Latin America Social Hierarchy

[pieter]

Latin America Social Hierarchy


Buying slaves in Havana, Cuba in 1837

The Latin America social hierarchy was based on social stratification which was widely used in Latin America for social control. This classification determined a person’s influence, control, supremacy and individual rights in the Latin American society and these factors were determined on the basis of segregation of people.

The social class system is always dependent on certain rules or specification on which the social partition of that society is based on. Same was the case with social stratification in Latin America. Actually the Latin America social hierarchy was totally structured on one thing – the place one was born. Simply if a person was born in Spain then he automatically came under the superior class. So these superior social classes enjoyed more power, control, economic freedom along with services from lower classes.

The social classes in Latin America were prearranged in the manner that is described in brief as below. The hierarchy is explained starting from the highest rank group having utmost power and influence in Latin America and finishing with the social group having lowest rights, control and power. Let us have a quick look at the Latin America social hierarchy.



Peninsulares

The highest social group in the Latin America social hierarchy was of Peninsulares. These were people who were born in Spain not in Latin America. They were considered of true blood. This social class was also termed as Spaniards. These people enjoyed top most power, rights, authority and economic favors in the society. Entire political powers were also under their administration. They controlled the entire government along with economic affairs of the society.

Peninsular


Colonial hierarchy in the Spanish colonies

Peninsular, Spanish Peninsular, plural Peninsulares, also called Gachupín, or Chapetón, any of the colonial residents of Latin America from the 16th through the early 19th centuries who had been born in Spain. The name refers to the Iberian Peninsula. Among the American-born in Mexico the peninsulars were contemptuously called gachupines (“those with spurs”) and in South America, chapetones (“tenderfeet”). They enjoyed the special favour of the Spanish crown and were appointed to most of the leading civil and ecclesiastical posts under the colonial regime. As a result, the creoles, or persons of Spanish ancestry born in the Americas, were relegated to second-class status, though they, in turn, enjoyed many advantages over Indians (Native Americans or Amerindians), blacks, and those of mixed blood. Peninsulars were also given preference in commerce, whereas creoles were severely restricted in their business activities. Thus, there was enmity between the two groups. With the achievement of independence from Spain in the early 19th century, the creoles moved into the first rank of Latin American society, and the peninsulars were, in many cases, driven out.


Free Women of Color with their Children and Servants in a Landscape, ca.1796



Sources:
www.hierarchystructure.com/latin-america-social-hierarchy/

[pieter]

[Jaga]

very interesting. I think we should visit Central America next year

[pieter]

[pieter]

[pieter]

[pieter]

[pieter]

Dear friends,

Many people with a white, black, Asian, Native American and even Polynesian heritage have a problem with racial mixing, half bloods, Mestizo, Mulatto, Zambo, Indo (Indo-European) people. I also witnessed the resentment against this mixing of races, cultures and religions with Christian, Jewish, Hindu and Muslim peoples.
To start with white christians. Some Nationalist, National-conservative, Nazi, Fascist and rightwing Christian Social (early 20th century anti-semitic Austrian politicians) Europeans, and Americans, Canadians, South-Africans, Australians, Rhodesians (the white Zimbabwian people before Mugabe's regime), Namibians (before the Swapo regime), and Central- and Southern-American regimes with rightwing authoritarian (military and civilian) regimes, had White suprematist ideas from Roman-Catholic, Calvinist or Lutheran christian identities. In some Southern-American countries it was clear that the white Southern-European settlers from Spain and Portugal were dominant and in some cases still are dominant. In Brasil and maybe in some other Latin American countries there even was the crazy idea of a latin super race of mixing people of Portuguese heritage with people from Spanish heritage, and with Italian, French and other migrants. In Brazil there was also the effort to create the Brazillian race by mixing white Peninsulares, Castizo's and white skinned Mestizo latino's with Mulatto, Zambo, Native Americans (Amerindians) with Portuguese people.

The British, Portuguese, Spanish, German, Dutch, Belgian and French colonial heritages in Africa were rather racists, ethnocentric and based on the superiority of the white Christian coloniser. In some nations divide and rule created racism and tension between African tribes, by making some tribes superior to the other. Let's look at the Tutsi's and Hutu's in Rwanda and Burundi. But also at Belgian Congo, German Namibia, British Kenya and British, Dutch and Afrikaander South-Africa (where Zulu's were the allies of the whites and Xsosa's primarly the enemies of the whites, and where Indian Hindu's, Coloured people of mixed blood and Malayans were made superior above the black tribes, but inferior to the whites). Look at how the white Australians massacred and humiliated the Aboriginals in Australia. The colonial system in Indonesia of the Dutch created the Indo people (Indo Europeans), which were superior to the Javanese people, Sumatrans, Aceh people, Balinese, Borneo people, Moluccans and Papuan people, but inferior to the whites. The East-Asians Chinese and Japanese had a seperate status. Not equal to the Europeans, but superior to the Indonesians. And etc.

