Race/Caste and the creation and meaning of identity in colonial Spanish America

Tras un análisis de la historiografÚJ reciente, se estudia el problema de la definición de raza y casta en la frontera de Sonora y Cochabamba. Se mantiene que la identidad racial ha sido históricamente mucho más subjetiva de lo que se ha supuesto. Consecuentemente, la categorización del sistema español de castas estaba más ligada a percepciones españolas abstractas que a realidades culturales y sociales.

that regional variations occurred in the use of race/ caste terms. Momer al so argued that by the end of the colonial period in Spanish America the caste system had already begun to «crumble» (1). Morner also published two lists from MeXÍco and Peru of the meaning of different race/ caste categories, although a number of the terms were never used in censuses or parish registers (See Appendix 1).
Anthropologist Marvin Harris attempted to discover the origins of racism in the Americas in a book entitled Patterns 01 Race in the A me ricas. Harris looked to economic relations as a key determinant in the rise of racism, but also documented an important study of perceptions of race in modem Brazil. The study showed that a number of factors determined the perceptions of race and status, including the economic and socio-racial status of the observer as well as the type of clothes wom by the individual being assigned a socio-racial identity (2).
Since the 1960s a number of seholars have used the dynamic of race and caste as a paradigm for understanding the evolution of Latin American society, especially during the colonial periodo Following Morner's lead, sorne specialists in Latin American social history have employed the censuses and parish registers that recorded and assigned race/ easte identity, often without seriously questioning the subjectivity and imprecision of these sources as indicators of the realities of race based social status. Researchers frequently view Latin American society through the colored lens of the Spanish caste system without considering if the caste system accurately reflects social realities. Moreover, there is a tendency to view rigid differences between individuals identified by different race/ caste categories in censuses and parish registers as being valide In a 1978 study anthropologist John Chane e examined the urban society of Antequera (modern Oaxaca) in southern Mexico making extensive use of censuses and parish registers. Chance argued that the race/ caste terms used in these records reflected social status (calidad) rather than strict biology. However, citing a statement made by the archbishop of Mexico in 181 S, Chane e maintained that the categorization of an individual using a specific race/ caste term was not the result of the «whim of the priests». Rather, according to the author, «classifieations were (1) Magnus MORNER, Race Mixture in the History 01 Latin America, Boston, 1967. (2) Marvin HARRIS, Patlerns 01 Race in {he Americas. New York, 1964. based on the declarations of the parties concerned» (3). Chance did not test an assumption that underlies many recent studies of race and identity in Spanish America that employ docurnents that record race/ caste identity. Other scholars have accepted the race/ caste terms recorded in censuses at face value without questioning their meaning or value as indicatdrs of social status. In a 1990 article entitled «Population and Ethnicity in Early Republican Peru: Sorne Revisions», for example, Paul Gootenberg employed a set of censuses to describe Peruvian society, the degree of ethnic/racial mixing, and the decline in the Indian population in the 1820s. Gootenberg gave lip service to social factors and power relations which may have modified the evolution of the indio category which the author recognized as being «essentially [al social, even political definition» and extremely fluid. Gootenberg then contradicts himself by suggesting that rneaningful differences existed between indigenous peasants and other peasants not categorized as indios: «The murky evidence suggests overall the consolidation of more «pseudo-Indian» villages ... where all sorts of peasants mimicked many of the norms of cooperative labor and resources of indigenous foIk, whether out of necessity or advantage» (4). Gootenberg appears to accept the underlying stereotypical assumptions of the Spanish caste system that attributes specific behaviors and characteristics to individuals or groups placed by priests or census takers into one or another race/ caste category. By the logic of this assumption «mestizo» peasants must have behaved in a significantly different fashion than «Indian» peasants since they were placed in different categories by priests or colonial officials, and therefore mimicked as Gootenberg believes the behavior of «Indian» peasants.
