{"id":7035,"date":"2022-05-21T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-21T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nurs.essaybishops.com\/history-homework-help-discussion-essay\/"},"modified":"2022-05-21T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-05-21T00:00:00","slug":"history-homework-help-discussion-essay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/homeworkacetutors.com\/nursing\/history-homework-help-discussion-essay\/","title":{"rendered":"History Homework help – Discussion essay"},"content":{"rendered":"

Black Mexico
\nRace Times
\nUniversity of New Mexico Press r Albuquerque
\nEdited by
\nBEN VINSON III
\nand
\nMATTHEW RESTALL
\nandsociety from Colonial to Modern
\n:ss
\nDESIGN AND LAYOUT: MELISSA TANDYSH
\nComposed in 10\/13.5 Janson Text Lt Std
\nDisplay type is Bernhard Modern Std
\nBlack Mexico: race and society from colonial to modern times \/
\nedited by Ben Vinson III and Matthew Restall.
\np. cm. \u2014 (Dialogos)
\nIncludes bibliographical references and index.
\nisbn 978-0-8263-4701-5 (pbk.: alk. paper)
\n1. Blacks\u2014Mexico\u2014History. 2. Blacks\u2014Mexico\u2014Social conditions.
\n3. Blacks\u2014Race identity\u2014Mexico. 4. Mexico\u2014Race relations.
\n5. Mexico\u2014History\u2014Spanish colony, 1540-1810.
\n6. Mexico\u2014History\u20141810- I. Vinson, Ben, III. II. Restall, Matthew, 1964-
\nF1392.B55B55 2009
\n972\u2019.oo496\u2014dc22
\n2009020457
\n\u00a9 2009 by the University ofNew Mexico Pre:
\nAll rights reserved. Published 2009
\nPrinted in the United States ofAmerica
\n19 18 17 16 15 14 345678
\nl ibr a r y o f CONGRESS CATALOGING-1N-PUBLICATION data
\nBEN VINSON III
\n96
\nFrom
\n\u25a0J- ON APRIL 18, 1793, MEXICAN MILITARY INSPECTOR DON BENITO
\nPerez drafted a lengthy letter to the viceroy detailing the state of affairs
\namong the free-colored communities and militiamen that he had spent
\nseveral months reviewing. Contained within the pages of his report were
\nopinions that were probably consistent with the views of many elites of
\nthe time. In his estimation, the colony\u2019s interior was crowded with unem
\nployed blacks who congregated on the outskirts ofmajor urban areas such
\nas Mexico City. He wrote that the best way of dealing with this poten
\ntially troublesome lot was to be zealous in charging tribute, which would
\nhave the effect of pushing blacks to the coasts as they sought to evade the
\nheavy burden of unwanted taxation.1 On the one hand Perez\u2019s comments
\nrevealed an interesting understanding ofthe black predicament: the quite
\nsizeable free black population found itselfstruggling to survive financially
\nin freedom. Any efforts to circumscribe their freedom even more (in this
\ncase, through exacting straining financial demands) produced visceral
\nreactions. Black populations would move in order to defend their liberty.
\nBut while Perez\u2019s letter offered some astute understandings of colonial
\nDawn til Dusk
\nBlack Labor in Late Colonial Mexico
\nFrom Dawn ’til Dusk 91
\nblack life, they were also a bit misguided. He ignored some of the com
\nplex realities of black life with which even he must have been quite famil
\niar. The colonial archives are filled with evidence of gainful black labor
\nand enterprise. Indeed, urban blacks in particular were probably found
\nemployed more often than not.
\nHowever, as evidenced in Perez\u2019s dispatch, it was easy for free coloreds
\nto be misunderstood by their society. Even when they worked a trade,
\nsometimes for the government itself, innocent and industrious activity
\ncould be egregiously mistaken for criminality and deviancy. In October
\nof 1785, Leberina Azevedo, the wife ofVicente Medina, wrote an impas
\nsioned letter to the viceroy begging that her husband, a free-colored mili
\ntiaman, not be incarcerated and shipped to Puerto Rico for being found on
\nthe streets ofMexico City carrying sharp scissors. He was not a vagabond
\ntoting an illegal weapon she pleaded, but a hired employee of the Royal
\ntobacco factory where he had responsibilities in the cigar-making indus
\ntry. He had been found simply carrying a tool of his trade.2
\nSimilarly, at 8:00 p.m. on the night ofJuly 20, 1789, Lucio Antonio
\nRodriguez (another black soldier) was apprehended on the streets ofMex
\nico City for carrying a knife. According to his testimony, he had recently
\ngotten off work from the Royal custom\u2019s house where he held a job as
\nan artisan. Like Medina, his knife was his occupational tool, and he had
\nbeen using it that evening to cut wineskins and boots at the house of don
\nJuan Maranon. Rather than being caught committing a crime, he had been
\napprehended while innocently going about his daily business. After sev
\neral rounds of testimony lasting for over a year, proof of his impeccable
\ncharacter and service record were provided and all charges were cleared.
\nHowever, until then, he had to endure the humiliation of being dragged
\nthrough the courts.3 In a world where stereotypes and laws inhibiting the
\nblack population lingered, distortions regarding black laborers and black
\nemployment persisted.
\nFrom the standpoint of scholars, labor has been one of the great top
\nics of study regarding black life in the colonial Americas. In many ways,
\nresearch on slavery has captivated and monopolized historical scholarship,
\nyielding tremendously important results that have greatly improved our
\nunderstanding of the colonial and modern worlds. We now know more
\nabout how slavery contributed to the development of capitalism, global
\neconomies, world systems, Western notions of modernity, and colonial\/
\nmetropolitan relationships. We have sharper understandings ofhow slavery
\n98 BEN VINSON III
\ncontributed to the structuring ofsocial hierarchies and racial systems, as
\nwell as how itimpacted independence movements and the mundane opera
\ntion of everyday politics.”* But while slavery certainly occupied a founda
\ntional and prominent role in the colonial black experience, it is important
\nto remember that it was only a part of black life. Particularly in the Latin
\nAmerican context, free coloreds such as VicenteMedina and Lucio Antonio
\nRodriguez, comprised a substantial workforce that also strongly influenced
\nbroadersocial, political, and economic processes.* Their activities in places
\nsuch as Brazil, Venezuela, and Cuba are well known but, in other colo
\nnial contexts, such as Mexico, Bolivia, and Guatemala, their worlds are
\nless understood. At least for Mexico, this is not necessarily due to scholarly
\nneglect. Over the past several decades, a number ofimportant studies have
\nbeen produced that have either featured free coloreds, or have included
\nthem in broader analyses of regional and local economies.6 However,
\nfew attempts at achieving a general synthesis of free-colored labor have
\nbeen achieved.
\nThis chapter is an initial attempt at expanding our knowledge of freeblack Mexican labor, especially for the late eighteenth century. There may
\nhavebeenfewmomentsinMexican historythatpresent better circumstances
\nfor evaluating free-colored labor. The 1790s marked the eve ofindependence
\nand the close ofthe colonial era. If, as some have argued, the eighteenth
\ncentury was a period ofgeneral prosperity in Mexico, where greater social
\nmobility for blacks was possible due to a weakening caste system, a stron
\nger class system, and greater racial hybridity, then these years offer one of
\nthe richest opportunities to take the pulse ofAfro-Mexican socioeconomic
\nprogress. Second, the production of an extraordinary colony-wide census,
\ncommissioned by viceroy Revillagigedo between 1790 and 1793, provides
\nan unparalleled opportunity to examine free-colored occupational habits.
\nSince the census was raised to identify potential recruits for military duty,
\ndetailed information on women (including their professions) was largely
\nexcluded, as was data on the native population. Nonetheless, combined with
\nother sources, such as parish registers and tribute data, the late colonial
\nperiod is one for which we may be able to know the Afro-Mexican popula
\ntion intimately.
\nIt is important to stress that for Afro-Mexicans, the eighteenth cen
\ntury was in many ways a mulato and pardo century and that, atsome level,
\nblackness and the black experience should be evaluated on these terms. As
\na colony, Mexico experienced tremendous demographic growth, nearly
\nFrom Dawn \u2019til Dusk 99
\ndoubling in size from four to seven million inhabitants between the 1650s
\nand the late 1700s. The Afro-Mexican population grew, too, more than
\ntripling from roughly 116,000 in the 1640s to almost 370,000 by the
\n1790s.7 But with the decline ofthe slave trade after the 1640s, much ofthe
\nexpansion of the Afro-Mexican population came not through substantial
\nincreases in the shipment of new slaves, or by large measures of endoga
\nmous natural growth among free blacks (negros), but rather through the
\nmiscegenation of existing slaves and free blacks with mestizos, whites,
\nnatives and other groups.8 By the 1790s, the Revillagigedo census only
\nidentified a scant five hundred morenos, or \u201cpure blacks,\u201d throughout New
\nSpain, along with another 6,100 black \u201cAfricans.\u201d9
\nApart from being a mulatto century, one might also argue that the
\n1700s were an era of Afro-Mexican success. Using the lens of \u201csuccess\u201d
\nto discuss the black experience offers an important alternative to some
\ntraditional models of studying black life. Particularly in Latin American
\ncontexts, life after slavery is often processed within the framework of
\nassimilation and mestizaje. Interpreting life after slavery through the
\n\u201csuccess\u201d lens opens new opportunities for engaging blacks on different
\nterms, notably ones that compel us to measure free-colored populations
\nin light of their respective societies and that demand us to reckon with
\nblacks as a group struggling for their own internal cultural, political, and
\nsocial cohesion.
\nTwo potential barometers for measuring black success rest in com
\nparing the economic livelihood of blacks in the 1700s against benchmarks
\nfrom the previous two centuries, as well as against the conditions of black
\nlife in the greater Atlantic world. In simplest form, an argument can be
\nmade that because so many ofMexico\u2019s blacks were free in the eighteenth
\ncentury, their liberty should be celebrated over the more pervasive slavery
\nthat governed a great deal ofNew Spain\u2019s black life from the 1500s into the
\n1600s, and that shackled so much of the black population in slave regimes
\nthroughout the French and British Caribbean in the 1700s. Some might
\nalso be persuaded to argue that the very prevalence of black freedom in
\nNew Spain during the eighteenth century partially compensated for the
\nmany misfortunes thatsome blacks encountered when they took marginal
\nand menial positions.
\nOfcourse, this vision ofeighteenth-century black success in New Spain
\ncomes with some caveats. While most Afro-Mexicans were indeed free dur
\ning the 1700s, the truth is that slavery persisted as an institution until 1829.
\nIOO BEN VINSON III
\nIn the years preceding emancipation, anywhere from three thousand to ten
\nthousand slaves worked in a range ofprofessions including mining, textiles,
\nand sugar cultivation. Some ofthe regions where slaves continued working
\nincluded the cane fields ofCordoba, the developing frontier areas of north
\nern Alexico (Sonora, Durango, and Sinaloa), the textile center ofQueretaro,
\nas well as select coastal regions including Tamiahua and Acapulco. As strict
\ntrade controls and monopolies were removed from ports throughoutMexico
\nin the eighteenth century, a small, renewed slave trade appeared in tropical
\nregions like Tabasco. Essentially, what these factors mean is that any dis
\ncussion of eighteenth-century Afro-Alexican success must be situated in a
\ncontext in which slavery continued to exist, even ifonly on a small scale. In
\nsome ofthe locations where slavery remained visible, the cultural impact of
\nthe system may have borne implications upon free-colored social relation
\nships, as well as their prospects for advancement in society.
\nThe meaning of free-colored economic progress must also be situ
\nated in a society characterized by great inequality. In broad measure, the
\neighteenth century was generally one of economic growth for Mexico on
\nthe whole. The colony ranked first among the world\u2019s silver producers and
\nminingtriggered the development ofa variety ofindustries, including agri
\ncultural, ceramic, and textile production. Yet at the same time, the story
\nofMexican economic progress was greatly disjointed. Equal opportunities
\nwere not available for all, and while more millionaires were created in New
\nSpain than anywhere else in the Spanish empire, the Alexican working
\nmasses saw a 25 percent drop in real earnings during the last half of the
\neighteenth century, thanks in part to inflation, crop failures, and epidem
\nics. While some free coloreds were absorbed into the middle class, others
\nwho occupied the lowest strata of the economy were exposed to extreme
\nincome volatility, squalid poverty, and exploitation by a supremely power
\nful elite class. Was this a fate better than slavery? Indeed, was this success?
