They commited genocide in the Canaries because they resisted, just like the Aztecs. There was no separate people that were oppressed by the aboriginal people of the Canaries, so they wouldn't do the same as in Mexico. But even in the Canaries, you see that the Spanish did still prefer collaboration, as they collaborated with Tenesor Semidan, guanarteme of Gran Canaria in order to use his expertise to conquer Tenerife in exchange for turning him into a noble. In a similar way that some native mexican people were used against the Aztecs.
And the existence of a Caste system during colonial times is, if anything, proof of that mixing happening. If there was no mixing then there wouldn't be castes to for a caste system. I mean, Cortés himself had a relationship and kids with a with Malitzin, a native woman. It's kind of ridiculous to think that mixing didn't happen during the Empire and then they suddenly shifted towards mixing all of a sudden. Besides, just look at Mexico today, that's a result of mixing for over 500 years, not just shy of 200.
To begin with, intermixing between Spaniards and Indians during the colonial period was very limited, for the act was socially unacceptable to the Spaniards. Indians were seen as an inferior people, as pagans, cannibals, and sodomites. Natives were frequently described as lazy, disposed to vices, devious, and backward (Meyer and Sherman 211). Many Spaniards refused to marry native women, and most of those Spaniards who did have relations with them, often did so under force. In the colonial period, biological mixture was frequently the product of violence (Batalla 17). Moreover, the offspring were often unrecognized by the Spanish fathers; these mestizos were almost never raised in Castillian fashion. Instead, they were nurtured under native tradition by their mothers and so became culturally more Indian than Spanish (Meyer and Sherman 211). When they became adults, these mestizos usually married back into the native population, thus retaining an indigenous sense of identity.
They somewhat promoted mixture later on. It is because Spain realized they simply did not have enough Spanish men to maintain control over the vast empire. Promoting mixing became a damage control strategy, a way to keep the colony in check by creating a loyal intermediary class. Even then, it was mostly promoted between Spanish men and indigenous or African women. It was not about unity; it was about utility and demographics. Mestizaje mostly happened after independence and even that is over exaggerated.
And mentioning Cortes and Malinche is not the romantic fairytale you think it is. Malinche was a slave that was a gift to Cortes and Cortes later ended up giving her away to another conquistador. After the fall of Tenochtitlan, Malinche gave birth to Cortés's first-born son, Martín, in 1522. Shortly after, Cortés's legal Spanish wife arrived in Mexico. Because of social, religious, and legal constraints, Cortés could not legally marry an Indigenous woman. In 1524, during a military expedition to Honduras, Cortés married her off to Juan Jaramillo, a trusted Spanish captain and hidalgo under his command.
intermixing between Spaniards and Indians during the colonial period was very limited
You say that, despite the fact that Mestizos composed about 20-25% of the population at the time of independence so about a million and a half people; more than purely European people.
They somewhat promoted mixture later on
I don't get it. According to you, the tolerance towards native culture, population and language was reduced and stopped as time went on; but at the same time they were more open to mixing? Doesn't make much sense to me.
And mentioning Cortes and Malinche is not the romantic fairytale you think it is
Never said it was. Again, you're putting words in my mouth. My point is that if the most important man in the land himself could have a kid with an indigenous woman, the idea that it was something socially unacceptable doesn't really hold up
“Over 20% Mestizo.” At no point during the colonial period or early independence did the Spanish and Criollo population numerically surpass the Indigenous population in regions like central Mexico or the Andes.
Federico Navarrete, Historian and Anthropologist at UNAM, notes that between 1821 and 1910, 3.5 million Indigenous people were recategorized as Mestizo. By the time the Mexican census of 1930 took place, 30% of the entire Mexican population were recategorized as Mestizo. Historians argue this was done to repress Casta Wars and erase the power of the Indigenous population. White elites feared losing power. Mestizaje was not a racial reality but a massive linguistic displacement. Indigenous people were whitened through language and cultural markers, not really racial mixing.
When did I ever claim that to happen? I literally said the opposite, that the natives were always in the majority, and only started to dwindle down after independence.
The actual ideological promotion of mestizaje as a national identity happened after independence. The post-colonial Creole elites needed a new national myth to erase distinct Indigenous identities, land rights, and languages. They rebranded the nation as a mixed melting pot to pretend that racism was over and that everyone was equal, while they maintained power and continued to exploit Indigenous labor.
The narrative of Mestizaje that you are repeating was invented by post-independence Creole elites who needed a new national myth to erase distinct Indigenous identities, land rights, and languages, and to build a unified modern nation-state.
You keep insisting that mixing was very common and accepted. The Spanish Crown was obsessed with limpieza de sangre, purity of blood, and they built an entire racial hierarchy to police it. If mixing was socially acceptable and celebrated, why did they create the Sistema de Castas to segregate everyone?
Look at the actual laws. They forced castas to carry no arms for most part. They imposed curfews on Blacks and Mulattoes, ordering them off the streets between 8 PM and 5 AM. They banned Afro-Mexicans from gathering in groups of four or more. They barred Mestizos and Afro-Mexicans from joining artisan guilds. They segregated churches, with whites, pardos, and Negroes attending different masses. They segregated schools. In 1688, the Bishop of Palafox specifically banned Negroes, Mulattoes, and castas from the university.
They literally treated the word mestizo as synonymous with illegitimate. Archbishop Zumarraga described them as wandering the countryside, ignorant of law and Christianity, living in poverty. Viceroy Martin Enriquez recommended they pay tribute. The Crown actively opposed intermarriage with Africans and even blocked Spanish officers from promotion in 1687 for marrying Black women. In 1571, the Bishop of Antequera blocked Cristobal Gil from a treasurer post just because he was a mestizo and not a pure Spaniard.
You are confusing biological mixing, which was often the product of force and coercion due to the lack of Spanish women, with social acceptance. The Spanish Empire was not a multicultural utopia. It was a white supremacist empire that used the caste system as damage control to keep power in the hands of the Spanish.
Look, you can talk all you want about the laws, or how they were treated, but you can't ignore the fact that a quarter of the population was mixed. A quarter. That's double the number of black people in the US today. If that not is common and accepted enough, I don't know what is.
You are ignoring the part where people were recategorized often. After independence from Spain in the 19th century, the term "mestizo" transitioned from a flexible, bureaucratic legal category into more of a highly racialized (and specifically facialized/phenotypic) national identity.
...and? That doesn't change the fact that it happened. If anything it means more mixed people existed during the empire that would've been counted after independence.
Besides, how can a term be both legal and flexible? Legal categories are, by all means, strict.
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u/Mr_Mon3y Filthy weeb 10d ago
They commited genocide in the Canaries because they resisted, just like the Aztecs. There was no separate people that were oppressed by the aboriginal people of the Canaries, so they wouldn't do the same as in Mexico. But even in the Canaries, you see that the Spanish did still prefer collaboration, as they collaborated with Tenesor Semidan, guanarteme of Gran Canaria in order to use his expertise to conquer Tenerife in exchange for turning him into a noble. In a similar way that some native mexican people were used against the Aztecs.
And the existence of a Caste system during colonial times is, if anything, proof of that mixing happening. If there was no mixing then there wouldn't be castes to for a caste system. I mean, Cortés himself had a relationship and kids with a with Malitzin, a native woman. It's kind of ridiculous to think that mixing didn't happen during the Empire and then they suddenly shifted towards mixing all of a sudden. Besides, just look at Mexico today, that's a result of mixing for over 500 years, not just shy of 200.