As suggested in a recent article that echoes Marvin Harris's findings on the subjectivity of race in the Americas, the unquestioning use of censuses and parish registers to describe Spanish American society and the process of mestizaje need to be reconsidered (5). The Spanish race/ caste system and social policy in Latin America has much in common with social policy in other (3) John CHANCE, Race and Class In Colonial Oaxaca Stanford, 1978, pp. 128-

130.
(4) Paul GOOTENBERG, «Population and Ethnicity In Early Republican Peru: Sorne Revisions», Latin American Research Review. Vol. 26, no. 3, 1991, pp. 109-colonial situations, such as nineteenth and twentieth century British India and Africa. Colonial administrators frequently attempted to enhance their control over subject peoples by playing a game of divide and rule which was facilitated by placing them into categories and playing those categories off against each other. In India, for example, the British played Muslims off against Hindus, ari.d placed existing castes into a hierarchy that deterrnined the legal and social status of caste members in colonial society. The British used censuses to rank and characterize castes. In other situations the British created polities such as tribes from scratch in order to implement systems of indirect rule, a system of local govemance by indigenous leaders given the authority to govem by British officials. Colonial peoples also manipulated the system by changing their behavior to conform to the stereotypical ideas of the colonizers of how people placed into certain categories should behave. Historian Robert McCaa referred to shifts in racial status (calidad) as «racial drift» (6).
Moreover, as McCaa suggests, the definition of race in Spanish America is extremely complex: Calidad, typically expressed in racial terms (e.g. indio, mestizo, español), in many instances was an inclusive impression reflecting one's reputation as a whole. Color, occupation, and wealth might influence one's calidad, as did purity of blood, honor, integrity, and even place of origino Clase, on the other hand, in its classical sense referred to occupational standing but included dimensions of wealth and race (7).
The sources themselves contain fundamental flaws which modify or even invalidate conclusions based on them. Definitions of categories changed over time, often as a consequence of changing policy or socio-economic change. For example, the «indio» population of one region in Bolivia dropped in the nineteenth century as a result of the erosion of the colonial-era tribute system. In the case of parish registers, especially baptismal registers, the race/ caste category assigned to an individual, usually a newborn, was also subject to the whim of the presiding priest. Finally, the placement of people into subjective and stereotypical race/ caste categories did not take into consideration cultural (6) Robert MCCAA, «Calidad, Class, and Marriage in Colonial Mexico: The Case of Parral, 1788-1790», Hispanic American Historical Review. Vol. 64, no. 3, 1984 (7) Ibid., 477-478. changes that transcended race/ caste categories. In other words, citing the case of Gootenberg's article discussed above, Peruvian peasants probably shared a common culture, social structure, and economic organization which did not conform to the stereotypical elite perceptions of how peasants classified as «indio» or «mestizo» should act (8). Finally, an examination of race/ caste in Spanish America from the perspective of the creation of identity in a colonial situation helps reconcile the contradictions apparent in the approaches of Momer and Harris. This essay examines two case studies that illustrate different aspects of the creation and modification of race/caste identity in two distinct societies in colonial Spanish America. The first was a rapidly changing frontier in northem Mexico (Sonora) where a highly mobile settler population generally included in the mixedblood category displaced a declining indigenous population congregated in mission communities. An analysis of censuses and parish registers shows that priests used different race/ caste terms to categorize the population. The second is the Cochabamba region of Bolivia, a highly developed grain producing region dominated by corporate indigenous cornmunities created by crown action in the late sixteenth century, and haciendas with a servile labor force recruited from the local cornmunities as well as migrants to Cochabamba from the altiplano (high altitude plains) trying to escape the excessive tribute and labor demands of the colonial state. The study of the Valle Alto, a small valley in Cochabamba almost exclusively controlled by haciendas, links the decline of the number of peasants categorized as «indios» (a strictly legal and fiscal category) to the decline of the tribute system in the nineteenth century and changes in other government policies. Finally, both case studies share one element in cornmon, the impact of early nineteenth century nationalism and liberalism on the use of race/ caste terms and elite perceptions of identity.