\nArguably yes, arguably no. However, such observations only seem to beg
\nthe question: to what degree should black success be measured against the
\nbenchmark ofslavery or against the material opportunities and livelihoods
\nofothers who were free?10
\nThe following sections, essentially a series of economic narratives, do
\nnot pretend to fully answer the questions raised here, but they help pro
\nvide a context for resolving them. By providing a broad understanding of
\nthe general contours of free-colored economic life, and highlighting the
\nroles that blacks played in specific local and regional economies, we can
\nFrom Dnivn \u2019til Dusk io i
\narrive at a better grasp of how free coloreds lived, articulated, and defined
\ntheir freedom, as well as how they translated it into opportunities that
\nintersected with the most powerful forces ofthe colonial economy.
\nColonial Snapshots:
\nA Portrait of New Spain’s Free-Colored Labor Scene
\nThroughout the second half of the eighteenth century and up until the
\noutbreak ofthe wars for independence, Afro-Mexicans comprised roughly
\nio percent of New Spain\u2019s population.\u201d Table 5.1 provides occupational
\ninformation on 11,730 free coloreds (mainly males) who came from twenty
\ndifferent provinces, districts, and urban centers throughout the viceroy
\nalty (see Maps 5.1 and 5.2). Combined, these regions housed approximately
\n64,000 free coloreds, or roughly 17 percent of the nearly 370,000 AfroMexicans who lived in Mexico during the 1790s.\u201d
\nIn a predominantly agricultural society, it should not surprise us that
\nagriculture was the largest arena ofwork for free coloreds.13 Entire prov
\ninces, such as Igualapa, Guazacoalcos (Acayucan), and Tampico housed
\nscores of labradores (farmers) and baqueros (cowboys), almost to the near
\nexclusion of other professions. Indeed, the labrador may have been the
\nmost common black male occupation in colonial Mexico. Using census
\nrecords alone, it is hard to distinguish among the labradores and baqueros
\nwho owned their own plots or flocks, and those who were sharecroppers,
\nhacienda laborers, and ranch hands.14 Ofthose who worked as employees
\non the larger estates, differences in salary existed between seasonal work
\ners and year-round hacienda residents. While seasonal workers could gen
\nerally benefit from high wages paid during harvest seasons, they did not
\nalways have access to adequate housing and their employment was irregu
\nlar throughout the year. Meanwhile, laborers who lived permanently on
\nan estate might have enjoyed better lodging facilities and more continual
\nemployment, yet at the same time they could incur greater debts there,
\nwhere they also typically bought their goods and wares. All ofthe earnings
\nof agriculturalists and ranchers were further subjected to market forces.
\nFluctuations in product value and levels of occupational experience also
\naffected wage differentials?5
\nSome of the free-colored agricultural workforce was mobile. As evi
\ndenced in regions such as the Pacific coast as early as the sixteenth century,
\nblack populations both enslaved and free, moved from estate to estate, or
\n102 BEN VINSON III
\nTABLE 5.1. Free-Colored Labor in Late Colonial Mexico, 1780\u20141794
\nEconomic Sector
\n982 8.4
\n17 .1
\n6,160 52.5
\nNumber of
\nWorkers
\n170
\n1,961
\n101
\n306
\n230
\n76
\n11,730
\n1,113
\n133
\n261
\n15
\n119
\n86
\n1.4
\n16.7
\n.9
\n2.0
\n2.6
\n.7
\n99.9
\n.1
\n1.0
\n.7
\nPercentage of
\nWorkforce (%)
\n9.5
\n1.1
\n2.2
\nSource: AGN, Padrones, vols. 11, 12, 13, 16, 17, 18, 21, 35, and 37; AGN, I.G., vol. 53-A;
\nI.G., vol. 416-A, Acayucan, 1795, Biblioteca Nacional de Antropologia y Historia (BNAH)
\nArchivo Judicial de Puebla, rollos 43-44, Tributes Expediente formado en virtud de las
\ndiligencias hechas por los alcaldes ordinarios al gobernador intendente Don Manuel
\nde Flon, Puebla, 1795; Archivo Historico de la Ciudad de Mexico (AHCM), Ciudad de
\nMexico, vol. 1;Juan Andrade Torres, El comercio de esclavos en la provincia de Tabasco (Siglos
\nXV1-XIX) (Villahermosa, Mexico: Universidad Juarez Autonoma de Tabasco, 1994),
\n60-61;Jorge Amos Martinez Ayala, Epa! Epa! Toro Prieto, Toro Prieto (Morelia: Institute
\nMichaocano de Cultura, 2001), 67-69; Bruce Castleman, \u201cSocial Climbers in a Colonial
\nMexican City: Individual Mobility within the Sistema de Castas in Orizaba, 1777-1791,\u201d
\nColonialLatin American Review (CLAR) 10, no. 2 (2001): 242-44; David A. Brading,
\n\u201cGrupos etnicos: Clases y estructura ocupacional en Guanajuato (1792),\u201d in Historiay
\npoblacidn en Mexico (SiglosXVI-XIX), ed. Thomas Calvo, 256 (Mexico City: El Colegio
\nTransport and services
\nConstruction
\nMetal, wood, pottery
\nTextiles, dress, shoes,
\nleatherworking
\nArts and entertainment
\nFood and drink
\nCommerce
\nAdministrative,
\nprofessional,
\nchurch, military
\nAgricultural, fishing,
\nand pastoral
\nTobacco
\nMining and refining
\nMill workers3
\nOther industry13
\nOther
\nUnknown
\nTotal
\nFrom Dawn \u2019til Dusk i\u00b03
\nde Mexico, 1994); Wu, \u201cThe Population ofthe City ofQueretaro in 1791 fJournal ofLatin
\nAmerican Studies 16, no. 2 (1984): 293; Guillermina del Valle Pavon, \u201cTransformaciones de
\nla poblacion afromestiza de Orizaba segun los padrones de 1777 y 1791,\u201d in Pardos, niulatos
\ny libertos, Sexto encuentro de Afromexianistas, 88-93 (Xalapa: Universidad Veracruzana,
\n2001); and Juan Carlos Reyes G., \u201cNegros y afromestizos en Colima, siglos XVI-XIX,\u201d in
\nPrcsencia africana en Mexico, ed. Luz Maria Montiel Martinez, 301 (Mexico City: Consejo
\nNacional para la Cultura y Artes, 1993).
\nNote: The study includes seven cities (Guanajuato, Valladolid, Queretaro. Orizaba,
\nMexico City, Puebla, and Oaxaca), and thirteen provinces\/districts (Acayucan. Tabasco,
\nGuamelula, Tixtla, Acapulco, Tlapa, Chilapa, Motines, Tampico, Colima, Igualapa,
\nSanjuan del Rio, and Irapuato).
\n3 These workers were all in the mining industry.
\n11 Includes thirty-eight workers in the sugar industry, some ofwhom were agriculturalists.
\nfrom village to village in search of better livelihoods.1*5 In some instances,
\nblack residential and occupational mobility even helped anchor the devel
\nopment of certain townships, such as the village of Tonameca located in
\nthe Pacific province of Guamelula (see Map 5.1).17 By the second half of
\nthe eighteenth century, this town had come to possess the highest popula
\ntion density of blacks in the district. Although market forces did produce
\nimportant moments of opportunity that helped push and attract black
\nagriculturalists to various parts of the colony, not everyone heeded the
\nlogic ofthe market. In the second half ofthe eighteenth century, as cotton
\nand sugar production reinvigorated the Pacific basin\u2019s economy, causing
\nsome free coloreds to move onto or near estates in areas such as Zacatula
\n(see Map 5.1), others opted not to leave their homes or change their long
\nestablished lifeways. In the province ofIgualapa, also in the Pacific basin,
\nas some blacks moved to take advantage of special economic opportuni
\nties, others solidified their roots in the orbit of the great estates, forming
\na number of black settlements in the Costa Chica whose cultural legacies
\nremain felt even today.\u20198
\nNew Spain\u2019s black agricultural and pastoral workers included a num
\nber of individuals categorized as sirvientes (servants) and operarios (work
\ners) who labored on estates, small farms, and ranches. It was generally
\nunderstood that many \u201cservants\u201d in rural areas did not always perform
\ndomestic labor, but also worked in the agricultural and ranching profes
\nsions as assistants, peons, and farmhands. Their servant status probably
\nsignaled a lower position within the labor hierarchy. A few rural servants
\n104 BEN VINSON III
\n102\u2019\u2019W ICO1′!*\/ TP’*\/ \u2018tzl\u2019u’ lo’V
\nto
\nGUANAJUATO
\nto YbcATAM
\nZAllAPoLil
\nXOUMA
\nto cHilAPA KW
\nACAYVCAM
\nI
\nllb*M
\n‘GVAMELUIA. !CMl*u\/ qzr M qxi*u\/ l
\n1011-w 041-w Ww \u201cIZl’vM
\nl22.’U
\n2^
\nGuonapudo
\nr 1 . Merida.
\nMEW ItM
\n\u2022 Oaw.a
\n[ll’M
\nIfrrl *i>2 J\u00abfW. -9MM qtK
\nSs!i
\nib>J
\nqt>fi7
\nib-d
\nJCa
\n(iUjA
\nVilkJotzl
\nma p 5.1. Mexico\u2019s provinces. Map drawn by Severine Rebourcet.
\nUaMpico
\nCusmaxDzzi \u2022 Orizabax
\nSPAIN
\nCkiCapa.
\n. p .Ttwa. \u25a0Acaputco
\nmo t i^es ^^y
\n_-4t AcA7ULA
\nTABA^fer
\n>–x \/ fTLAPA
\nACAPUlXO-^\/S
\nV2lz\u2014^l&VALAPA
\nma p j.2. Mexico s cities. Map drawn by Severine Rebourcet.
\nFrom Dawn ’til Dusk 105
\nwere more specifically categorized as sirvientes de trapiches, meaning that
\nthey worked on sugar cane mills. Operarios, meanwhile, typically referred
\nto unskilled industrial workers and manufacturers, particularly in urban
\nsettings. But in the rural world of New Spain, many operarios worked on
\nplantations, haciendas, and cotton estates\u2014sometimes as machinists, but
\nnot necessarily. This intriguing group ofall-purpose black laborers prob
\nably resembled the indiscriminate category of rural \u201ctrabajadores” (work
\ners) found in regions like Tabasco.\u20199
\nAfter the agricultural and pastoral professions, the second largest
\nemployment arena for the free coloreds surveyed in this sample was min
\ning (see Table 5.1).20 It is almost certain that as future research allows us to
\nacquire more data on New Spain\u2019s free-colored labor force, mining\u2019s role
\nwill diminish within the hierarchy of eighteenth-century Afro-Mexican
\nprofessions. As with the labradores and baqueros, the particularities ofthe
\ncensus make it hard to distinguish among miners. The category included
\nrefiners, pick and blast men (who extracted ore from its deposit), whim
\nminders (who hoisted ore from shafts), smelters, amalgamators, foremen,
\nand peons alike. Needless to say, the skill level and pay scale of these
\nworkers varied tremendously. Virtually all ofthe mining jobs in the data
\nsample were located in Guanajuato, the premier silver center of the late
\ncolonial empire. In the 1790s, Guanajuato had a large black labor force,
\nmuch ofwhich was born in the city or its surrounding province, and that
\nhad ancestral roots stemming back into the sixteenth and seventeenth
\ncenturies.21 Despite the presence of black miners in other areas of the
\ncolony, such as Taxco and Sultepec, it is unlikely that any mining cen
\nter in the eighteenth century came close to matching Guanajuato\u2019s black
\nworkforce. Consequently, the total number of blacks in the Mexican min
\ning industry must have assuredly been overtaken by othersectors offreecolored employment.
\nAmong these were the transport and service industries,which included
\nporters, water carriers, muleteers, domestics, cooks, servants, laundresses,
\nand coachmen (see Table 5.1). If complete employment information was
\navailable for women, we would also find more wet nurses, nannies, house
\nkeepers, and attendants.22 One surprise is that muleteers (arrieros), who
\nhave long been perceived as a niche profession for blacks, were relatively
\nfew among employed free-colored males in the transport industry. Their
\nstrongest representation came in the colony\u2019s western highland regions
\n(Tixtla, Tlapa, and Chilapa) and in Guanajuato, which possessed over 250
\nio6 BEN VINSON III
\nblack arrieros. Elsewhere, and especially in the majorregional market cities
\nofPuebla, Oaxaca, Valladolid, and Orizaba, muleteers were almost absent.
