From the Habsburgs to the Bourbons

on how priests and friars changed policies in order to grant caste categories to the children of mixed couples

Abstract

This paper analyzes the changes of attitude of priests while allocating calidad categories in baptismal or marriage certificates. The method consists in analyzing, on the sacramental certificates, how the calidad of people was allocated. Several cases are shown in which the ecclesiastical authorities accepted verbatim the declaration of their faithful; how they judged the latter by their looks, or whether they investigated the quality of their relatives. It is concluded that under the Austrians, priests accepted with greater openness the statements of their faithful, assigning them categories that did not necessarily correspond to them. This allowed for social mobility to those descending from slaves. On the opposite, under the Bourbon rule, when the abundance of mestizo breeding produced an unclassifiable population, the attitude changed turning the processes more difficult and conflictive. Under the hardship of negotiation, and the limiting of upward mobility, conflicts grew in the judiciary field.