Ann Twinam

Purchasing Whiteness

Pardos, Mulattos, and the Quest for Social Mobility in the Spanish Indies

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

The colonization of Spanish America resulted in the mixing of Natives, Europeans, and Africans and the subsequent creation of a casta system that discriminated against them. Members of mixed races could, however, free themselves from such burdensome restrictions through the purchase of a gracias al sacar-a royal exemption that provided the privileges of Whiteness. For more than a century, the whitening gracias al sacar has fascinated historians. Even while the documents remained elusive, scholars continually mentioned the potential to acquire Whiteness as a provocative marker of the historic differences between Anglo and Latin American treatments of race. Purchasing Whiteness explores the fascinating details of 40 cases of whitening petitions, tracking thousands of pages of ensuing conversations as petitioners, royal officials, and local elites disputed not only whether the state should grant full whiteness to deserving individuals, but whether selective prejudices against the castas should cease. Purchasing Whiteness contextualizes the history of the gracias al sacar within the broader framework of three centuries of mixed race efforts to end discrimination. It identifies those historic variables that structured the potential for mobility as Africans moved from slavery to freedom, mixed with Natives and Whites, and transformed later generations into vassals worthy of royal favor. By examining this history of pardo and mulatto mobility, the author provides striking insight into those uniquely characteristic and deeply embedded pathways through which the Hispanic world negotiated processes of inclusion and exclusion.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Stanford University Press
• Seitenzahl: 552
• Erscheinungstermin: 28. Januar 2015
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 229mm x 155mm x 36mm
• Gewicht: 839g
• ISBN-13: 9780804750929
• ISBN-10: 0804750920
• Artikelnr.: 41121777

Autorenporträt

Ann Twinam is Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of Miners, Merchants, and Farmers in Colonial Colombia (University of Texas Press, 1982) and of Public Lives, Private Secrets: Gender, Honor, Sexuality, and Illegitimacy in Colonial Spanish America (Stanford University Press, 1999). This latter book won the Thomas F. McGann Prize and was runner up for the Bolton Prize.

