This book addresses the negotiation of categorizations in colonial societies in Spanish America from a new vantage point: fiscality. In early modern empires (poll) taxes were a significant factor to organize and perpetuate social inequalities. By this, fiscal categorizations had very concrete effects on the daily life of the categorized, on their assets and on their labor force. They intersected with social categorizations such as gender, profession, age and what many authors have termed race or ethnicity, but which is denominated here, more accurately with a term from the sources, calidad. They were imposed by legislation from above and contested via petitions from below, the latter being a type of source scarcely analyzed until now.
Sarah Albiez-Wieck, Ph.D. (2011), University of Bonn, habilitation (2021) is Interim Professor in Iberian and Latin American History at the University of Cologne. Her research interests include (post)colonialism, social differences, racism, migration, bonded labor and belonging with a geographical focus on Spanish America and the Philippines in a global context.
General Series Editorâs Preface
Acknowledgements
Figures and Tables
Abbreviations
Introduction
1 Comparing Cajamarca and Michoacán
â1.1 Tribute, Labor and Social Units from Prehispanic to Spanish Rule
â1.2 Cajamarca: between âpueblo de indiosâ and âvilla de españolesâ
â1.3 Changing Capitals and Political Units in Michoacán
â1.4 Demography in the Regions of Study
2 Spanish Colonial Tribute Legislation from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century
â2.1 Tributary Legislation: Transcending Previous Studies
â2.2 Colonial Obligations besides Tribute: Indirect Taxes and Labor Service
â2.3 Tribute and Tributaries: A Perspective from above
â2.4 Tribute Categorizations from the Conquest to the Bourbon Reforms
â2.5 The Bourbon Reforms in the Eighteenth Century
â2.6 The Long Journey toward Abolition in the Nineteenth Century
3 Negotiating Belonging and âCalidadâ in Petitions
â3.1 The Petitions
â3.2 Comparing General Patterns and Chronology
â3.3 Ancestry and (il)Legitimacy as Central Elements in the Petitions
4 Petitions by People Categorized as âMigrantsâ
â4.1 âMigrantâ Petitions from Cajamarca, Peru
â4.2 âMigrantâ Petitions from Michoacán, New Spain
5 Petitions Negotiating âMixedâ Ancestry
â5.1 Mestizos
â5.2 Mulattos
â5.3 Ambiguous Categorizations in Cajamarca: (mixtos) quinteros
â5.4 The Relationship between laborÃos and mulattos in New Spain
â5.5 Petitions by Women
â5.6 Unknown Ancestry: The Case of the Foundlings
6 Fiscal Categorizations after Independence
â6.1 Cajamarcan Categorizations and Petitions in the Nineteenth Century
â6.2 Fiscal Categorizations in Michoacán in the Nineteenth Century
7 Conclusion
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
The book is destined primarily to historians working either on colonial Spanish America or on social difference and fiscal systems in early modern empires worldwide.