Colonial Latin America Class System

Colonial Latin America Class System

Read the following passage and complete the population % pie chart on the next page, and the social pyramid. Color-code the key and pie chart.

The class system was very important in colonial Latin America. It determined a person’s place in society. Many countries lived by this system for hundreds of years. The Spanish colonies in Latin America were no different.

In the Latin American colonies, individuals that were born in Spain and then moved to the Americas were in the highest class. They were called peninsularesbecause they were born on the Spanish peninsula. These powerful elite only made up two percent of the population.

Creoles were next in line. They were individuals that were born in the Americas, but had parents or ancestors who were born in Spain. Even though Creoles were not mixed with any other race they were less powerful than peninsulares because of they were born in the New World, and they could not hold government office. This class made up twenty percent of the population.

Ten percent of the population was made up of mestizos. They were part Indian and part Spanish. Mulattos were people of mixed African and Spanish blood and made up another ten percent. Both of these classes worked as craftspeople, shop owners, managers of the mines, and minor positions in church. The mestizos and mulattos lived better than the Indians or slaves, but had little opportunity to improve their lives.

Although Indians (Native Americans)made up the largest part of the population, forty-five percent, they were poor and had few rights. They worked in mines and on plantations, doing jobs that no one else wanted.

Finally the most oppressed, least powerful group was the slaves. These were Africans who had been brought, by the Spanish, to the Americas starting early in the 1500s. They made up the remaining thirteen percent of the population.

The lower four classes made up the majority of the population, but were the most oppressed, least educated and poorest. Throughout all of the colonies in Latin America the Europeans were at the top of the ladder and the Native Americans and Africans were at the bottom.