\nWhat this suggests is that except for a few instances, many free-colored
\nmuleteers tended to live in smaller towns along major thoroughfares that
\ntied together the colony\u2019s primary markets.2* Another trend, more notice
\nable in the Pacific highlands than elsewhere, was evidence for the employ
\nment offree coloreds as muleteers\u2019 assistants de arrieros). These
\nworkers were mainly responsible for helping pack and feed the animals,
\nwhile also assisting with driving mule trains from various mountainous
\npassageways down to the colony\u2019s coastal and heartland zones
\nArtisans in the textile, dress, leatherworking, and shoemaking indus
\ntries competed fiercely with the service and transport sector for third
\nplace within the free-colored occupational hierarchy (see Table 5.1). These
\nprofessions included tailors, seamstresses, cobblers, textile mill workers,
\nhatters, cloth cutters, needle makers, spinners, tanners, weavers, and rib
\nbon makers, among others. Some of these trades, such as cloth cutters
\ninvolved minimal expertise and were mainly considered to be manufac
\nturing professions. Others demanded superior craftsmanship and even
\nguild membership. During the colonial period, and especially during the
\neighteenth century, free coloreds were known to have access to the upper
\nranks ofseveral guilds and many emerged as examined masters in their
\ntrades. However, in the census documents examined here, not a single
\nfree-colored master artisan was found among the 11,000-plus laborers.2*
\nWhen combined with workers in the metal, woodworking, and pot
\ntery sector, as well as candlemakers, wax producers, and cigar makers,
\nthe total population offree-colored artisans actually outnumbered those
\nemployed in the service and transport industries. Of course, the lack of
\ninformation on women complicates matters.2* Like their male counter
\nparts, free-colored women were also employed as artisans, with perhaps
\ntheir heaviest representation coming in the textile industry. There were
\nprobably significant numbers of black female confectioners and tobacco
\nfactory workers as well. All of this begs the question: what was the likely
\nimpact of females on the overall free-colored workforce? It is hard to say
\nwith certainty, but it is highly probable that the number offemale artisans
\nnever overtook the number of female service workers.26 Consequently,
\nwomen most likely affected the free-colored labor force by substantially
\nincreasing the representation of service and textile workers in the labor
\nhierarchy. Moreover, it is likely that female representation increased the
\nFrom Dawn \u2019til Dusk 107
\nA Tale of Four Cities: Free-Colored Big City Labor
\nNo single colony in the Spanish empire had two urban centers that rivaled
\nthe size of Mexico City and Puebla in the late eighteenth century and,
\nquite possibly, few could boast the economic diversity and complexity of
\nMexico\u2019s four largest metropolises, including Guanajuato and Queretaro
\n(see Map 5.2). All dominated the political and economic landscapes oftheir
\nregions by buying goods and supplying manufactured wares, furnishing
\ncredit for business ventures, as well as administering the greater affairs
\nof governance, justice, and military order. Collectively, these centers also
\noffered opportunities that were simply unavailable in smaller towns and
\nthe rural countryside. Whereas one might be hard pressed to find a sil
\nversmith, painter, or teacher in less populated zones, in New Spain\u2019s firstorder cities, such professions were more commonplace. Similarly, whereas
\nonly a handful of occupational options existed in smaller towns, in places
\nlike Mexico City there were well over six hundred different professions
\navailable between 1790 and 1842.28 Of course, the industrial and service
\nfunctions of most cities meant that artisans and unskilled laborers com
\nprised the lifeblood of urban economies. In a typical Latin American
\nmetropolis anywhere between 20 and 40 percent ofthe population worked
\nas artisans, while another 30 to 40 percent were unskilled laborers?9 As
\nmight be expected, the status ofthese professions varied widely, and argu
\nments can be made that the social position ofmany artisans did not match
\ntheir actual worth in the economy?0
\nBy and large, free coloreds found themselves navigating the colonial
\nurban world of honor, position, and status by maximizing and exploit
\ning whatever opportunities (big and small) their professions allowed. As
\na general rule, free blacks found some of their best access to jobs in the
\nfocal industries of the larger metropolises, in part because of the cities\u2019
\noverwhelming need to furnish workers in these trades. These professions.
\nvariety of trades to be found in the services, while raising the number of
\nworkers in both the food industry and petty commerce\u2014women worked
\nas waitresses, tortilla makers, street peddlers(selling stockings and combs),
\nfruit vendors, and druggists, among other positions?7 With female help,
\nthe service industry probably surfaced as the second most important freecolored occupational arena (over mining), followed by the textile-related
\ncraft trades.
\nio8 BEN VINSON III
\nin turn, linked free coloreds professionally to large swathes of the urban
\npopulace, creating opportunities for importantshared identities that were
\noccupationally based and that could enable other forms of success. Like
\nother urbanites, free coloreds also found an impressive range ofjob oppor
\ntunities within the service and artisan sectors, but unique pressures shaped
\nthe degree to which they were able to enter certain professions. Studying
\nthe leading free-colored occupations among Mexico\u2019s \u201cbig four\u201d urban
\ncenters uncovers some ofthe mixed patterns of opportunity and restraint
\nthat structured these key sites ofthe Spanish colonial world.
\nMexico City
\nWith a population of between 100,000 and 200,000, Mexico City in the
\n1790s was by far the largest colonial capital under Iberian control and
\ndefinitely one of the great world metropolises.3″ Employing a workforce
\nof over 38,000 people, the amount of available adult human capital alone
\nwas larger than most cities and, with steady flows ofimmigrants, Mexico
\nCity was a place whose productive capacity continued to rise. The city was
\nalso an important center of black life. At least seven thousand mulattos
\nresided in the capital, and combined with other blacks of varying hues,
\nthe free and enslaved black population probably approached ten thou
\nsand, making it one ofthe single greatest concentrations of blacks in New
\nSpain.32 In studying the phenomenon of urban black labor, it makes sense
\nto start here.
\nAlthough records have survived ofapproximately fifty thousand ofthe
\ncity\u2019s residents in 1790, just three quadrants (cuarteles) will be analyzed (see
\nMap 5-3)-33 Cuartel 1, located downtown, was situated within the principal
\nsite of commerce, government, and religious activity, being home to some
\nof the wealthiest and most powerful magnates of the colony. It was also
\namong the most homogenous and whitest parts of the city.34 Given that
\nthe town center was the oldest section of the capital, it tended to conser
\nvatively replicate many staid and traditional social hierarchies. This was
\ndespite heavier immigrantsettlement here than elsewhere in town.35 Most
\nnewcomers were rapidly channeled into domestic service, which worked
\nto solidify the vertical hierarchical relationships that had operated in this
\npart ofthe capital since early colonial times.
\nMoving toward the western periphery (cuartel 23), Mexico City became
\ndecidedly more working class. Despite housing the Alameda, a splendid
\nFrom Dawn ’til Dusk 109
\nJ
\nGw\u201ci I TCZZbE hOB
\nu
\nQ
\nN
\nt t=>
\npark that was an attraction for the elite, most residents lived modestly.
\nThey flocked into cramped quarters within large apartment complexes,
\nthey resided in larger artisan workshops and suites, or, toward the outer
\nextremities (especially in the northwest), they dwelled in single house
\nhold shacks (jacales’) and multifamily corrales that had adjoining farming
\nplots.36 Wage and day laborers abounded, some working in the numerous
\n0
\nMS
\nC D
\nP Q
\ni-S \u25a0
\n1
\neft
\n5m?
\ns a
\nr ~a
\nr * – <#
\n\u25a0fq4 *
\nh> 2P
\nma p 5.3. Mexico City and cuarteles 1, 20, and 23.
\nMap drawn by Severine Rebourcet.
\nlv,a
\nI p
\no
\nI if 1 ‘ \u2014 ‘ ”
\nI \u00b0
\n\u2014
\ndtp U
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\naggiat
\ni \/)*\u2022\/\u2022 r
\nzS%\u2018?
\nt
\nzbt?a
\nc
\nIIO BEN VINSON III
\nconvents and churches, others for a variety of workshops and local busi
\nnesses, and still others in the nearby tobacco factory, the largest ofits kind
\nin Mexico.37
\nFinally, near the southern periphery (cuartel 20) the city\u2019s character
\nshifted again. Many of the areas surrounding Mexico City were thickly
\npopulated with natives, especially regions that had been designated as
\nIndian \u201cbarrios\u2019 shortly after the conquest. Here, natives had access to
\ntheir own governing officials and administrative structures, much like in
\nthe indigenous townships that dotted the colony\u2019s landscape. By the end
\nofthe colonial period the more rigid boundaries had weakened, but native
\ninfluences remained strong. The southeastern edge ofthe city enveloped
\nsome of the old Indian barrio of San Juan and, in cuartel 20, life was
\nlargely agricultural, with farms, jacales, and corrales being prominent
\nresidential structures.
\nWhen compared to the city as a whole, the black population in these
\nthree sections of town was small, numbering just around five hundred
\nindividuals. Nevertheless, their role in the urban labor scene is illuminat
\ning. Previous work on Mexico City has shown that by the middle of the
\neighteenth century, the urban workforce apparently adhered to a certain
\nracial logicwhereby different casta groupsreflected, mimicked, and resem
\nbled the employment patterns oftheir parent populations. In other words,
\nnatives, who had traditionally fulfilled roles as the colony\u2019s primary lowskilled laborers, continued to occupy these posts in the eighteenth cen
\ntury. In a similar vein, mestizos, who had partial native ancestry, could be
\nfound filling positions as laborers to higher degrees than others, although
\ntheir partial white ancestry also opened opportunities in the artisan sec
\ntor. Meanwhile, the legacy ofslavery affected blacks and mulattos as freed
\nmen. Because slavery had been heavily associated with domestic labor in
\nurban Mexico, it may have been more than a coincidence that overwhelm
\ning numbers of free negros were found working as servants in the 1753
\ncensus.38 On the other hand, mixed-race mulattos, like the racially mixed
\nmestizos, had large numbers of artisans at midcentury. Still, over half of
\nmulatto males worked as servants or as members ofthe service sector.
\nGender drew the boundaries between race and labor more starkly.
\nBlack and mulatto women, for instance, who joined the workforce in far
\ngreater proportions than did their white and mestiza counterparts, domi
\nnated the realm of domestic service. In fact, in 1753, 45 percent of the
\ncity\u2019s servants were mulatas. Few free-colored women found employment
\nFrom Davm \u2019til Dusk m
\nas seamstresses, spinners, or in other artisan trades. In interpreting the
\nracial logic of Mexico City\u2019s labor scene, it is important to stress that
\nbloodlines alone did not simply \u201ccreate\u201d or \u201crestrict\u201d employment oppor
\ntunities. Rather, it was the networks that the different races had access to
\nand, quite possibly, the different socialization processes of these groups
\nthat, along with skin color, influenced the functioning ofrace in the urban
\nemployment arena.
\nSeveral of the basic labor market features found in 1753 continued to
\napply in 1790 (see Table 5.2). The artisan trades and domestic service con
\ntinued to offer important employment options for mulattos. However, just
\n13 percent of the total mulatto population in the three cuarteles worked
\nas artisans. Mulatto men enjoyed an advantage in accessing these profes
\nsions, as roughly one-quarter were craftsmen, but these numbers paled in
\ncomparison to midcentury, when approximately half of the mulatto men
\nsurveyed were artisans. The substantially lower figure probably did not
\nreflect broader, city-wide patterns in the 1790s, since it is unlikely that
\nwithin a forty-year time span, the artisan professions would have closed
\nso tightly to mulattos. In fact, there are indications otherwise. Among all
\nraces, roughly twenty thousand people were employed as artisans in the
\n1790s, corresponding to approximately half of the capital\u2019s workforce.39
\nMoreover, as the artisan class grew in late eighteenth-century Mexico,
\nguild membership dwindled. Being released from the corporate protec
\ntions and protocols ofguild membership meant that more artisans worked
\nindependently out oftheir homes or in the city\u2019s emerging factories. Cor
\nrespondingly, access to the artisan trades should have been easier, opening
\nup greater opportunities for the black population.
\nIt is hard to determine from the available information how wide these
\ndoors opened, but some patterns are clear. First, as in the mid-eighteenth
\ncentury, access to artisan positions fluctuated for free coloreds according
\nto skin color. In our three parts of town, negros were virtually excluded
\nfrom the artisan ranks in 1790, with only one shoemaker among them.