Inhaltsangabe

Contents and Abstracts
1Conclusions: A Century of Historiography
chapter abstract
This chapter traces a century of historiography and scholarly fascination
with the concept that pardos and mulattos in Spanish America could purchase
whiteness through a process known as gracias al sacar. This option served
as a provocative marker for exploration of key themes including comparative
slavery and citizenship in the Americas, the significance of caste versus
class, the salience of identity, the benefits and difficulties of imperial
comparisons. It reveals how historians missed provocative clues suggesting
that they needed to rethink why the whitening gracias al sacar appeared and
what it meant. Only the "reverse engineering" of known documents, the
breaking of an archival code and the systematic collection of whitening
petitions produced some first answers and raised new questions.
2Introductions: Alternative Approaches
chapter abstract
This chapter introduces the methodologies of emic and etic approaches--
privileging research from the inside out versus the outside in--and
processual analysis focusing on contexts, historical actors and
chronologies. A first section probe contexts, those underlying variables
that shaped the dynamics of exclusion and inclusion including Spanish
traditions concerning "race," "color," "class," the essence of pardo-ness
and mulatto-ness, as well as concepts of justice, reciprocity and
"inconveniences." A second segment considers historical actors--pardos and
mulattos, local elites, and imperial officials- to understand their roles
in promoting or obstructing status change. A final section introduces
chronologies, not only "traditional" historical benchmarks but "long,"
"linear," "frozen" and "Atlantic" time. A central goal is to understand
those dynamics that promoted general casta mobility and also permitted an
elite cohort to petition for whiteness.
3Interstices: Seeking Spaces for Mobility
chapter abstract
This chapter traces changes in laws concerning slaves, free blacks, pardos
and mulattos focusing on historic interstices that facilitated movement
from slavery to freedom, to rank as royal vassals and assumption of some
white privileges. Law, custom, religion, time and region variously
influenced mobilities. The Siete Partidas declared that humans should seek
to end servitude and that free babies always emerged from free wombs. The
right of slaves to purchase freedom, for masters expedite it, or for the
state to guarantee it, proved natural corollaries. Forcible conversion
meant that slave descendants became members of the Spanish Catholic
community of the Indies. As the crown moved the castas from the unwelcome
category of "inconveniences," to the desired one of "vassals," the mutual
responsibilities of reciprocity took hold. There were historic crossroads:
the 1620s changed royal attitudes toward the castas; the 1700s marked early
attempts to attach privileges reserved to white elites.
4Connections: Genealogical Mathematics
chapter abstract
The generational histories of whitening petitioners reveal largely
undocumented processes that created and lightened the society of castas.
Some recreated genealogical mathematics in their own bodies and families:
versions of the famous casta paintings that detailed progressive
combinations of mixtures that led toward whiteness. Gender profoundly
affected the ensuing dynamics of intimacy as slave males might free the
next generation with liaisons with free Native or casta women. Free casta
males tended to whiten either through matrimony to parda women with white
fathers or to plebeian or discredited white females. In contrast, slave
women could not free their offspring. However once free, they more commonly
engaged in sexual affairs, live in concubinage or married lighter males or
whites. The results of such negotiations appeared in documents that
chronicled whether petitioners had maintained their casta status or if they
transformed themselves or the next generation into "Spaniards" or "Dons."
5Benchmarks: Commoditizing Whiteness, Cuba and Panama.
chapter abstract
This chapter reveals how the purchase of whiteness originated from Bourbon
codification, rather than any considered policy to enhance the status of
the castas. Starting in the 1760s, crown attorneys considered cases where
castas applied for elimination of their "defect" to practice the prohibited
occupations of surgeon and notary. Crown attorneys innovated when they
eliminated "defect" for not only occupational exemptions, but also
permitted achievement of total whiteness. They then created a separate
"gracias" that might be purchased to end such "defect." Finally, they
officially linked the ending the "defect" of pardo-ness, the doing so by
purchase, with the institutionalization of such practice by adding the
whitening clauses as the last two purchasable favors listed in the 1795
gracias al sacar.
6Balances: Weighing the Price of Whiteness
chapter abstract
This chapter explores the first petitions where pardos and mulattos in the
1770s petitioned for total whiteness. This escalation directly connected
with previous mobility efforts as the first request originated from a Cuban
whose brother had received an exemption to practice as a surgeon. Castas
presented their services to the crown as evidence that they were deserving
vassals who merited royal favor; they provided both detailed and ambiguous
reflections on the potential effects of total whitening. Royal officials
took the obligations of reciprocity seriously, balancing petitioners'
service to the state with consideration of the complications of whitening
decrees. These early exchanges produced few policy decisions or emerging
trends. While imperial bureaucrats instinctively sought balances, they were
unsure what weights to place in favor and what against. Given that
