1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910960200303321

Autore

Cope R. Douglas

Titolo

The limits of racial domination : plebeian society in colonial Mexico City, 1660-1720 / / R. Douglas Cope

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Madison, Wis., : University of Wisconsin Press, c1994

ISBN

9780299140434

0299140431

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xiii, 220 p. )

Disciplina

972/.53

Soggetti

Indians of Mexico - Mexico - Mexico City - History

Poor - Mexico - Mexico City - History

Mexico City (Mexico) History

Mexico History Spanish colony, 1540-1810

Mexico City (Mexico) Race relations

Mexico City (Mexico) Social conditions

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 201-210) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Intro -- Contents -- Figures -- Tables -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Race and Class in Colonial Mexico City, 1521-1660 -- 2. Life among the Urban Poor: Material Culture and Plebian Society -- 3. The Significance and Ambiguities of "Race -- 4. Plebian Race Relations -- 5. Patrons and Plebians: Labor as a System of Social Control -- 6. The Fragility of "Success": Upwardly Mobile Castas in Mexico City -- 7. The Riot of 1692 -- Conclusion -- Appendix: List of Casta and Indian Wills -- Notes -- Selected Bibliography -- Index.

Sommario/riassunto

In this distinguished contribution to Latin American colonial history, Douglas Cope draws upon a wide variety of sources-including Inquisition and court cases, notarial records and parish registers-to challenge the traditional view of castas (members of the caste system created by Spanish overlords) as rootless, alienated, and dominated by a desire to improve their racial status. On the contrary, the castas, Cope shows, were neither passive nor ruled by feelings of racial inferiority; indeed, they often modified or even rejected elite racial ideology. Castas also sought ways to manipulate their social "superiors"



through astute use of the legal system. Cope shows that social control by the Spaniards rested less on institutions than on patron-client networks linking individual patricians and plebeians, which enabled the elite class to co-opt the more successful castas. The book concludes with themost thorough account yet published of the Mexico City riot of 1692. This account illuminates both the shortcomings and strengths of the patron-client system. Spurred by a corn shortage and subsequent famine, a plebeian mob laid waste much of the central city. Cope demonstrates that the political situation was not substantially altered, however; the patronage system continued to control employment and plebeians were largely left to bargain and adapt, as before. A revealing look at the economic lives of the urban poor in the colonial era, The Limits of Racial Domination examines a period in which critical social changes were occurring. The book should interest historians and ethnohistorians alike.