THE DEFINITION OF RACE/CASTE IN FRONTIER SONORA
Until the late eighteenth century Sonora was a sparsely settled frontier region with an active mission program and a small settler population attracted by a series of boom and bust mining cycles or profits to be gained from farming and ranching for local markets. Jesuit missionaries opened the Sonora mission frontier in the first decades of the seventeenth century, and by the end of the century the black robes had organized mission cornmunities as far north as the Santa Cruz Valley in modern southern Arizona Miners and ranchers followed the establishment of the missions, and mining camps sprang up throughout the jurisdiction attracting a small but highly mobile group of miners who migrated from strike to strike. Settlers established ranches and farming hamlets, but frequently experienced difficulties because of raids by hostile Indians such as Apache. In 1768, Franciscan missionaries replaced Jesuits who had been expelled by royal order, and staffed Sonora rnissions until the end of the eighteenth century and in sorne instances even into the second and third decades of the nineteenth century (9).
Duriog the course of the eighteenth century the settler population of Sonora grew, aod the pattern of the rise and fall of temporary rnining camps gave way to more permanent cornmunities based 00 ranching and fanning. According to one estimate the settler population of Sinaloa-Sonora grew from around 15,000 in 1700 to sorne 70,000 a century later (10). The growing complexity of Sonora society was reflected in changiog settlement pattems shown in detailed censuses prepared at the end of the  Vol. 3, no. 4, 1961, pp. 321-340 1796-1797Tucson, 1977 (10) Peter GERHARD, The North Frontier 01 New Spain, Princeton, 1982, p. 24. eighteenth century. In 1800, for example, the jurisdiction of Movas located in southeastem Sonora consisted of two mission cornrnunities inhabited by the remnant of the indigenous population as well as settlers who were moving into the mission communities, 10 ranches, and one mining camp (11).
Priests and colonial bureaucrats introduced the sistema de castas to northem New Spain, but the use of race/ caste terrns was not as rigidly or consistently followed as in central Mexico. Moreover, there was considerable variation in the use of race/caste terms across the northern frontier as well as in Sonora. Three case studies of the race/ caste composition of frontier populations using censuses and parish registers demonstrate the variation in the use of terrns. For the purposes of this discussion 1 will focus on the terrn «mestizo» where appropriate.
The first example is a study that documents the use of race/ caste terms in a 1790 census of New Mexico with figures compiled for each jurisdiction by different officials. «Mestizos» reportedly constituted 29 percent of the population of the El Paso area, 38 percent of Albuquerque, 26 percent of Santa Fe, Tesuque, and Pecos, and 26 percent of Santa Cruz, San Juan, and Picuris (12).
Baptismal registers from two Chihuahua parishes, Tapacolmes 1757-1810 and Valle de San Buenaventura 1703-1799, shows a frequency of baptisms of children categorized as «mestizo» of 20 and 21 percent respectively. However, there was considerable variation in the frequency distribution of other race/ caste terms: for example, baptisms of children categorized as «Espanoles» made up 13 and 40 percent respectively of the total. Moreover, priests stationed in the two parishes used a wide variety of terms including «mulato», «coyote», «indio», «lobo», «negro», and «castizo» (13).
Finally, Alta California, first colonized in 1769, provides an example of an embryonic frontier society where social stratification existed but race/ caste terms were not cornmonly used. One  of the few eighteenth century documents from Alta California that records race/ caste terms was a census prepared in 1797 of a group of settlers recruited in the Guadalajara regio n to establish a planned cornmunity called the Villa de Branciforte. Spanishbom civil officials categorized the colonists as of mixed ancestry, but when the colonists stepped off the boat in Monterey most identified themselves as «spaniards». The colonists arrived in a community where they were not known, and claimed higher status calidad (14). Most other documents that mentioned the small settler population in Alta California used the generic term «gente de razon», which distinguished between the local indigenous population and colonists (15).