whitening had not been a thought out policy, critical questions remained
unanswered, contributing to the Cámara's rejection of these first
applications.
7Exceptions: The Venezuelan Cluster
chapter abstract
This chapter explores the unique role played by Venezuelan elites and
castas in the history of the whitening gracias al sacar, both their
aggressive protests against it and their growing number of petitions for
it. Coastal Venezuela was a land of extremes with a substantial free casta
population with significant mobility and a cohesive white elite determined
to maintain hierarchy. In 1788, the Caracas city council launched a
preemptive strike sending two blistering letters to the crown opposing
pardos becoming priests, attending university, marrying whites or holding
public office. Such protests must be contextualized within the unique
Venezuelan environment, for while there were literally pounds of protest
documents concerning the whitening gracias al sacar from Caracas, there was
less than an ounce from the rest of the Indies.
8Opportunities: Whitening, the First Year 1795-1796
chapter abstract
This chapter traces the responses of royal officials, pardos and mulattos
and local elites to the issues of the whitening clauses in the 1795 gracias
al sacar.
9Dissentions and Discords: 1796-1803
chapter abstract
This chapter traces dissentions and discords caused by the whitening
gracias al sacar. It produced continued sparring between Madrid and Caracas
and a rare confrontation between the crown attorneys, the ministers of the
Cámara who made whitening decisions, and their colleagues on the Council of
the Indies over too generous grants of whiteness. Petitioners returned to
complain when Caracas elites refused to honor their whitening decrees and
the Council of the Indies engaged in affirmative action to force them
establishment into compliance. The "inconveniences' of deciding cases, of
responding to protests from Caracas and of enforcement of decrees for
successful petitioners began to take a toll. Nor did the inhabitants of
Caracas remain silent, as pardos threatened loss of support without the
promised mobility of the whitening clauses while the elite refused to obey
and accept the white status of successful petitioners.
10Denouements 1803-1806
chapter abstract
This chapter traces setbacks for the Council of the Indies, for Venezuelan
elites and for the castas. The Bourbon reform that only appointed crown
attorneys with Indies experience would lead to delays as months passed with
posts unoccupied resulting in confusion and absence of policymaking.
Although the Council of the Indies continued to insist that those whitened
enjoy the accompanying privileges, ministers would become more cautious in
issuing new decrees. The Caracas establishment--the audiencia, the
university and the bishop--would unite to protest whitening. Those already
whitened would struggle to enjoy their new privileges; those applying would
face delays and uncertainties. Yet, the Council of the Indies would begin
to rethink the policy of institutionalized discrimination against the
castas. The complaints and pleas of those who opposed and those who
supported whitening provide exceptional insight into ongoing debates over
processes of inclusion and exclusion within the empire.
11Recalibrations: The Mystery Consulta and the Cortes: 1806-1810
chapter abstract
From 1806 to 1810 royal officials would attempt to recalibrate the status
of pardos and mulattos. Some unknown minister in July 1806 would prepare a
lengthy "mystery" report (consulta), which reviewed the past and provided
recommendations. In 1808, Minister Francisco Viaña would summarize previous
attempts to formulate whitening policy, review the recommendations of
officials in General Accounting concerning general casta mobility, and
suggest revisions. He concluded that whitening should continue to be
granted and provide full whiteness although its scope should be limited to
the individual. The state should enhance general casta mobility, providing
some unspecified benefits to a tier located between the masses and those
granted whitening. With the Napoleonic invasion in 1808 and the subsequent
fall of the monarchy, debates over casta whitening and mobility would shift
away from the Council of the Indies to the Cortes of Cadiz, tasked to write
a constitution for the empire.
12Evolutions: Vassals to Citizens? .
chapter abstract
This chapter explores linkages, dislocations and new directions focusing on
the Cortes of Cadiz consideration of the future of the castas. The first
debate, in fall 1810, concluded with a resolution that excluded the castas
from representation for Cortes delegates. From August through September
1811, the Cortes considered those articles of the constitution that defined
Spanishness, citizenship, and representation. While the constitution
identified the castas as Spaniards, the Cortes denied them citizenship
unless they applied in a gracias al sacar like process for full civil
status. On January 1812, parliament recognized that some institutionalized
discriminations against the castas should end, opening up access to
universities and to religious professions. Exploring these Cortes debates
as well as local reactions provides an alternative focus to the
conversations between the crown, local elites and pardos and mulattos on
the status of the castas generally and on whitening in particular.
13Retrospectives: Tidbits, Chunks, and Conclusions
chapter abstract
This chapter focuses on the personal sagas of those whitening applicants
whose stories can be told. The goal is to highlight those processes that
influenced whitening outcomes--the extent to which a positive, a negative
or an even an ambiguous verdict might contribute to variable scenarios. A
final section concludes, tracing those variables that shaped the history of
whitening and of casta mobility in Spanish America.