\nEven among mulattos, color mattered. Light-skinned mulattos, known as
\nmoriscos, enjoyed greater access to artisan posts than their brethren. A
\nfull 60 percent of moriscos (most of whom were men) were artisans (see
\nTable 5.2).40
\nSecond, one\u2019s location in Mexico City partly determined access to the
\nartisan trades. Certain professions were also clustered in specific neighbor
\nhoods. While well over half of free-colored artisans were located in the
\nIII BEN VINSON III
\nRace Artisans Other Total
\nMulatos
\nMoriscos
\nNegros
\nTotal
\n208 (82%)
\n5 (28%)
\n10(91%)
\n223 (79%)
\nService
\nSector
\n33 (13%)
\n11 (61%)
\n1 (9%)
\n45 (16%)
\n4(2.0%)
\n1 (5.5%)
\n0 (0.0%)
\n5 (2.0%)
\n252 (100%)
\n18 (100%)
\n11 (100%)
\n281 (100%)
\ncity center, in actuality seemingly better chances for entering the artisan
\nranks could be found away from downtown. In the two peripheral cuarteles, although free coloreds were few in number, many were artisans. Over
\none-third ofthe employed mulattos and all working moriscos were artisans
\nin cuartel 23. In the predominantly Indian environment ofcuartel 20, every
\nemployed free colored was an artisan, except for a mulatto government
\nofficial, a morisco bread merchant, and a lone, anomalous, morisco servant.
\nConversely, for free-colored women, opportunities for working in artisan
\ncrafts remained small. In fact, only one, a seamstress, emerged in the sam
\nple.41 It is telling that she was a light-skinned morisca who resided in the
\ncentral part of the city, where employment rates for free-colored women
\nran highest and where the range of professions was greatest.42
\nBy and large, domestic service predominated among free-colored
\nlaborers in the center of town, where opportunities for working in elite
\nhouseholds abounded. In 1790, the four largest professions for mulatto
\nmen and women included cooks, coachmen, young male attendants (mozos)
\nand female house cleaners {recantereras). Combined, they accounted for
\nwell over half of the adult working population in the city center. Other
\ndomestic professions were also well represented. Between kitchen helpers,
\nwet nurses, nannies, assistants (including female attendants called damns
\nde campania), caretakers of the elderly, washerwomen, convent servants,
\nSource: The information from this table is drawn from a database compiled by Herbert S.
\nKlein and Sonia Perez Toledo that analyzes the following census records: AHCM, Ciudad
\nde Mexico, vol. 1, exp. 2; vol. 4, exp. 6; and vol. 4, exp. 9. These records were initially
\nfound by Manuel Mino Grijalva who coordinated the database entry and analysis effort.
\nt abl e 5.2. Free-Colored Workforce in Three Cuarteles ofMexico City, 1790
\nCommerce
\nand
\nGovernment
\n7 (3.0%)
\n1 (5.5%)
\n0 (0.0%)
\n8 (3.0%)
\nFrom Dawn ’til Dusk ii3
\nPuebla
\nNew Spain\u2019s second largest city was Puebla, lying just eighty\u2019 miles east
\nof the capital. With a population of over fifty thousand in the late eigh
\nteenth century, Puebla ranked third or fourth in size among all Latin
\nAmerican urban centers.46 But the city\u2019s development had an uneven his
\ntory, especially during the 1700s. From a peak of over 65,000 in the late
\nseventeenth century, the eighteenth century witnessed considerable pop
\nulation decline that was both demographic and economic in nature. Prior
\nto the 1650s, Puebla had been one of the principal suppliers of woolen
\ngoods in the Spanish kingdom, as well as a major grain and flour producer.
\nAgricultural production was supplemented by products produced in the
\nmale lackeys, porters and pages, roughly another quarter ofthe workforce
\nwas accounted for. The remaining mulatto workers in the downtown area
\nwere artisans, laborers, and pettymerchants, including a street vendor and
\nthe owner of a small-time game of chance.
\nIn Mexico City, household economies, and even the composition
\nof families, mattered a great deal toward securing economic prosperity.
\nAlthough relatively few free-colored women listed a profession in the
\nouter regions of the city, it is highly unlikely that they did not work.
\nInstead of laboring outside of the household, many worked at home for
\ntheir families in tasks that included sewing, farming, and cooking. Some
\nmay have sold extra or leftover food to supplement their household\u2019s
\nincome. Children, too, were important in a household\u2019s economy, and
\nalthough many did not formally declare a profession until age eighteen, it
\nwas customary to help around the house and even take small jobs requir
\ning little skill.43 Indicators further reveal that toward the end ofthe eigh
\nteenth century, family arrangements became more complex in Mexico
\nCity as households expanded to incorporate friends, relatives, and strang
\ners. Appended household members (agregados) formed part of an urban
\nstrategy to pool and maximize resources for economic survival.44 Free
\ncoloreds certainly participated in this practice, albeit to varying degrees.
\nIn the three cuarteles, well over half (64 percent) of all households where
\nfree coloreds lived either included agregados or featured free coloreds
\nas agregados themselves. Negros were more commonly encountered as
\nagregados than any other group, while moriscos stood at the other end
\nof the spectrum.45
\n114 BEN VINSON III
\nregion\u2019s tanneries, particularly ham, soap, and lard. Trade also thrived
\nand merchants took advantage of their relative proximity to the port of
\nVeracruz. Puebla was so successful that rumors even circulated ofrelocat
\ning the viceregal capital there. But the eighteenth century brought dra
\nmatic change. Stiff competition in agriculture and industry saw other
\nareas ofAlexico supplant Puebla\u2019s dominion over the marketplace. Wheat
\nand grain production moved into the Bajio and Guadalajara, and a surging
\nQueretaro became a prime competitor in the textile industry. Eventually,
\nresidents began leaving Puebla for better opportunities elsewhere, gen
\nerating a disturbing pattern of out-migration. Much like Boston during a
\ncomparable period, eighteenth-century Puebla became subject to spurts
\nof growth and longer periods of decline.47 Agricultural expansion did
\nhelp the economy recover between 1760 and 1780, but modest gains were
\ntempered by epidemics and agricultural crises that hit hard between 1759
\nand 1773-48
\nBecause ofthe rhythms ofthese economic cycles, Puebla found itself
\nin a slightly different position than Mexico City in the 1790s. As the colo
\nny\u2019s capital was experiencing the early stages of economic crisis that would
\nmagnify in the nineteenth century, Puebla was actually enjoying a growth
\nspurt, albeit a short one.4^ European wars and their blew XA7orld theaters
\ninterrupted the normal pace of international market flows, enabling the
\ncity to export flour and foodstuffs to places like Havana at advantageous
\nprices. Textile manufacturing also enjoyed prosperity, as cotton was woven
\non an unprecedented number of looms. But the cycle of war and peace
\nupon which Puebla\u2019s economy rested during the late eighteenth century
\nwas an acutely volatile one that would ultimately inhibit commercial mod
\nernization efforts and sustained economic growth.50 Yet at the same time,
\nthese forces brought nearly a decade ofprosperity in the 1790s that helped
\ncondition the workforce, giving the city\u2019s black working population a spe
\ncific occupational profile.
\nPuebla\u2019s free-colored population was smaller than Mexico City\u2019s. Its
\nurban core and surrounding district housed just 2,930 negros and mulattos
\nin 1777 (4.1 percent ofthe total population), a number that was probably
\nnot greatly surpassed in the 1790s.51 Regardless, this group had become
\nrather influential, producing important merchant and artisan families, as
\nwell as a host of high-ranking military officers.52 By the late eighteenth
\ncentury, the free-colored population had seemingly acquired distinct
\nniches in the marketplace.53
\nFrom Dawn \u2019til Dusk ii5
\nThe city\u2019s 1794 tributary census summarily described Puebla\u2019s freecolored male workers as pardos54 who could primarily be subdivided
\ninto three main groups: (1) a poorly paid and semiskilled majority,
\n(2) a more highly skilled middle stratum of artisans, and (3) a sizeable
\nbut variegated third group that included a wide range of social classes
\n(see Table 5-3).55 The first and largest group of laborers, accounting for
\nnearly half (44 percent) of the male free-colored workforce, incorporated
\njust three professions\u2014tejedores (weavers), tobacco factory workers, and
\ncocheros (coachmen). Meanwhile, just six professions comprised the second
\ngroup, which in turn accounted for roughly a quarter of the free-colored
\nworkforce. These included hat makers, bakers, blacksmiths, cobblers, and
\ntailors. The final group was much harder to define. Consisting of almost
\none-third of the overall labor pool, these men included merchants, musi
\ncians, businessmen, and artisans, as well as a smattering of peons, labor
\ners, construction workers, agriculturalists, muleteers, and so on. Many of
\nthe free coloreds working in the food industry, including confectioners
\nand cooks, were located here, as well as nearly all woodworkers, especially
\ncarpenters and coach makers?6
\nDespite the variety of professions, this was not a very prosperous
\ngroup. There was only one high-status merchant among them and two
\npetty businessmen with small shops and street stands. A pardo coach
\nmaker did operate in the city. Within the artisan trades, coach makers
\ncommanded attention and respect, given that considerable expenditures
\nwere needed to buy the supplies and facilities to start a business. Coaches
\nalso tended to be bought by a well-to-do clientele, and prices climbed
\ninto the hundreds of pesos.57 However, it is unclear whether Puebla\u2019s
\npardo coach-maker actually owned his business. This definitely would
\nhave impacted his wealth. Prosperity may have more reliably touched the
\ncity\u2019s black tanners (tocineros’), an occupation that regularly drew sufficient
\nearnings to qualify for solid middle class standing in Puebla during the
\neighteenth and early nineteenth centuries?8 Highly regulated through
\ntrade guilds, tocineros possessed a strong identity and political power that
\ntranslated into key seats on the city council. Moreover, as a measure of
\ntheir wealth, each tocinero was required by law to demonstrate the use
\nof at least thirty pig carcasses per week. This steady and high volume of
\ncarnage was needed to display their financial solvency to the government,
\nparticularly their ability to provide certain municipal services, such as fur
\nnishing horses to the militias.59
\n116 BEN VINSON III
\nTABLE
\nOccupation
\n91 19
\n66 14
\n52 11
\nSource-. BNAH, Archivo Judicial de Puebla, rollos 43-44, Tributes, Expediente fonnado
\nen virtud de las diligencias hechas por los alcaldes ordinaries al gobernador intendente
\nDon Manuel de Flon, Puebla, 1795.
\n33
\n26
\n25
\n21
\n16
\n15
\n139
\n484
\nPercentage
\nofWorkforce
\n7
\n5
\n5
\n4
\n3
\n3
\n29
\n100
\nWhile opportunities for wealth existed throughout the occupational
\nspectrum, it is difficult to know which individual artisans were able to
\ntranslate their craft trades into profitable business enterprises. By and
\nlarge, it seems, the city\u2019s free-colored workforce stood with Indians near
\nthe bottom ofPuebla\u2019s social order.60 This observation needs some expla
\nnation. In many respects, the city\u2019s male free-colored workers appeared to
\nresemble other non-Indians. For starters, as with castizos,6\u2019 mestizos, and
\nwhites, the proportion of artisans among free coloreds towered over the
\npercentage ofartisans in the native workforce and probably well outpaced
\nthe share of black artisans employed in Mexico City\u2019s workforce during
\nthe 1790s. In fact, in 1794, over 80 percent of Puebla\u2019s pardo males were
\ncraftsmen, being largely employed in the clothing and textile industry.62
\nBut a closer inspection of Puebla\u2019s pardo population yields other
\nimportant details. Within the textile and clothing industry, free coloreds
\nTejcdores (weavers)
\nCigarreros
\n(tobacco factory workers)
\nCocberos (coachmen)
\nSowbrereros (hatters)
\nHerreros (blacksmiths)
\nZnpateros (cobblers)
\nPanaderos (breadmakers)
\nSastres (tailors)
\nAlbaiiiles (masons)
\nOthers
\nTotal
\n5.3. Free-Colored Workforce in Puebla, 1794
\nNumber
\nofWorkers
\nFrom Dawn ’til Dusk \u201d7
\nwere more likely to find jobs as tejedores (weavers) than any other occu
\npation. Over half of all male, free-colored textile workers in the 1794
\ncensus were weavers, which corresponded to 19 percent of the total male
\nfree-colored workforce. No other occupation enjoyed such prominence.
