Sistema or Sociedad de Castas
"Historie Naturalle du gente humain"
J.J. Virrey, 1809
Cuadro de distinto tipos de mexcia y su nomenclatura

Plate 16, Albarsado x Mestisa; Barsino, p. 82
Ilona Katzew, "New World Orders: Casta Painting and Colonial Latin America",
Americas Society Art Gallery, New York, 1996, Plate 16: Albarsado × Mestisa; Barsino, p. 82

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

Degree Parents Offspring
1ier grado Blanco × negro: Mulato
Blanco × indio: mestitzo
Negro × indio: zambo, lobo o chino2
Negro × mulata: zambo, grilo o cabro
Negro × china: zambo
Blanco × mulata tercerón o morisco a veces llamado cuarte 3
2do grado Blanco × mestizo: cuatralbo, castizo
Indio × zambo: zambaigo
Indio × mestizo: tresalbo
Indio × mulato: mulato prieto
Negro × zambo: zambo prieto
Blanco × tercerón: cuaterón, albino
3er grado Blanco × castizo: postizôn u octavôn
Mulato × tercerón: salta atrás4
Mestizo × cuarterón: coyote
Grifo × zambo: jibaro
Mulato × zambaigo: cambujo
Blanco × cuarterón: quinterón
4o grado Blanco × octavón indio: puchuelas
Blanco × coyote: bamizos
Blanco × cabujo: albarrasado
Blanco × cabujo: barzinos
Negro × tecerón: cuaterôn salta atrás4
Negro × cuarterón: quinterón salta atrás4

1   Magnus Mörner, "Race Mixture in the History of Latin America", Little, Brown and Company, Boston, pp. 62-63.
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2   While "Chino" was often used as a simple casta label, since Nueva España included the Phillipines, it was sometimes also used for people who had derived from the Phillipines or even China, especially when Chinese were brought in to create the beginnings of a silk industry using the support of the Jesuit galleon trade between Manila and San Blás and Acapulco. See also María Elena Martínez, "Genealogical Fictions: Limpieza de Sangre, Religion, and Gender in Colonial Mexico", Stanford U. P., 2008, p. 342, footnote 97.
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3   "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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4   "Salta atrás" means a "jump backward", away from from Spanish "blood". See Pedro Alonso O'Crouley (Sean Galvin, trans.), "A Description of The Kingdom of New Spain, 1774", John Howell, 1972, p. 19, footnote 2.

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