Because they are the choosen people Jews often have an exclusive culture. The Ashkenazi and Sephardic religions and cultures are closed ones. The Jewish religion is not a missionary one and so it will be a religion for an exclusive group of people with a jewish mother. Within religious jews the pressure for a jewish woman marrying a jewish man is huge. The same counts for the Arab, Berber (Amazighen), Turkish, Kurd, Persian (Iranian), Afghan, Pakistani, Chechen, Indian, African and Asian Muslims who are strictly Sunni or Shia. Ofcourse some secular humanists, atheists and others will have also ethnocentric, racist, purist views from their Social darwinist and their own nationalist, ethnic and cultural perspective.

Pan-Arabism, Nationalist notion of cultural and political unity among Arab countries. Its origins lie in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when increased literacy led to a cultural and literary renaissance among Arabs of the Middle East. This contributed to political agitation and led to the independence of most Arab states from the Ottoman Empire (1918) and from the European powers (by the mid-20th century). An important event was the founding in 1943 of the Baʿth Party, which formed branches in several countries and became the ruling party in Syria and Iraq. Another was the founding of the Arab League in 1945. Pan-Arabism’s most charismatic and effective proponent was Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser. After Nasser’s death, Syria’s Ḥāfiẓ al-Assad, Iraq’s Ṣaddām Ḥussein, and Libya’s Muammar al-Qaddafi tried to assume the mantle of Arab leadership.

The pan-Arabist ideology has been accused of inciting prejudice against or downplaying the role of ethnic minorities such as the Berbers, Kurds, Druze, Armenians, ethnic Greeks in Arab countries and Arab jews in Arab countries. According to writer Youssef Choueiri, Arab nationalism represents the "Arabs' consciousness of their specific characteristics as well as their endeavor to build a modern state capable of representing the common will of the nation and all its constituent parts.". The modern Arabic language actually has two distinct words which can be translated into English as "nationalism": qawmiyya قومية, derived from the word qawm (meaning "tribe, ethnic nationality"), and wataniyya وطنية, derived from the word watan (meaning "homeland, native country"). The word qawmiyya has been used to refer to pan-Arab nationalism, while wataniyya has been used to refer to patriotism at a more local level (sometimes disparaged as "regionalism" by those who consider pan-Arabism the only true form of Arab nationalism). The ideas of the Syrian philosopher, philologist, sociologist, historian, and Arab nationalist Zakī al-Arsūzī played a significant role in the development of Ba'athism. Zakī al-Arsūzī stated that the Arab Nation will be unified when the Arab people reestablish the Arab identity they have lost over the past 1000 years. The key to Arab unification, according to al-Arsuzi, is through language. In contrast to the Latin language, al-Arsuzi argued, Arabic was far less arbitrary and far more intuitive. al-Arsuzi was inspired by the French Revolution, the Meiji Restoration, German Unification and Italian Unification, the ideas of Fichte, Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Oswald Spengler and Henri Bergson. Baathism, Nassrism and other branches of Arab nationalism and Pan-Arabism are alive today. Sometimes they are mixed with Islamism (Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and etc.), and sometimes they are secular (Syrian Baath party, the Egyptian military regime and the Palestinian Fatah party [PLO/Palestinian Authority]). Sine there are many Arabs from Palestine and Lebanon in Latin-America, Arabism, Pan-Arabism, Arab nationalism, Arab socialism and the Arab identity will play a role in Central- and South-America too. Persian (Iranian) and Kurd nationalism are strong too. And Great Ottoman Turkish nationalism is present in Turkey, Western-Europe, the USA, the Caucasus and China too. I don't know to much about Jewish nationalism or Zionism. Israel is multi-ethnic, segregated and pollarized like the USA and Europe, and maybe more due to the gaps between the religious and ethnic communities and between secular and religious Israeli's.

I see people as people, I see people as equal but also different due to their background. I saw beautiful Brazilian, Surinamese and Indo European people, who are of mixed race. That new mixed race will become more sophisticated, multi-layered and complicated, because in time people will have more flavors in their blood than they can identify and count. I have a hard time to understand racists, bigots, xenophobes, anti-semites and people who are one sided. I know a great diversity in my country. I see some difficulties, problems and challanges. These problems have social-economical, financial, cultural, religious, psychological/sociological, and political roots. They don't have racial, ethnic or national roots. All people are equal if they have had the chance on equal treatment, fair play, education, job opportunities and financial means.

Politicians, employers, educators, scientists, trainers, coaches, parents, religious leaders, social workers, police officers, neighbours could solve many problems if they were willing to cross cultural, religious and ethnic borders. People are less different than we think. There is a lot of ignorance, lack of knowledge of the other, lack of real information, lack of empathy, lack of interest and lack of investment in coexistence, communication between communities and a lack of solving social-, cultural and economic problems which are the root cause of racism, discrimination, xenophobia, distrust, fear, anxiety, hatred, frustration, agression, violence, vandalism, looting, attacks and war.

Cheers,
Pieter