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Conclusion In 1763, Miguel Cabrera, Mexico's most renowned artist, executed an unusual series ofpaintings. At first sight, each painting seems a normal family portrait, with husband, wife, and child. On closer examination , a striking feature emerges: each family member belongs to a different race. Cabrera's entry into the genre ofpintura de castas, which enjoyed an eighteenth-century vogue, is no mere curiosity or academic exercise but carries a definite social and political meaning. Such paintings attempted to confront and control the threat of mestizaje by presenting Mexico's racial divisions as objective, almost Linnaean categories. The subjects' skin color, dress, and activities-Spaniards are seen at indolent repose or striking a commanding attitude, while their inferiors perform manual labor, change diapers, argue vociferously, and so on-all are meant to show that Mexico's racial groups were well defined, natural, and inevitable.l Cabrera's paintings portrayed the kind of society that elite Spaniards had always longed for: hierarchical, orderly, and controlled, a society in which racial difference marked and determined status. Such arrangements , however, are more easily obtained on canvas than in real life. As we have seen, castas and plebeians found ways to resist, even to manipulate , their social betters. Moreover, Spanish vecinos, as a corporate group, exercised limited disciplinary power. On occasion, as after the 1692 riot, the upholders of wealth and position would speak with a single voice, but in general, Mexico City's ruling class was hardly monolithic. How could it be, when the government daily engaged in a balancing act, playing off creole against peninsular and striking compromises between royal authority and colonial claims?2 New Spain's racial code developed in the interstices ofthis system, relying heavily on improvisation and patchwork. The importance of maintaining a strict racial hierarchy may have seemed self-evident to local elites; the crown's commitment to this principle was more questionable. The institutional status of the sistema de castas left much to be desired. To function effectively, the sistema required a careful and systematic distribution of rights, privileges, and obligations, so that racial divisions would be clearly demarcated. Colonial legislation was far too inconsistent for this purpose. Some laws distinguished between different casta groups, but others lumped all mixed-bloods together. When the viceroy ordered the incorporation ofmestizos and mulattoes into the post161 162 Conclusion riot militias, he reinforced yet another (and older) model of society, the dichotomy between the Hispanic and Indian "republics." Moreover, legislation was unevenly enforced, frequently set aside in particular casesrecall the castas who received permission to bear arms-and in many instances , ignored altogether. Even slavery, an institution legally restricted to specific racial categories, did not provide an unambiguous assertion of racial hierarchy. Most blacks were slaves, but most mulattoes were not. When a mulatto could own other mulattoes, property rights prevailed over racial order. What of the cultural realm? Mexico City did not lack symbolic demonstrations of Hispanic power and authority: the massive solidity of the churches, governmental buildings, and elite residences; the yearly round of rites, festivals, and processions sponsored by the church; the ritualized display of justice performed at the auto-da-fe and the public execution. Perhaps these succeeded in overawing the populace,3 but what did they have to do with distinguishing castizos from mestizos, mulattoes from blacks? The "message" encoded in these structures and performances no doubt upheld the principle of hierarchy in a general sense, but it is difficult to see how this specifically reinforced the sistema de castas. The sistema was not ritually woven into the fabric ofdaily life. The casta paintings mentioned above and the greatly elaborated versions of the sistema developed during the eighteenth century circulated among the elite and may have given them some psychological comfort, but they had little or no effect on the castas themselves. Finally, the city's socioeconomic structure actually militated against the development of a fully effective racial hierarchy. Imagine the sistema de castas as dual ladders, one for race and one for class, that parallel and reinforce each other, so that a specific racial label becomes naturally associated with a specific economic status. Now, how did capitalino conditions fail to meet these requirements? The problem was that the "economic" ladder lacked sufficient rungs, or put another way, that the socioeconomic structure of Mexico City more closely approximated a pyramid, with the vast majority of people languishing at the bottom.4 In short, most castas were poor: many faced permanent or frequent unemployment; the...

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