Though I found the tale of Catalina de Erauso to serve as a valuable glance into the life of a conquistador (regardless of gender / orientation,) the lecture and article on Casta paintings were, for me, a more insightful and interesting exploration in our investigation of Latin America. Casta paintings were categorized by their principle features of 16 canvases/parts, a depiction of a family, and most notably the racial divisions which were labeled by the “mix of blood” that each grouping of people had. The groups went as follows: Spaniards (or, Whites), Blacks, Indigenous people, Spaniards + Indigenous people (mesitzos,) Spaniards + Blacks (mulattos,) and finally Blacks plus Indians (zambos). Each racial category was then further classified by depicted professions, dress, and behavior… for example, Spaniards were most typically people of leisure and profession, whereas the mulattos were more typically depicted as coachmen.
Initially when I was reading the article on Casta paintings, I thought that these depictions of various people were, in a way, the lesser of two evils. I did not expect that during this time period any artist with work would be raising people of color up by way of depicting them as intelligent, hardworking, creative and empathetic human beings, so I thought that at least showing various races interacting on a personal and biological level was “better” or more moral and humane then simply depicting people of color as submissive slaves to the white men. I suppose that these casta paintings still are more correct and ethical than the possible counterpart I just mentioned, but what I didn’t realize upon initially reading the article is that casta paintings still incorporate a serious fear and containment of difference despite the reality of diversity that was occurring in the Americas during this time period. I had thought that because of the intermingling of the various regional races depicted in the paintings, there must have been some sort of acceptance and invitation of racial mixing and heterogeneity. It was only after watching the lecture video that I realized the paintings had an ulterior motive which was to classify the human beings in an effort to contain difference by “putting each race in its own box” (literally) by naming the races, and by assigning distinct professions and behaviors to different races. As the lecture pointed out, often times the people of darker skin tones would be depicted fighting each other, while the professional white men would be lounging on balconies.
Through this, I came to the conclusion that while discussing colonial matters, one should not have the purpose of immediately judging artwork or writing based on its political correctness, morals, or ethical violations in comparison to other works of the time period; in truth, there was very little that was politically correct by today’s standards in the colonial time period. Rather, our job as students is to use the writing and artwork of the time period to gain a better understanding of its historical repercussion and how today’s cultures, society, and groups of people are being depicted and affected continually by events that occurred hundreds of years ago. This is particularly imperative when studying Latin America, as these paintings give way to the crisis of representation that we, the community studying the region and they, the people of the region, have been facing since the colonial time period. As the lecture noted, Latin Americans have turned to the notions of “a biological, social and cultural mixture” to understand their identity- a mixture that was depicted with both truths and falsities in the casta paintings of 1700-1821.
