Sistema de castas
Andrés de Islas, 1774

Espanol x Albina, Torna Atras (unknown)
Ilona Katzew, "Casta Painting: Images of Race in Eighteenth-Century Mexico"
Yale University Press, 2004."

To the reader: please do not take offense at the terminology below. This terminology is clearly racist, and should be insulting to many, many people. This terminology is here as it is a record of how people were viewed.

Aside from terminology, members of each "casta" were more or less distinguishable by their dress. Sumptuary laws specified dress that would be illigal for members of specific castas to wear. Other ways in which the castas were distinguished were as follows: 1

  Parents   Offspring
Español × India Mestizo
Español × Mestiza Castizo
Castizo × Española Español
Español × Negra Mulata
Español × Mulata Morisco 2
Español × Morisca 2 Albino
Español × Albina Torna atrás
Indio × Negra Lobo
Indio × Mestiza Coyote
Lobo × Negra Chino
Chino × India Cambujo
Cambujoo × India Tente en el aire
Tente en el aire × Mulata Albarazado
Albarazado × India Barcino
Barcino × Cambuja Calpamulato
Indio × India bárbaros
(Barbarian Meco Indians)

1   Magnus Mörner, "Race Mixture in the History of Latin America", Little, Brown and Company, Boston, pp. 62-63.
2   "Morisco/Morisca" was used in the Iberian peninsula to designate a Muslim, forced to convert to Catholicism (raza). Hence, when used to designate complexion (skin color, or casta), an ambiguity was created. "A royal decree in 1700 prohibited the use of this term [morisco] to avoid confusion with the identical Spanish word for 'converted Moor'." See Magnus Mörner, "Race Mixture in the History of Latin America", Little, Brown and Company, Boston, p. 58, footnote 21.

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