Book Review: The Limits of Racial Domination: Plebian Society in Colonial Mexico City, 1660-1720 by Douglas Cope.

In this book, Cope writes about perceptions and applications of race in the late 16th and early 17th centuries in Mexico City. At the time, the society of New Spain was primarily divided into Spanish and indigenous categories. In the 17th century, a non-Spanish population rapidly developed in urban centers. Miscegenation and African slave trade led to an increase of ethnic variation. A caste system, sistema de castas, was developed to establish class ranking based on race. Cope argues the sistema de castas functioned as a type of social control that separated nonHispanic groups, causing divisions that kept the lower classes from rising against their Spanish oppressors. Cope believes that while the population may have been identified in blanket racial categories under the sistema de castas, people based their identity on local culture and customs. Cope argues that ethnicity was not fixed at birth, but was a flexible concept that could be used strategically and ultimately limited the domination of the elite Spanish minority. Copes study focuses on Mexico City for two reasons; Mexico City was the most diverse city in New Spain at the time, and there are copious amount of primary documents from this period in Mexico City. This is also when racial classes were the most well-defined and established. Cope argues that if the sistema de castas was in fact meaningful, it would have been apparent during these years. Cope says that while racial divisions were attempted to be institutionalized by the government, on a daily level they were more fluid than fixed. Thoughts about climbing the racial social ladder did not preoccupy most lower class citizens. Because so many were poor, they were most likely worrying about basic survival. Patronage probably played a larger role in controlling people than the idea of castas because patrons directly interacted with people. Because roles constantly had to be negotiated, ultimately, Cope argues, plebian society limited the Spaniards racial domination (165). Cope opens the book by giving a brief history of the interaction between Spanish colonizers and the Indian population. This information is very compressed and examines the same information as Knights Mexico: The Colonial Era, but much more concisely. Cope then covers topics about life of the urban poor, ambiguities of race, the plebian populations concepts about race, the relation between plebians and patrons, and upwardly mobile castas. This topical organization goes well with the information he examines because it allows the reader to look at the social hierarchy from different angles while continuing to give the lower castas agency. Copes sources include legal cases, parish records (including data on casta marriage and burial patterns), inquisition records, and other civil and ecclesiastical documents. Cope writes that, for examining this period of history, one of the most prominently used sources for the study

of racial structures in Mexico is marriage records. While these records can potentially be used for social analysis, Cope states that they must be looked at carefully because more factors played into marriage than considerations of race and aspirations for climbing the social ladder. Cope also says that many official government documents that are now used as sources may have overemphasized racial categories since they put people into groups they may not necessarily have identified with or been part of. Copes style of writing is very readable, especially considering he is dealing with a large amount of information from primary sources and the topic of social and racial hierarchy, which often does not get the investigation it deserves. Cope does a good job of exploring alternative concepts of Mexican City race and relations based on the sistema de castas, but overall it seems he is giving the lower classes more agency than they actually had. Although the plebians did have their own concepts about identity, they were still under elite rule and still mostly confined to lower classes. Plebians may have reshaped notions of race to suit their own needs, but stronger evidence of a social/racial fluidity that actually benefitted the lower classes is missing either in Copes writing or in history. Jackie Pardue Scripps, Fall 2009 Cope, R. Douglas. The Limits of Racial Domination: Plebian Society in Colonial Mexico City, 1660-1720. Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1994.