\nWhile access to the trade definitely contributed to the large number of
\nfree-colored artisans, on the other hand, a weaver\u2019s earnings were among
\nthe lowest in the city. Although weavers had long enjoyed a strong and
\nproud tradition in Puebla with a historically powerful guild, by the late
\neighteenth century the average tejedor was earning around two reales a
\nday, approximately the pay of an agricultural peon and barely enough for
\nsubsistence\/\u20193 Unfortunately, these wages would dip further during the
\nearly 1800s. Broadcloth weavers apparently earned more. Their greater
\nskill commanded higher prices, but there were only two free-colored
\ntejedores de ancho in the city during the early 1790s.
\nThe second most common employment for Puebla\u2019s pardos may have
\nbeen more lucrative. Along with Mexico City, Puebla was one of a few
\nlocations in the colony with tobacco factories\/4 These factories employed
\nabout one thousand workers, almost equally balanced between men and
\nwomen. Puebla\u2019s pardos comprised around 13 percent of the overall male
\nworkforce in the industry, a figure that well exceeded their representa
\ntion in the general population. Most were bachelors, meaning that, by and
\nlarge, their earnings did not support wives and children, although some
\nmay have given financial assistance to their relatives, illegitimate children,
\nand girlfriends. There was a wide variety ofspecialization among tobacco
\nworkers, including a limited number of relatively well-paid \u201cmasters of
\nthe table\u201d and foremen who could earn in excess of one peso per day. Yet
\nthere were also large numbers oflow-skilled workers, such as rollers, who
\nearned as little as one peso per month\/5
\nThe third largest profession for Puebla\u2019s free coloreds was cocheros,
\nwho regularly served as chauffeurs for the wealthy. At least 11 percent of
\nPuebla\u2019s pardo males were coachmen in the early 1790s, who in turn com
\nprised over half of all free-colored men working in the service and trans
\nportsector. As with weavers, compensation for thisline ofworkwas meager,
\nwith the average coachman struggling to earn a paltry two reales per day.
\nTurning to the middle tier ofPuebla\u2019s workforce,panaderos(breadmak
\ners) probably lived some of the most challenging lives. Historically, their
\nprofession enjoyed a notorious reputation, with employees being chained
\nand locked in bakeries, sweating profusely under the heat of sweltering
\n118 BEN VINSON III
\novens. But by the second half of the eighteenth century working con
\nditions had improved substantially. Prisoners were not to be impressed
\ninto bakeries, hours were standardized, wages were to be paid daily (with
\nno unfair deductions), workers were allowed to live offsite, and earnings
\ncould reach up to two reales per oven load of bread. Under these circum
\nstances, no less than halfofPuebla\u2019s free-colored panaderos were married
\nand lived with their families in the community. However, opportunities
\nin the profession were limited. No free-colored overseers were recorded
\nas managing the city s bakeries, and it is unlikely that any were entrepre
\nneurs, owning their own panaderuts.66
\nOther members of the middle tier of Puebla\u2019s free-colored male
\nworkforce enjoyed greater material well-being. Once they landed steady
\nemployment, they worked long hours in stores and shops typically owned
\nby others, or in small operations they owned themselves. The most pros
\nperous could afford to hire managers and assistants, who, working along
\nside them, added to profit margins and enabled commercial expansion.
\nSuccess was never assured. Of the middle strata, hat makers, who were
\nthe most numerous, probably also possessed the greatest range in earning
\npotential. Depending upon their skill, clientele, the quantity’ of produc
\ntion, and the quality of their materials, hat makers could earn anywhere
\nbetween one and four reales per day, with master hatters faring even
\nbetter. A steady daily income of four reales was not quite middle-class
\nincome, but it definitely distanced someone from the urban underclass.
\nThe most accomplished hat makers in the city could easily break through
\nthe middle-class ranks and into the elite. In the 1820s, some elite master
\nhatters earned in excess oftwenty-five reales per day, which exceeded the
\nearnings ofmany merchants.67
\nThe city\u2019s free-colored hatters were in small but good company in the
\n1790s. Blacksmithing, shoemaking, and tailoring provided staple employ
\nment opportunities for the city\u2019s free-colored population, as elsewhere in
\nurban New Spain. Within the textile industry, tailors probably fared bet
\nter than the more numerous weavers and may have enjoyed more prestige.
\nBeing one ofthe occupations furthest removed from the actual process of
\ncloth production, and with its employees having direct contact with the
\nconsumer market, tailors enjoyed a certain cachet, although from the elite
\nperspective they remained the subject of ridicule.68 Overall, the number
\nof pardo tailors in Puebla was small, especially when compared to places
\nlike Mexico City where, in the 1750s and possibly into the 1780s, tailoring
\nFrom Damn \u2019til Dusk 119
\nGuanajuato anti Queretaro
\nNorth of Mexico City, in a low-lying plain called the Bajio, rested one of
\nthe most fertile and productive regions in the colony. Staple crops, includ
\ning maize, wheat, beans, chilies, and fruit, grew abundantly here and silver
\nmining prospered, specifically in Guanajuato, which by the early 1800s was
\ngenerating more than five million pesos annually.69 Unsurprisingly, the
\nBajio would become home to some of the largest population densities in
\nMexico. By 1803, the province of Guanajuato alone boasted half a million
\ninhabitants.70 In its vicinitywere otherimportant centers, includingCelaya,
\nLeon, and Queretaro. Ofthese, Queretaro had gained a well-earned repu
\ntation as a textile center in the eighteenth century. Easy access to the mar
\nkets ofthe north, which both supplied wool to the city\u2019s factories and served
\nas consumers ofwoolen products, greatly facilitated the city\u2019s prominence.
\nCombined with a tobacco factory and a leatherworking industry7, Queretaro
\nhad much to offer prospective settlers.71 Despite hard years (smallpox epi
\ndemics erupted nearly every eighteen years after 1750), agricultural fail
\nures, and testy politics (Guanajuato\u2019s residents vociferously protested unfair
\nmonopolies, policies, and taxes), the Bajio region grew.72 Queretaro and
\nGuanajuato, in fact, became the third and fourth largest cities in Mexico,
\nwith populations of approximately thirty thousand in the 1790s. In their
\nhinterlands were secondary townships that anchored growth.73
\nOverall, the late colonial Bajio was an atypical region of Mexico.
\nNatives did not comprise a majority ofthe population, and most individu
\nals (including natives) lived in racially mixed townships, cities, or rural
\nestates. In this sense, the Bajio represented a prototype of what Mexico
\nwould eventually become\u2014a landscape where mestizos thrived as the pre
\ndominant racial type. But in the 1790s, the region had not quite achieved
\nthis state and free coloreds were part ofthe reason. Ofthe 400,000 persons
\ncounted in Guanajuato\u2019s 1792 provincial census, over 72,000 (18 percent)
\nmay have been the most accessible artisan trade. Tailors, like cobblers, had
\nfairly low overhead costs in starting their businesses. This made both pro
\nfessions attractive to a wide range of individuals. However, between the
\ntwo occupations, cobblers enjoyed a lower status. Status differences were
\nreflected in earnings. By the 1820s, a typical tailor in Puebla might earn
\nbetween one and eight reales per day, whereas cobblers more consistently
\nearned wages hovering at the one real mark.
\n120 BEN VINSON HI
\nwere mulattos. In the city proper, mulattos numbered as many as seven
\nthousand individuals, or 22 percent of the urban population.74 Queretaro
\noffered a slightly different scenario. The province\u2019s free colored popu
\nlation in 1791 was remarkably low, numbering just over three thousand
\npersons, or barely 4 percent of the regional population. Over half was
\nlocated in the city ofQueretaro itself.75 Free coloreds had historically been
\nmore numerous; just eighteen years earlier the 1778 census had recorded
\nas many as seven thousand living in the city alone. The disappearance
\nof the black population may have been a harbinger of future events to
\ncome throughout Mexico. Although smallpox wreaked havoc between
\nthe censuses of 1778 and 1790, the rapid and almost wholesale decline of
\nQueretaro\u2019s free-colored population probably had little to do with disease.
\nInstead, black losses were most likely attributable to their being rapidly
\nabsorbed by other racial groups\u2014at least in the official record. In other
\nwords, changes in the racial criteria used by government census takers
\nmay have been the real reason why, almost overnight, individuals who
\nwere once deemed mulattos were now reclassified as mestizos.76
\nGiven the centrality of mining and textiles to the economies of
\nGuanajuato and Queretaro, it is unsurprising that both would appear as
\nmajor areas of free-colored employment. What is surprising, however, is
\nthe degree to which blacks occupied them. In Guanajuato, between 1791
\nand 1797\u2019 n0 fewer than 4,659 individuals were employed in this sector,
\ncomprising approximately 49 percent ofthe male, non-Indian workforce.77
\nRemarkably, mulattos, with over 1,800 workers, represented a full 40 per
\ncent of the mining industry, and six out of every ten working mulatto
\nmales were miners. The related charcoal makers and refining industries
\nalso employed large numbers of blacks (30 percent). No other racial group
\nhad larger numbers in the mining sector.
\nSimilarly, in Queretaro, free coloreds formed nearly 20 percent of
\nthe non-Indian, male textile workforce. As in Guanajuato\u2019s mining sec
\ntor, these figures significantly exceeded their representation in the city\u2019s
\npopulation, with nearly four out of every ten black males working in tex
\ntiles. In the larger factories, free coloreds worked in almost every aspect
\nofthe industry, although mainly as weavers, workers, and spinners. A few
\nlabored in the finishing processes, that is, generating coarse cotton cloth
\nand making fine shawls. However, there were no black administrators and
\ndyers, although admittedly there were just a small number of these posi
\ntions available in the city. A handful ofQueretaro\u2019s mulatto textile workers
\nFrom Dawn \u2019til Dusk 121
\noperated cottage industries of their own. There were seven recorded
\ntrapicberos, who, in all likelihood, ran small family-style operations con
\nsisting of one or two looms.78
\nWhile the Queretaro census offers only a glimpse of an industry that
\nmay have employed well over three thousand men and women during the
\nlate colonial period, it is nevertheless a compelling view. Combined with
\nthe data from Guanajuato, we clearly see that two of the most important
\nindustrial fields in each city generously employed free people ofcolor. This
\nsuggests that as the Mexican economy expanded in these areas, material
\nopportunities arose for blacks. While their occupations may not have been
\nthe most coveted orlucrative positions, theywere opportunities nonetheless,
\nand ones that placed free coloreds directly in the mainstream workforce.
\nWhen Guanajuato\u2019s and Queretaro\u2019s free-colored occupations are
\nranked according to the number of blacks they employed, a slightly dif
\nferent picture emerges. In Queretaro, the four positions in which free col
\noreds were occupied the most were split between the artisan and service
\nindustries, with weavers and cobblers outpacing coachmen and servants.
\nIn Guanajuato, the top six positions were divided between the mining,
\nfarming, transport, and service industries (see Tables 5.4 and 5.5). These
\ndifferences most likely reflect the unique economic orientation of a min
\ning center, as opposed to an industrial\/manufacturing center. Queretaro
\nresembled Puebla in many ways and, to some extent, Mexico City. The
\nmajor difference was that in Queretaro there may have been greater occu
\npational diversity among the top half of black laborers. In other words,
\nthe four most commonly cited free-colored professions only represented
\n28 percent ofthe male workforce in Queretaro, whereasin Mexico City and
\nPuebla, roughly half of all male laborers fell into the top four trades.79
\nGuanajuato stood at the other end of the spectrum. Its top six posi
\ntions employed over three-quarters ofthe male workforce. Such extreme
\nlack of differentiation among free-colored workers may have been the way
\nof life in the largest mining towns, where the preponderance of mining
\njobs was complemented with significant employment in the agricultural
\nand transportation sectors. In Guanajuato, however, as in many of the
\nurban areas examined in this chapter, blacks could not escape the pull of
\nthe service economy. But in Guanajuato, service positions did not fall as
\nheavily on free-colored males as in the major manufacturing cities. In fact,
\nSpaniards actually composed the largest number ofservants, with mulat
\ntos emerging as one ofthe least likely groups to be employed in this task.
\n122 BEN VINSON III
\nTABLE
\nOccupation
\n78
\nOccupation
\nSource: Wu, \u201cThe Population ofthe City of Queretaro in 1791,\u201d 293.
\nTejedores (weavers)
\nZapateros (cobblers)
\nCigarreros (tobacco factory workers)
\nCocheros (coachmen)
\nCriados (manservants)
\nOthers
\nTotal
\nSource: Brading, \u201cGrupos etnicos,\u201d 256.
