The Question of Mestizos in the Early Hispanic Caribbean

"Spaniards, Pardos, and The Missing Mestizos: Identities and Racial Categories in the Early Hispanic Caribbean" by Stuart B. Schwartz is a very useful essay for examining the 'extinction' of the indigenous population. After my previous post on Puerto Rican population estimates throughout the colonial era and the almost complete absence of indigenous peoples or "Indians" after the early 16th century, I believed examining further the 'disappearance' of indigenous people in Puerto Rico deserved some additional attention.

Schwartz correctly notes the importance of the Spanish conquest and later slavery in redefining social categories in a very short period of time. Indeed, the role of sex in the Spanish conquest and colonial project is also mentioned in records, beginning as early as 1492, so there is plenty of evidence of the existence of 'mestizos' of Indian descent, yet their absence is conspicuous. Indeed, as Schwartz demonstrates, political interests of the Spanish played a role in motivating formal marriages with indigenosu women, such as the daughters of caciques, to gradually "Hispanicize" the elites of the island (7). Of course, rape, pillage, and other forms of violence would increase the numbers of mixed-race individuals. Marriage between encomenderos in Hispaniola, for instance, often united Spanish men with Indian women, as well as forms of concubinage (8).

Moreover, the Lando census of the 1530s in Puerto Rico likely reveals a euphemism for mixed-race women of the island, mujures de esta tierra (8). In addition, the colonial ecclesiastical authorities deplored the prevalence of single men involved with women in informal unions, part of the reason the colonial authorities wanted more white women from Europe to marry disproportionately male colonists (8). I am inclined to agree with Schwartz that the disappearance of Indians and mestizo identities reflects the incorporation of mixed-race descendants of Indian women into the 'white' or Spanish category in the colonial society of Puerto Rico. How else could whites, who were outnumbered by blacks and Tainos from the 16th century be so numerous, if not for the 'whitening' of mestizos? They and their descendants who were born legitimately, adopted the Spanish language, Roman Catholicism, and therefore entered into 'whiteness' could become 'white' in census data throughout the colonial period (10). This would explain why historians such as Francisco Scarano wrote that mestizos outnumbered whites by the 17th century yet no mestizos were counted in colonial census figures in Puerto Rico.

Schwartz fortunately gives numerous examples from colonial Cuba and Santo Domingo of known European-Indian unions resulting in children, yet the children were never classified as 'mestizo,' proof of the permeability of whiteness in the early Spanish Caribbean (11). Indeed, this comes as no surprise, since race is a social category. Therefore, some will 'become white' or 'Spanish' despite obvious miscegenation in the Caribbean. Unsurprisingly, some 'whites' in the the Spanish Caribbean were never considered such by European visitors, who noted their multiracial background and looked down upon them for it (Schwartz refers to the case of a visitor to Puerto Rico in 1783 who noted the rarity of pure whites). Again, this is not a surprise given the smaller and smaller Indian population of the island due to incorporation of their mixed progeny into the 'white' category and their own decline due to disease and Spanish violence and exploitation. Their 'mixed' descendants were left to marry or reproduce with whites, Africans, or among themselves (13).

Naturally, the slave trade and the importance of slavery brought an enormous increase in the black population. Like the rest of the Spanish colonies in Latin America, the 'stain' associated with black ancestry and slave descent became a significant social marker that widened the definition of 'pardos' to include people of Amerindian descent into a broader 'brown' or racially mixed category so that by the 17th and 18th centuries, Puerto Rico, the Spanish Caribbean, and much of the rest of Latin America blocked access to power and certain professions to people of mixed-race descent. Thus, some people partly descending from indigenous people in Puerto Rico became white while by the 17th century, some were also absorbed into the expanding Afro-descended 'pardo' category.

The importance of this for the elasticity of race also pertains to the question of Taino revivalism in Puerto Rico and elsewhere in the Hispanic Caribbean. So, yes, Tainos did not disappear off the face of the earth genetically, since the progeny of Spanish unions with indigenous women survived as part of the 'creole' mixed-race population, yet Puerto Rico remains most impacted demographically by European and African immigration. As for the question of culture, Puerto Rico would also appear to owe more to Spanish and African sources than some of the revivalist movement's supporters like to claim, despite the great importance of indigenous-European encounters in the early years of contact. The fact that colonial administrators and elites did not recognize "Indian" as a social category in Puerto Rico because they were largely 'mestizo' and whitened demonstrates that, though creolization in the broader sense occurred for both the Spanish settlers and Indians, their joint descendants were seen as "Spanish" and therefore probably preserved and honored more of their European heritage due to its dominance in colonial society.

Undoubtedly, indigenous practices could thrive or survive in some altered form, but it's just not correct to call them "Taino" anymore. They were no longer identified as such. Their culture was transformed and reconfigured into a 'creole' culture that was, as one can see from census data and other sources, neither self-identifying as "Taino" nor practicing 'purely' Taino-derived customs. Of course, one can see the survival of indigenous phenotypes and, as mentioned previously, some Taino and other Amerindian customs, but Europe and Africa were the largest demographic factors in Puerto Rican colonial society and they too were creolized and fused into something different. Therefore, in my humble opinion, it is dishonest and ahistorical to claim a "Taino" identity as a Boricua myself given the overwhelmingly 'criolla' identity of Puerto Rico for the past several centuries. Tainos are part of the 'three roots,' unquestionably so, but cannot be ahistorically placed on a pedestal nor romanticized as some of us are wont to do. I love and appreciate our Taino ancestors as much as the next person, but they're only one rather small component of Puerto Rican identity given their descendants' cultural assimilation into 'white' colonial society and the rise of a 'criolla' majority where miscegenation meant few whites were 'purely' of European descent and popular culture was significantly shaped by African slaves and their descendants.

This history of flexible whiteness may also help explain patterns of 'whitening' among people of African descent and the growth of self-identified 'white' Puerto Ricans in census data taken from the beginning of US rule to the present. And the fact that the 'white' peasants of the mountainous Puerto Rico (jibaros), Dominican Republic (monteros) and Cuba (guajiros) are so key to defining national identity for these islands speaks tot he importance of indigenous history because these peasants were hardly as 'white' as they might seem.