We explain who the Creoles were in colonial America, their customs and relationship with the mestizos. Also, the origin of the term.
Who were the Creoles?
During the colonial era of Latin America, society was divided into social and racial classes, which assigned individuals a place and a hierarchy depending on their ethnic origins. At that time the term criollos (or white criollos) was used to refer to people born on American soil, but descended from white Europeans especially from peninsular Spaniards.
The white Creoles were part of the privileged caste of the colony, being white, but they were in a lower category than the Europeans. In fact, the Bourbon reforms of the 18th century prevented them from accessing the political leadership (public positions) or ecclesiastical leadership (religious positions) of colonial society, and in Viceroyalties such as that of New Spain, white Creole women were prevented from marrying. with peninsular officials.
Such measures were intended to limit the power of the Creoles, given that owned most of the land and controlled most of the trade which gave them significant economic power and great social prestige, which constituted a threat to the colonial control of Spain.
Paradoxically, European attempts to limit the power of the Creoles increasingly gave them their own identity essential to feed their independence desires that in the 19th century would trigger the Spanish American Wars of Independence.
See also: Colonialism
Origin of the term
The term Creole comes from the word Creole from Portuguese, and in turn from the verb to breed, so that In principle, Creoles are those individuals who grow up in a certain territory. This use of the word, in fact, survives to this day, in which we speak of Creole (that is, local) customs, Creole cuisine and even the Creole breed of horses, the only Native American one.
On the other hand, just as there were white Creoles, there were also black Creoles: black slaves born in America, descendants of those captives taken from Africa to America to serve as labor in the Colony. However, the term is usually used for the white caste, whose privileged position made it an important historical actor of the time.
The word Creole today is used in much of Hispanic America as a synonym for “local.” that is, as representative of the particular culture of the region, without making major racial or ethnic distinctions in this regard. In fact, “criollismo” is called the nationalist cultural movement of appreciation and visibility of what is Latin American.
The latter does not mean that the white, black and indigenous heritage of Hispanic American culture is represented in equal parts in Creole, of course. In fact, the precise meaning of “criollo” can vary enormously within Latin American geography, and even have connotations associated with virility, patriotic pride, and other elements of prestige.
Creole customs
The American Creoles in the colonial era classified themselves as white, distancing themselves from the aborigines (“Indians” in colonial jargon) and Africans, as well as the extensive classification of mestizo castes, the result of the intense miscegenation that characterized the region. So, broadly speaking, The customs and culture of the Creoles was, essentially, a local reworking of the peninsular ones.
That doesn't mean they were identical. In fact, the Creoles were easily distinguishable from their European counterparts, because as time passed, the Spanish American and Spanish peninsular cultures became distanced in their cultural, social and even religious practices.
Creoles used to meet with their peers at parties, gatherings and celebrations, and embraced the Catholic faith and traditions inherited from Europe. Their education, in many cases, took place in the Old Continent, especially in France, where many of them absorbed the culture of the Enlightenment and its republican values who would later inspire them with the ideals of the independence revolution.
Creole clothing varied depending on the region, but tended toward ostentation and decorum, given that they were the local elite of their societies. For the dresses of society ladies, for example, fabrics imported from Europe and the textile labor of the family's slaves or servants were used.
The Creoles were owners of land and therefore also slaves, and in general their gastronomic customs differed from those of the Peninsula by adapting to foods grown on American soil.
Creoles and mestizos
While criollos were white people born in America, mestizos, on the other hand, were those American citizens who were the result of miscegenation. That is to say, The mestizos were descendants of the different ethnic groups involved in colonial society: white, black and Indian.
Legally, mestizos were Spanish citizens and legally equal to white Creoles. Therefore, they could own property and freely carry out trade, without the obligation to pay taxes to the crown as the Indians were obliged, nor live under forced labor like slaves.
However, the role of the mestizos in society was very different from that of the Creoles, given that the whiteness of the latter placed them in a privileged situation, not to mention the economic power accumulated by their families. In many cases, a mestizo with light skin and refined manners could perfectly pass for white Creole, and the rules of differentiation of racial castes in colonial society were not always followed.
In fact, the term brown It became popular in regions of strong African migration, to name the descendants of the mixture between blacks, indigenous people and whites, whose features and skin color could become indeterminable within the racial classification of the time, constituting a kind of “ bag of cats” racial fruit of the mixture.
Creole languages
When talking about creole languages, the same meaning of this word should not be used, since in reality it is the set of mestizo languages or dialects, the result of hybridization between European languages (such as Spanish, French or English) and native African or indigenous languages.
The fruit of this linguistic mixture is often known as creole or as creoleand is common in regions of abundant African migration during the colonial era. Some examples of creole languages that still exist are Panamanian Creole, Nicaraguan Creole English, Patois or Jamaican Creole, Bichelamar, Ndyuka, Louisiana French Creole or Costa Rican Mekatelyu.
Continue with: Cultural identity
References
- “Creole” in Wikipedia.
- “Creole language” on Wikipedia.
- “Criollo, lla” in the Dictionary of the language of the Royal Spanish Academy.
- “Who were the Creoles in the colony?” (video) in Colombia Learn.
- “Criollos, mestizos, mulattoes or jumpers: how the caste division arose during Spanish rule in America” on BBC News Mundo.
- “Creole” in The Encyclopaedia Britannica.