\n\u201cRepresents the total of only the seven most numerous professions.
\nMineros (miners)
\nSirvientes (servants)
\nLabradorcs (farmers)
\nArrieros(muleteers)
\nMolineros (millworkers)
\nRescatadores (petty refiners)
\nZapateros (cobblers)
\nTratantcs (dealers)
\nCarboneros (charcoal-makers)
\nSastrcs (tailors)
\nAlbaiiilcs (masons)
\nPanaderos (breadmakers)
\nHerreros (blacksmiths)
\nTocineros (tanners)
\nCarpinteros (carpenters)
\nTotal\u2019
\n4
\n66
\n100
\nNumber
\nofWorkers
\n79
\n33
\n29
\n28
\n23
\n375
\n567
\nNumber
\nofWorkers
\n1,881
\n143
\n139
\n108
\n101
\n79
\n73
\n39
\n38
\n35
\n32
\n32
\n24
\n13
\n11
\n3,132
\nPercentage
\nofWorkforce
\n14
\n6
\n5
\n5
\nt abl e 5.5. Free-Colored Workforce in Queretaro, 1790
\n5.4. Free-Colored Workforce in Guanajuato, 1792
\nPercentage
\nofWorkforce
\n60
\n4
\n4
\n3
\n3
\n2
\n2
\nFrom Dawn ’til Dusk 123
\nConclusion
\nIn no uncertain terms, by the end ofthe eighteenth century, Afro-Mexicans
\nwere deeply embedded within the major occupational arenas available to
\nmost colonists. In the hinterlands and countryside, free coloreds partici
\npated in the cotton boom ofthe Pacific. Theyworked on estates and smaller
\nfarms that generated key foodstuffs in the Mexican heartland; they toiled
\nin cane fields; and they labored tirelessly as fishermen, ranchers, and shep
\nherds. The evidence reveals that blacks contributed to the larger export
\neconomies oftheirregions while also supplying local markets; free coloreds
\neven joined the legions ofsubsistence farmers throughout New Spain. Of
\ncourse, niche industries emerged, and some were partly determined by
\nracial status. Interestingly, this pattern was found to some degree in the
\ncolony\u2019s two great urban centers, as service labor soared within the down
\ntown quarters ofMexico City and low-paying weavers disproportionately
\noccupied large numbers of Puebla\u2019s free coloreds. While historians have
\noften cited cities as being the vanguard ofclass transformation and change,
\nas well as sites where a plebian (rather than a racial) consciousness came
\ninto being, at the same time we have seen here how cities could preserve
\nelements of caste hierarchy. Ironically, this was expressed precisely -within
\nclass mobility. In other words, as class mobility happened, and as it touched
\nthose members of colonial society who belonged to subordinate castes, the
\nsocial hierarchies ofrace and caste were not necessarily ruptured (although
\nin some instances they could be). Instead, these social hierarchies could
\nbe reworked and restructured to accommodate the occupational mobility
\nof groups such as free coloreds. Therefore, as broader economic oppor
\ntunities opened in certain urban areas, caste hierarch}’ could correspond
\ningly shift to accommodate the changes to a city\u2019s economic structure. As
\na result, seeming advancements in job status could actually representstasis
\nin social standing. Mexico City and Puebla, two ofthe colony\u2019s oldest cit
\nies with some of the longest-serving elites, were natural places where one
\nmight find such trends. On the other hand, some of the great bastions of
\nthe new economy\u2014Guanajuato and Queretaro\u2014offered other possibili
\nties. In both centers, mining and textiles generated seemingly wholesale
\nopportunities for all. But even here, black advancement to many of the
\nbest positions tended to be restricted, thereby presenting a limited win
\ndow ofeconomic opportunity for the free-colored population. When step
\nping back and looking at the overall portrait of black labor in the colony,
\nwithout a doubt we can say that free coloreds were very much a part of
\n124 BEN VINSON III
\n* NOTES
\nthe economic life ofNew Spain, and quite possibly in ways that both mir
\nrored and rivaled the participation ofmestizos and other caste groups. But
\nit is still unclear whether, as blacks lived their freedom, they were as fully
\nvested in all the opportunities that the colonial economy had to offer and,
\nmore importantly, what such a shortcoming may have meant on an indi
\nvidual and collective basis for free-colored life.
\n1. Archivo General de la Nacion (AGN), Tributes, vol. 34, exp. 7, don Benito
\nPerez to Revillagigedo, April 18, 1793, fols. 163-73.
\n2. AGN, Indiferentes de Guerra (LG.), vol. 307-B, Leberina Azebedo para que
\nno se remita a presidio a su marido, Vicente Medina, soldado del batallona de
\npardos de Mexico.
\n3. AGN, I.G., vol. 307-B, exp. 5, Causa formada por el tribunal de la Acordada
\ncontra Lucio Antonio Rodriguez, soldado del batallon de pardos de Mexico
\npor portador de arma corta.
\n4. Some classic works include: Eric Wiliams, Capitalism and Slavery (Chapel
\nHill: University ofNorth Carolina Press, 1944); Walter Rodney, Hotv Europe
\nUnderdeveloped Africa (Dar-Es-Salaam: Bogle-L\u2019Ouverture Publications,
\nLondon and Tanzanian Publishing House, 1973); Frank Tannenbaum, Slave
\nand Citizen: The Negro in the Americas (New York: Vintage Books, 1946); Paul
\nGilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (Cambridge:
\nHarvard University Press, 1993) especially chap. 2; Gilberto Freyre, The
\nMasters and the Slaves: A Study in the Developtnent ofBrazilian Civilization,
\ntrans. Samuel Putnam (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1946); and Carl N. Degler,
\nNeither Black Nor White (New York: Macmillan, 1971)- See also: David Eltis,
\nThe Rise ofAfrican Slavery in the Americas (New York: Cambridge University
\nPress, 1999); Aline Helg, Our Rightful Share: The Afro-Cuban Struggle for
\nEquality, 1886-1912 (Chapel Hill: University ofNorth Carolina Press, 1995),
\nLaurent Dubois, A Colony ofCitizens: Revolution and Slave Emancipation in the
\nFrench Caribbean, 1787-1804 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
\nPress, 2006 – Write a paper; Professional research paper writing service – Best essay writers); Aline Helg, Liberty and Equality in Colombia, 1770-1877 (Chapel
\nHill: University ofNorth Carolina Press, 2003).
\n5. Throughout this chapter the term \u201cfree colored\u201d is used to refer to a variety
\nof black populations, including racially mixed pardos (black\/native mixture),
\nmulattos (black\/white mixture), and moriscos (light skinned mulattos).
\nFrom Dawn ’til Dusk 125
\nMorenos and negros were synonymous terms referring to blacks who were not
\nracially mixed.
\n6. Some examples can be found in the following edited collections: Luz Maria
\nMartinez Montiel and Juan Carlos Reyes G., eds., Memoria del HI Encuentro
\nNational de Afromexicanistas (Colima, Mexico: Gobiemo del Estado de Colima
\ny Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 1993); Adriana Naveda
\nChavez-Hita, ed., Pardos, mulatosy libertos, Sexto encuentro de afromexicanistas
\n(Xalapa, Mexico: Universidad Veracruzana, 2001); and Luz Maria Martinez
\nMontiel, ed., Prcsenda africana en Mexico (Mexico City: Consejo Nacional
\npara la Cultura y las Artes, 1994).
\n7. Gonzalo Aguirre Beltran, La poblacion negra de Mexico: Estudio etnohistdrico,
\n3rd ed. (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1989), 219, 230.
\n8. For more on the period from the 1640s into the eighteenth century, see:
\nDennis N. Valdes, \u201cThe Decline of Slavery in Mexico,\u201d The Atnericas 44,
\nno. 2 (1987): 167-94; Frank Proctor III, \u201cSlavery, Identity, and Culture: An
\nAfro-Mexican Counterpoint, 1640-1763,\u201d Ph.D. diss., Emory University,
\n2003; Flerman L. Bennett, Colonial Blackness, Sin, Sex, and Emergent Private
\nLives in New Spain, 1622-1778 (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press,
\n2009). For good material on miscegenation see: Patrick J. Carroll, \u201cLos
\nmexicanos negros, el mestizaje y los fundamentos olvidados de la \u2018raza
\ncosmica,\u2019 una perspective regional,\u201d Historia Mexicana XLIV, no. 3 (1995):
\n403-48; and Monica Leticia Galvez Jimenez, Celaya: sus raices africanas
\n(Guanajuato, Ediciones la Rana, 1995).
\n9. The number offive hundred morenos is most likely a low figure since not all
\nof the colony\u2019s provinces are accounted for in the archives. The number of
\n\u201cAfricans\u201d most likely corresponds to blacks who were not racially mixed, but
\nthere is no way to completely confirm this.
\n10. Some interpretations of Mexican slavery show how the system offered a
\nvariety of challenges to the power ofmasters and perhaps even a few material
\nadvantages over Mexico\u2019s underclass. For good examples ofscholarship on the
\nautonomy that slaves were able to acquire, see: Herman L. Bennett, Africans
\nin Colonial Mexico: Absolutism, Christianity, and Afro-creole Consciousnsess,
\n1570-1640 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003); Javier VillaFlores, \u2018\u201cTo Lose One\u2019s Soul\u2019: Blasphemy and Slaveiy in New Spain,
\n1596-1669,\u201d The HispanicAmerican Historical Review (HAHR) LXXXII, no. 3
\n(2002): 435-69;Joan Cameron Bristol, \u201cNegotiating Authority in New Spain:
\nBlacks, Mulattos, and Religious Practice in Seventeenth Century Mexico,\u201d
\nPh.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2001; and Proctor, \u201cSlaveiy, Identity,
\nand Culture.\u201d
\n126 BEN VINSON III
\n11. Aguirre Beltran, La poblacion negro, 223-30. There has been a great deal of
\nguesswork involved with understanding the dimensions of Afro-Mexican
\ndemography; however, the figures provided by Aguirre Beltran still remain
\nfairly reliable.
\n12. These are estimates. Unfortunately, we may never be able to get a complete
\nportrait of free-colored demography during these years. For all of its
\nstrengths, the surviving documents of the Revillagigedo census only allow
\nus to closely examine some of the free-colored population. Note that the
\nsampling technique I have used to obtain occupational information in the
\nwest coast provinces results in an undercount of the male population. To
\nobtain information for these areas, I used the military census summary sheets
\nof the Revillagigedo census. These records yield information on the most
\nactive segment of the male population, generally men between the ages of
\neighteen and forty-two who were in good physical condition and were not
\nexempted from duty. Exemptions included men with disabilities or who
\nwere \u201cdemented\u201d and unable to work. However, men already serving in the
\nmilitias were also exempted. Only eight provinces were affected by these
\nsampling techniques, resulting in the exclusion of 1,141 individuals from the
\noccupational survey.
\n13. When all of the various agricultural and pastoral professions are accounted
\nfor, Mexico\u2019s black population was still less agriculturally centered than
\nin the neighboring United States. Over 74 percent of all Americans were
\nagriculturalists in 1800, and even more blacks (mainly slaves) as opposed to
\njust over half of free Afro-Mexicans. See: Thomas Weiss, \u201cU.S. Labor Force
\nEstimates and Economic Growth,\u201d in American Economic Growth and Standards
\nofLiving before the Civil War, ed\/ Robert E. Gallman and John Joseph Wallis,
\n22 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).
\n14. Those who have wrestled with such questions include Brigida von
\nMentz, Pueblos de indios, mulatos y mestizos, 1770-1870. Los catnpesinos y las
\ntransformaciones protoindustriales en el poniente de Morelos (Mexico City:
\nCIESAS, 1988), 130-37; and Cheryl English Martin, Rural Society in Colonial
\nMorelos (Albuquerque: University ofNew Mexico Press, 1985).
