly Mobile Castas in Mexico City As home to the infamous "thieves' market," Mexico City's plaza del volador witnessed more than its share of crime and violence. But a particularly gruesome sight greeted early arrivals on the morning of June 28, 1698: the dangling corpse of Benito Romero, a well-known mulatto merchant. At first glance, it seemed puzzling that Romero should have hanged himself, for he was the epitome of a successful, upwardly mobile casta. Romero and his wife, Catalina de Guevara, had started with nothing, but by dint of hard work over a period of twenty years-"he with his trading, she with her enterprise of making sweets and chocolates "-they had built up considerable holdings. At the time ofhis death, Romero had personal possessions worth nearly 300 pesos (this total did not include conjugal property). In addition, he owned a store with goods in stock valued at 600 pesos and claimed a 50 percent share in the profits of another store whose inventory was assessed at over 4,000 pesos.1 Since Catalina was a Spaniard, the couple easily formed social links in the Hispanic community. They had no less than three Spanish compadres; and one of Romero's Spanish friends, the priest Nicolas de Torquemada, defended the mulatto even after his suicide, calling him "a Catholic and a good Christian, fearing God and his conscience."2 Yet there was a dark side to Romero's success. In spring 1698, Romero became increasingly worried about his financial status, in particular, about the large debts he owed to various merchants. After struggling with his accounts for fifteen straight nights in May, to the point that his "understanding became clouded," Romero finally gave up; he closed his shop and turned to a prominent local merchant, Captain Don Juan Luis Baesa, to help him sort out his finances. With Baesa's aid, Romero reached new agreements with his creditors: one, for example, granted Romero a twoyear moratorium on his debt, with payments to be spread out over an additional two years.3 But despite the confidence his creditors had shown in him, Romero fell deeper into depreSSion. Shortly before Romero's sui106 The Fragility of "Success" 107 cide, Torquemada found him "sick with melancholy, ... saying that he was bankrupt and had lost his credit; and although his friends tried to calm him down, showing him what he owed and what he had, and that there remained a quantity ofpesos to sustain his wife and children, nevertheless he fell into a frenzy."4 Torquemada concluded that Romero had committed suicide while temporarily insane, driven to distraction by his business worries. Church officials concurred and permitted Romero's body to be interred in holy ground.5 Romero's tragedy has a double-edged message. His initial success demonstrates that Hispanic SOciety, however hierarchical, lineage obsessed, and hostile to social climbers, was not completely closed. There were upwardly mobile castas. A former slave could become a landlady and sport a pearl necklace and bracelet; a morisca, through her "personal industry and labor," could proVide her spouse with a dowry worth over one thousand pesos. A mestiza pulque vendor could support a shiftless husband and still leave several hundred pesos as an inheritance for her grandchildren. And these were all women, shOwing that even the combined burdens of race and gender discrimination could not completely choke off advancement .6 But in escaping from the grinding poverty of the urban masses, upwardly mobile castas entered a world with its own uncertainties. Hardwon claims to higher status often proved insecure and fleeting. For many reasons, both personal (severe illness, an excessive fondness for gambling) and impersonal (economic recession, agricultural crises), wealth carefully accumulated over years could be lost in a brief time.7 Romero's suicide suggests that unexpected heights could make the prospect of a fall all the more terrifying. This chapter discusses upwardly mobile castas. The main source is a collection ofsome fifty wills dictated by castas and Indians. These are listed in the Appendix and have already been cited numerous times in these pages. Wills present certain problems ofinterpretation, most notably, because of their freeze-frame quality. The "successful" castas treated here are those who had achieved a certain economic status at one moment-the endof a life span. Many others, such as those who obtained wealth but then diSSipated it, will thus have been left out of our sample. Moreover, these documents do no more than...

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