Abstract

LEWIN, Juan Esteban. FOR NEW SITUATIONS, NEW IDEAS: THE MESTIZO AS CHAMELEON. hist.crit. [online]. 2003, n.26, pp.129-147. ISSN 0121-1617.

Rooted in Spanish colonization, white and Indian crossbreeding is a subject of great interest for understanding both the colonial society and the whole social history of Latin America. This article seeks to study the phenomenon. It first inquires into the type of society that characterized the colonial period as well as about the mestizos' place in it, showing their marginal status. It then approaches the question of the development of this society, emphasizing the mestizo response to their own exclusión through diverse social-camouflage mechanisms. Given these strategies, together with the slow growth of the mestizo population within Latin American society, and based on the advantages of their bi-culturalism (due to their Hispanic and American origins), the formally ignored mestizos slowly undermined the social system itself, without having to participate as a cohesive social group in the bourgeois revolution that led to independence.

Keywords : colonial history; white and Indian crossbreeding; social structure.

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