\n15. Isabel Gonzalez Sanchez, \u201cSistemas de trabajo, salarios y situacion de los
\ntrabajadores agricoloas, 1750-181 o,\u201d in La Clase Obrera en la Historia de Mexico,
\ned. Enrique Florescano, Isabel Gonzalez Sanchez,Jorge Gonzalez Angulo,
\nRoberto Sandoval Zarauz, Cuauhtemoc Velasco A., and Alejandra Moreno
\nToscazo, 157 (Mexico City: Siglo XXI, 1980). For full treatment on rural
\nworkers\u2019 lives and conditions see 125-72. Note also that good distinctions
\nbetween dependent and independent labor are made in Matthew Restall,
\nFrom Dawn ’til Dusk 127
\nmore defined in larger
\n: operarios who worked
\nThe Black Middle (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009). See especially
\nChapter 4, entitled \u201cWays ofWork.\u201d
\n16. For an interesting interpretation of black labor mobility in the Pacific region
\nsee:Jose Arturo Motta Sanchez, \u201cDerrota a la Mar del Sur; trazas de una senda
\nde afrosucesores libres y cautivos en la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII,\u201d in
\nDiaspora, Nation y Diferencia: Poblaciones de origen Africano en Mexico y Centro
\nAmerica, CD ROM (Mexico, Universidad de Guanajuato, 2008 – Affordable Custom Essay Writing Service | Write My Essay from Pro Writers). For additional
\nanalysis of free-colored labor in the Pacific basin, see Ben Vinson III, \u201cWest
\nSide Story: Free-Black Labor in tire Mexican Pacific during theLate Colonial
\nPeriod as Seen Through tire Revillagigedo Census,\u201dJournal ofColonialism and
\nColonial Histmy 10, no. 3 (2009), available at http:\/\/muse.jhu.edu\/journals\/
\njournal_of_colonialism_and_colonial_history.
\n17. Peter Gerhard, A Guide to the Historical Geography ofNew Spain (Cambridge:
\nCambridge University Press, 1972), 124-26.
\n18. Daniele Dehouve, Entre el caiman y eljaguar: Los pueblos indios de Guerrero
\n(Mexico City: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropologia
\nSocial, 1994), 104-7, 11 L ar*d 114; Jesus Hernandez Jaimes, \u201cEl comercio de
\nalgodon en las cordilleras y costas de la mar del sur de Nueva Espana en la
\nsegunda mitad del siglo XVIII,\u201d in Mercaderes, comercio y consulados de Nueva
\nEspana en elsiglo XVIII, ed. Guillermina del Valle Pavon, 237-44 (Mexico City:
\nInstitute Mora, 2003); Ben Vinson IH, \u201cThe Racial Profile of a Rural Mexican
\nProvince in the \u2018Costa Chica:\u2019 Igualapa in 1791,\u201d TheAmericas(JAM) 57, no. 2
\n(2000): 269-82.
\n19. The specific tasks performed by operarios could be 1
\nurban areas. In Mexico City, for instance, there were
\nspecifically in bakeries and others who toiled in the treasury. But in large
\ncities like Guadalajara and Guanajuato, operarios could equally remain part
\nof an amorphous and anonymous mass of low-wage laborers. For more,
\nconsult: Rodney D. Anderson, \u201cRace and Social Stratification: A Comparison
\nof Working-Class Spaniards, Indians and Castas in Guadalajara, Mexico in
\n1821,\u201d HAHR 68, no. 2 (1988): 209-43; Cuauhtemoc Velasco Avila, “Los
\ntrabajadores mineros en la Nueva Espana, 1750-1810,\u201d in La Close Obreru,
\n291-99; and Sonia Perez Toledo and Herbert S. Klein, Poblacidn y cstructura
\nsocial de la Ciudad de Mexico, 1790-1842 (Mexico Citv: Universidad Autonoma
\nMetropoloitana Unidad Iztapalapa (UAMI), 2004), 295.
\n20. Slaves continued to have a presence in mining as well, see Brigida von
\nMentz, \u201cEsclavitud en centres mineros y azucareros novohispanos. Algunas
\npropuestas para el estudio de la multietnicidad en el centre de Mexico,” in
\nPoblacionesy culturas de origen africano en Mexico, ed. Maria Elisa Velasquez and
\n128 BEN VINSON III
\nEthel Correa, 259-67 (Mexico City: Institute Nacional de Antropologfa e
\nHistoria (INAH), 2005).
\n21. David A. Brading, \u201cGrupos etnicos; Clases y estructura ocupacional en
\nGuanajuato (1792),\u201d in Historiaypoblacion en Mexico (SiglosXVI-XIX) (Mexico
\nCity: El Colegio de Mexico, 1994), 244; and Colin A. Palmer, Slaves ofthe
\nWhite God: Blacks in Mexico, 1550-1650 (Cambridge: Harvard University
\nPress, 1976). Note that in Guanajuato, as in other Mexican mining regions,
\nmany of the sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century black miners were
\nslaves. As slavery subsided, the offspring of the unions between slaves and
\nfreedmen generated an appreciable free-colored population. Many of them
\nalso became miners, but migrator}’ flows brought new infusions of black
\nworkers. Again, the phenomenon was not unique to Guanajuato. In Sultepec,
\nfor instance, a local priest recounted diat \u201cmining attracted many \u2018foreigners,
\nthe whitest of which look black.\u2019\u201d See Von A’lentz, \u201cEsclavitud en centres
\nmineros,\u201d 264.
\n22. Some excellent occupational information for women in Mexico City can
\nbe found in Maria Elisa Velazquez, Mujeres de origen africano en la capital
\nnovohispana, sigios XVIIy XVIII (Mexico City: INAH, Universidad Nacional
\nAutonoma de Mexico (UNAM), 2006 – Write a paper; Professional research paper writing service – Best essay writers), 161-228; and Elisa Velazquez, \u201cAmas
\nde leche, cocineras y vendedoras: Mujeres de origen africano, trabajo y culture
\nen la ciudad de Mexico durante la epoca colonial,\u201d in Poblaciones y culturas
\nafricano, 335-56.
\n23. Matthew Restall finds this trend in a rural Yucatecan census from 1700 where
\nall three free-colored muleteers lived in the transportation hub of Maxcanu;
\nsee Restall, The Black Middle, chap. 4.
\n24. A wonderful survey of Mexico\u2019s artisan trades remains: Manuel Carrera
\nStampa, Los gremios Mexicanos: La organization gremial en Nueva Espana,
\n1521-1861 (Mexico City: EDIAPSA, 1954). For information on blacks in
\nthe gold and silversmithing trade see:John E. Kicza, Colonial Entrepreneurs:
\nFamilies and Business in Bourbon Mexico City (Albuquerque: University ofNew
\nMexico Press, 1983). For discussion of the career ofJuan Correa, a famous
\nfree-colored artist and guild overseer, see: Elisa Vargas Lugo, Juan Correa. Su
\nvidaysu obra, 4 vols. (Mexico City: UNAM, 1985-1994). Norah Andrews has
\nalso found a handful of black guild masters in Puebla in 1800. They included
\nfurniture makers, cobblers, blacksmiths, hatters, and tailors. See Norah
\nAndrews, \u2018\u201cI Could not Determine the Truth\u2019: Ambiguity and Afromexican
\nRoyal Tribute,\u201d Master\u2019s thesis,Johns Hopkins University, 2009, 23.
\n25. Evaluating the role ofwomen in the colonial period\u2019s labor force has posed
\na particular challenge in places such as the United States, but in Latin
\nFrom Dawn \u2019til Dusk 129
\nAmerica, more data is available. Although richer, problems persist given the
\ninconsistent and spotty reporting of female occupations. This situation can
\nbe found in late colonial Mexico\u2019s census records, especially the Revillagigedo
\ncensus.
\n26. This is speculative, but also fits with observations found in Mexico City
\nby Silvia Arrom, The Women ofMexico City, 1790-1857 (Stanford: Stanford
\nUniversity Press, 1985), 158-66; Patricia Seed, \u201cThe Social Dimensions of
\nRace: Mexico City 1753,\u201d HAHR LXII, no. 4 (1982): 569-606; and Maria Elisa
\nVelazquez, \u201cJuntos y revueltos: Oficios, espacios y comunidades domesticas de
\norigen africano en la capital novohispana segun el censo de 1753,\u201d in Pautasde
\nconvivencia etnica en la America Latina colonial (Indios, negros, mulatos, pardosy
\nesclavos), ed.Juan Manuel de la Serna Herrera, 331-46 (Mexico City: UNAM,
\n2005). Note, however, that there is only limited utility in making colony-wide
\ngeneralizations from the Mexico City case.
\n27. Again, for excellent treatment see Arrom, Women ofMexico City, 154-205.
\n28. PerezToledo and Klein, Poblaciony estructurasocial, 285-99.
\n29. Susan M. Socolow, \u201cIntroduction,\u201d in Cities and Society in Colonial Latin
\nAmerica, ed. Louisa Schell Hoberman and Susan M. Socolow, 15-16
\n(Albuquerque: University ofNew Mexico Press, 1986).
\n30. Lyman Johnson, \u201cArtisans,\u201d in Cities and Society in Colonial Latin America,
\n234-36.
\n31. Note that population figures for Mexico City are a matter of debate for
\nthe 1790s. Viceroy Revillagigedo ascertained that the population stood at
\n112,000. Other contemporaries argued larger numbers and recent research
\nhas shown that the city may have possibly held up to 300,000 individuals.
\nSee Manuel Mino Grijalva, \u201cLa poblacion de la ciudad de Mexico en 1790.
\nVariables economicas y demograficas de una controversy,\u201d in La poblacion de
\nla ciudad de Mexico en 1790: Estructura social, alimentationy vrvienda, ed. Manuel
\nMino Grijalva and Sonia Perez Toledo, 21-74 (Mexico City: UAMI, 2004).
\nSonia Perez Toledo has weighed into the argument, calculating the number
\ncloser to 117,000. See Perez Toledo and Klein, Poblacion y estructura social,
\n64. Keith Davies\u2019s pioneering study calculates die population at 130,000. See
\nKeith Davies, \u201cTendencias demograficas urbanas durante el siglo XIX en
\nMexico,\u201d in Historiay poblacion, 281-82. Whatever the actual number, the city
\nwas extremely large by contemporary standards in die Western world.
\n32. The figures for mulattos are derived from Alexander von Humbolt, Political
\nEssay on the Kingdom ofNew Spain, 2 vols., trans. John Black (New York:
\nI. Riley, 1811), 1:192.
\nI3O BEN VINSON III
\n33. These quadrants are cuarteles 1, 20, and 23, and had a total population of
\nover thirteen thousand individuals. The database for these cuarteles has been
\ngenerously provided by Herbert S. Klein. Note that these quarters have also
\nbeen studied in depth by members ofthe urban history’ seminar run by the
\nColegio de Mexico.
\n34. For an excellent graphic representation ofthe ethnic composition of Mexico
\nCity at the outset of the nineteenth century see: Lourdes Marquez Morfin,
\n\u201cLa desigualdad ante la muerte: Epidemias, poblacion y sociedad en la ciudad
\nde Mexico (1800-1850),\u201d Ph.D. diss., El Colegio de Mexico, 1991,59.
\n35. Perez Toledo and Klein, Poblaciony estructura social, 94.
\n36. A good study of the use of residential and public space in the center and
\nwestern parts of Mexico City’ can be found in Diana Birrichaga Gardida,
\n\u201cDistribution del espacio urbano en la ciudad de Mexico en 1790,\u201d in La
\npoblacion de la ciudad de Mexico, 311-41.
\n37. In the late colonial period, the tobacco factory’ was responsible for employ’ing
\nup to 11 percent ofMexico City\u2019s population. Many’ employ’ees were women
\nwho were paid competitive wages. Some incomes even rivaled several artisan
\ntrades. For more, see Amparo Ros, La production tigarrera afinales de la Colonia.
\nLafdbrica en Mexico (Mexico City’: INAH, 1984). For more on the industry,
\nsee Susan Deans-Smith, Bureaucrats, Planters, and Workers: The Making ofthe
\nTobacco Monopoly in Bourbon Mexico (Austin: University’ ofTexas Press, 1992).
\n38. Patricia Seed records that 81.5 percent of free black males were servants.
\nSeed, \u201cSocial Dimensions ofRace,\u201d 582.
\n39. Concentrated mostly’ in the textile, food, leatherworking, metal, and barbering
\nindustries, many’ of these staple arenas of the workforce had long been
\nimportant niches for free coloreds, particularly the professions of zapateros
\n(shoemakers) and sastres (tailors). See Perez Toledo, Los hijos del trabajo. Los
\nartesanos de la ciudad de Mexico, 1780-1853 (Mexico City: El Colegio de
\nMexico, UAMI, 1996), 78; Mino Grijalva, \u201cEstructura social y ocupacion de la
\npoblacion en la ciudad de Mexico, 1790,\u201d in Lapoblacion en la ciudad de Mexico,
\n160; and Felipe Castro Gutierrez, La extintion de la artesania gremial (Mexico
\nCity’: UNAM, 1986), 97, 172-80.
