Race-Based Classification System Essay

The fear of producing black offspring between otherwise white parent, is in part the reason for paying critical attention to the lineages of potential marriage partners, which is an issue that did not affect the unions of those with a mestizo admixture. Not only were blacks most often at the lower rungs of the Colonial Spanish American society, but as time progressed in the Colonies, race become more and more often associated with skin color, whereas before lineage was of singular importance. Perhaps the rigid classification system was a holdover from the hierarchies of Spain that stemmed from the expulsion of the Moors and Jews during the Reconquista and use of such a system helped Spanish authorities maintain control over the population and retain power for the Peninsulares and Criollos.

Regardless of the reasons for the classification system, the effects of such rigid raced based classifications had the worst impact on those with the darker skin and more African features when it comes to treatment and social mobility. Even the term black when used in reference to those of African origin exists within a framework that must contain the “ambiguity” of blackness and

With the consent of the Church, who was held as the moral authority in the Spanish empire, blacks had limited protection from the abuses that Bartolome de las Casas sought to protect the Indians from when he wrote of the Destruction of the Indies. With the compounding issues of stereotyping and antiblack sentiments, it is clear that the manner in which Colonial Spanish America interacted with blackness caused a racial hierarchy system that limited blackness in a brutal and oppressive