\n40. There were only’ seventeen employed morisco men in the sample. Of these,
\nten were artisans and one was a foreman.
\n41. There was also a bolero, a professional shoe polisher. I would categorize
\nher as being employed in the service sector, but Perez Toledo and Klein\u2019s
\ncategorization of professions in Poblacion y estructura social, 287, listed her as
\nan artisan. Ifthis person was considered by contemporaries to be an artisan, it
\nis telling that this lower status trade (when compared to the seamstress) was
\nFrom Dawn \u2019til Dusk I3I
\nheld by a midata (phenotypically darker than the morisca seamstress), and
\nthat she also worked in die city center.
\n42. For an excellent study ofthe range of professions open to men and women in
\nMexico City in the late colonial and early national period, see Perez Toledo
\nand Klein, Poblacion y estructura social, 285-99. The definitional description of
\nmany professions can be found in PerezToledo, Loshijosdel trabajo, 55-56 and
\n269-74. Note that nearly half ofthe forty-four professions listed for mulattos
\nin cuartel 1 incorporated women, whereas in the other two parts oftown, just
\nfour out ofseventeen professions included them. Also, over half of all freecolored females were listed as being employed downtown, whereas almost
\nnone were recorded as working in the southern and western peripheries. Of
\ncourse, this statistic is somewhat misleading since, in actuality, labor was a
\ndaily reality for most free-colored women.
\n43. In the literature on North America, age ten has been identified as a typical
\nage for children entering the workforce in pre-industrial and early industrial
\nsocieties. A similar case might be made for Latin America. Of course, some
\nexceptions exist. See John E. Murray and Ruth Wallis Herndon, \u201cMarkets for
\nChildren in Early America: A Political Economy of Pauper Apprenticeship,\u201d
\nJournal ofEconomic History 62, no. 2 (June 2002): 356-82.
\n44. Indeed, the importance offamily as an economic survival mechanism may have
\nbeen more pronounced in Mexico than in Europe. Michael C. Scardaville,
\n\u201cTrabajadores, grupo domestico y supervivencia durante el periodo colonial
\ntardio en la ciudad de Mexico, o \u2018la familia pequena no vive mejor,\u2019\u201d in La
\npoblacion de la ciudad de Mexico, 227-79.
\n45. Eighty percent of households with negros had agregados (or featured negros
\nas agregados) as opposed to less than 50 percent for moriscos. Note that
\nfree-colored households with agregados in Mexico City were harder to find
\noutside of the city center, with barely one-third of free-colored households
\nin the urban periphery possessing them. Surprisingly, morisco families were
\nalmost twice as likely to have agregados in die city as mulattos.Although more
\nresearch is needed, suffice it to say that in the outskirts of town, members of
\nthe working classes, including free coloreds, probably lived in smaller family
\nunits than in the urban core, although one frequently encountered multiple
\nfamilies living together in the same household. Moreover, unlike elite families
\nof the era, with their large number of retainers and domestic staff, freecolored working-class households in the periphery probably did not regularly
\nincorporate individuals who were not their relatives. Consequently, although
\nhousehold living arrangements generally grew more complex over time in
\nMexico City’-, among the black working classes, unrelated agregados did not
\ncomprise a large part of their expanding households. For a slightly different
\nBEN VINSON HI I32
\ninterpretation of the circumstances in Mexico City, see Velazquez, \u201cJuntos y
\nrevueltos,\u201d 331-46. She contradicts notions that many laborers in the central
\npart oftown lived with coworkers, and so on.
\n46. Socolow, \u201cIntroduction,\u201d 5.
\n47. Carlos Contreras Cruz, Francisco Tellez Guerrero, Claudia Pardo Hernandez,
\nMeliton Mirto Tlalpa, \u201cLa poblacion parroquial en la Puebla de los Angeles
\nhacia 1777. El caso del Sagrario, San Marcos, y San Jose, analisis preliminar,\u201d
\nin Poblacion y estructura urbana en Mexico, siglos XVIIIyXIXCarmen Blazquez
\nDominguez, ed. Carlos Contreras Cruz, and Sonia Perez Toledo, 21-23
\n(Xalapa, Veracruz: Universidad Veracruzana, 1996); Guy P. C. Thomson,
\nPuebla de los Angeles: Industry and Society in a Mexican City, 1700-1850
\n(Boulder: Westview Press, 1989), xx.
\n48. Miguel Marin Bosch, Puebla neocolonial, 1777-1851. Casta, ocupacion y
\nmatrimonio en la segunda ciudad de Nucva Espana (Zapopan,Jalisco: El Colegio
\nde Jalisco, 1999), 65.
\n49. Grijalva, \u201cEstructura social y ocupacion,\u201d 158-59.
\n50. Thomson, Puebla, 14-26 and 42-46.
\n51. Ibid., 63. Note that the total district population was 71,366.
\n52. Ben Vinson III, Bearing Annsfor His Majesty: The Free-Colored Militia in
\nColonial Mexico (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001), 60-61.
\n53. The 1790 census is limited in that it provides information on only four
\nparishes, corresponding to roughly a third of the population, all of whom
\nlived in the eastern and western peripheries of the city. Downtown elite
\nhouseholds were excluded, meaning that many individuals working in the
\nservice sector were probably not accounted for. The 1794 census, which
\nwas actually initiated in 1791, is more comprehensive and may cover all
\nfree-colored residents in the city. But given that this census was raised to
\ncount tributaries and followed a different format than parish or even military
\ncensuses, it is not possible to carefully reconstruct where residents lived in the
\ncity (Subdireccion de Documentation de la Biblioteca Nacional de Historia
\n(BNAH), Archivo Judicial de Puebla, rollos 43-44, Tributes, Expedience
\nformado en virtud de las exigencies hechas por los alcaldes ordinaries al
\ngobernador intendente don iManuel de Flon con el fin de cobrar tributos de
\nnegros y mulatos, Puebla, 1795).
\n54. In this census, the term pardo is considered synonymous with mulatto and
\nreferred to racially mixed individuals, but was not specific as to whether the
\nblack admixture was with native, white, or other mixtures. It is unlikely that
\nFrom Dawn \u2019til Dusk 133
\ncan be found in Marin Bosch, Puebla
\nthe entire population was pardo\u2014but for uniformity, this was die designation
\nused. Also note that the 1794 tributary census excluded female professions.
\n55. Professions qualifying for the first group employed 10 percent or more of
\nthe free-colored population. For group 2, professions employing 5 percent or
\nmore ofthe free-colored population were considered.
\n56. By 1800 the black labor force experienced some minor shifts in focus.
\nCobblers surpassed weavers as the leading black profession and hatters rose
\nto claim the third most prominent role. Combined, these three professions
\nclaimed about 35 percent of the black labor pool. Cigar factory workers
\nvirtually disappeared, while coachmen slipped into a tertiary position. This
\nreshuffling of occupational rankings probably reflected change in Puebla\u2019s
\nbroader economy; but at its core, the main occupational opportunities
\nremained, although their emphases altered slighdy. One could argue that in
\nsome ways, by 1800, there were slightly better financial opportunities open
\nto free coloreds, given the way in which occupations were realigned and the
\nnumber ofmaster artisans found in the census record. See Andrews, \u201cI Could
\nnot Determine the Truth,\u201d 23.
\n57. Kicza, Colonial Entrepreneurs, 218-19.
\n58. Tanners included both curtidores and tocineros\u2014but the tocineros were the
\nhigher status of the two. There were ten free-colored curtidores and six
\ntocineros in Puebla in 1794.
\n59. Thomson, Puebla, 85.
\n60. An interesting examination of this
\nneocolonial, 147-68.
\n61. A castizo was a light skinned mestizo\u2014technically the mixture ofa white and
\na mestizo.
\n62. Anywhere between 20 and 30 percent of Puebla\u2019s urban workforce was
\nemployed in textiles. But more significantly, over 40 percent of non-Indians
\nworked in these trades during the early 1790s, a trend closely mirrored by
\nfree coloreds. Natives, by contrast, tended to be more heavily concentrated
\nin the agricultural, food, and construction professions, where blacks were
\nonly minimally involved. See Thomson, Puebla, 69; and Marin Bosch, Puebla
\nneocolonial, 147-50. Marin Bosch\u2019s numbers tend to be lower than those of
\nThomson\u2019s, favoring the 20 percent overall figure. His analysis covers more
\ntime and includes parish data. Note that the large proportion of artisans
\nfound among the pardos was probably similar to the city\u2019s mestizo and castizo
\nworkforce. It is hard to accurately gauge the number of artisans among
\nthese populations using available sources, but it is possible that, as with free
\ncoloreds, they may have comprised between 60 and 80 percent of mestizo.
\nBEN VINSON III 134
\ncastizo, and even white laborers.The number of artisans is roughly calculated
\nby totaling the number of white, mestizo, and castizo workers in the textile,
\ndress, metal, leather, wood, and \u201cother\u201d industries (data from Thomson,
\nPuebla, 69). Because this is incomplete data for the entire city in 1790, there
\nare gaps in our knowledge, but the information still provides us with a
\nloose guide for understanding what may have been the overall employment
\nsituation.
\n63. Gonzalez Sanchez, \u201cSistemas de trabajo,\u201d 150-72. For more explanation of
\nthe cloth manufacturing process see: Manuel Mino Grijalva, La tnanufactura
\ncolonial. La constitution tecnica del obraje (Mexico City: El Colegio de Mexico,
\n1993)-
\n64. Other locations included Queretaro, Oaxaca, Guadalajara, and Orizaba.
\n65. Ros, La production tigarrera, 58.
\n66. Kicza, Colonial Entrepreneurs, 187-96.
\n67. Salary figures for hatters and coachmen come from 1823 estimates. See
\nThomson, Puebla, 83.
\n68. AGN, Alcaldes Mayores, vol. 2, exp. 254, Joseph Enereno to Bucareli,
\nDecember 21,1771, Puebla.
\n69. A still relevant, perceptive, and classic study ofmining in Guanajuato is David
\nBrading, Miners and Merchants in Bourbon Mexico, 1763\u20141810 (Cambridge:
\nCambridge University Press, 1971).
\n70. Humbolt, Political Essay, II: 129.
\n71. Celia Wu, \u201cThe Population of the City of Queretaro in 1791,\u201d Journal of
\nLatin American Studies 16, no. 2 (1984): 277; and Humbolt, Political Essay,
\nL129-31.
\n72. Angela T. Thompson, \u201cTo Save the Children: Smallpox Inoculation,
\nVaccination and Public Health in Guanajuato, Mexico, 1797-1840,\u201d TAM 29,
\nno. 4 (1993): 435.
\n73. Humboldt, Political Essay, IL131; Gerhard, Historical Geography ofNew Spain,
\n123.
\n74. Information on the racial dynamics of the Bajfo is well covered in Brading,
\nMiners and Merchants, 227-30. For Guanajuato census information, see
\npages 227 and 247-60. Note that there are two differing census figures for
\nGuanajuato. One is based upon a summary sheet and estimates the urban
\npopulation at over 32,000. Another, based upon a military census that excludes
\nmany Indians, places the population at over 21,000. In the second census
\nrecord, the number ofmulattos is lower (3,481). The figure ofseven thousand
\nmulattos is based on the summary sheet.
\nFrom Daivn ’til Dusk B5
\n75. Statistics are from Wu, \u201cQueretaro,\u201d 278-79. Note that free coloreds may
\nhave comprised up to 7 percent ofQueretaro\u2019s population in 1791.The figure
\nof 7 percent for the free-colored population in Queretaro is my estimate
\nbased upon blending figures from summary sheets and the military census.
\nI calculate the 1,755 mulattos in Queretaro, against the 27,000 figure for the
\ncity, as opposed to the 14,847 found in the Revillagigedo census, which leaves
\nout many ofthe natives.
\n76. These arguments are put forth by Wu, \u201cQueretaro,\u201d 279. It is unclear if the
\nenumerators were primarily responsible for the change, or if individuals
\ndeclared themselves to be of a different casta from one census to another.
\nAnother possibility is that the quality of census taking changed over time.
\n77. Grading, Miners and Merchants, 258. Note that Indians were largely excluded
\nfrom this military census and their numbers cannot be fully determined in the
\nworkforce. Female professions were also excluded.
\n78. Wu, \u201cQueretaro,\u201d 294-95.
\n79. Of course, more work needs to be done to support this conclusion. The
\ngreater diversity of Mexico City\u2019s economy, for instance, probably yielded
\ngreater potential for increasing free-colored occupational options.<\/w><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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