Sorne missionaries and parish priests in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries used race/ caste terms in sorne Sonora mission/parish sacramental registers, but not all. One of the oldest surviving Sonora baptismal registers is for Los Santos Reyes de Cucurpe from the 1680s to the early years of the following century. One register contained the record or baptism of Indian children, but a second registered baptisms of the children of Yaqui from southern Sonora and workers on local ran . . . ches identified simply as «servants». The Jesuits stationed at Cucurpe did not use race/caste terms (16). Priests assigned to other parishes and missions in Sonora recorded race/ caste terms in sacramental registers. For example, priests stationed at Nacosari which also included the Real de Basochuca made extensive use of race/ caste terms in the early eighteenth century, but they also were describing populations that were essentially different from mission populations. A fragment of a baptismal register that covers the years 1705 to 1737 includes five caste terms including «espanol», «mestizo», «mulato», «coyote», and «nijora», as well as four ethnic terms such as «opata», «apache», and «jumano» (17).
The growth of the settler population, the increase of royal power as a consequence of the Bourbon reforms which placed more royal officials in Sonora, and the government demand for information on its New World possessions led to a strengthening of the colonial caste system. However, as it evolved in Sonora, the caste system evidenced considerable variability as priests categorized the population in an inconsistent fashion. Censuses prepared in the seventeenth and early to mid eighteenth centuries generally referred to the settler population using a generic term «gente de razon» (<<people of reason»), that distinguished the settlers from the local indigenous population known as «gente sin razon» since they were legalIy defined as minors and wards of the Spanish crown. At the end of the eighteenth century ard in the first two decades of the following century censuses recorded more specific information on the race/ caste identity of the Sonora population. However, there is clear evidence of fluidity and inconsistency in the use of race/ caste terms to categorize people. Table 1 summarizes the race/ caste terms used by different priests to categorize the population of the parishes/ missions they served in detailed censuses prepared in 1796, 1801, and 1814. Priests used different race/caste terrns, and in one instance made a distinction between «spaniards» bom in Europe and America. In 1801, Franciscan missionary Joaquin Goita described the nonindigenous population of Cocospera located in the Pimeria Alta in northem Sonora as «mulatos». Franciscans at neighboring Pimeria Alta missions used other terms in 1801 censuses to describe the non-indigenous population: Josef Perez at San Ignacio used «european», «spaniards», «mestizo», «mulato;» while Bartolome Soeze at Saric used one term, «spaniards». Five years previously, in 1796, Francisco Yturralde used the terms «spaniard» and «coyote» for the non-indigenous population of Tubutama and Santa Teresa.
In addition to the variation between cornmunities, terms used to describe the population of a single village changed over time depending on who the resident priest was. Or eIse a priest stationed at a single mission for a proIonged period of time changed the terms used to describe the same population. For example, in 1796 Franciscan Juan de Santisteban used the term «gente de razon» to describe the non-indigenous population of Cocospera.
Five years later a new priest named Joaquin Goita used the term «mulato» to describe the same population. Thirteen years later Goita was at another Sonora mission calied Opodepe, and categorized the non-indigenous population as «spaniard» and «pardo». In 1796 and 1814 Salvador del Castillo censused the population of Cumuripa. In the first census he used the terms «spaniard» and «coyote», and in the second census the terms «spaniard» and «pardo» (see Table 1). Not only did the terms used vary from mission to mission and priest to priest, but subjective decisions made by missionaries determined the category and status of new-born children. The subjectivity of these decision can be seen in cases of children si red by parents assigned different race/ caste status, including marriages between Indians and non-Indians. As a general rule Sonora missionaries assigned a new-born child the category of the father, but there were exceptions. The eight censuses of the Pimeria Alta miss ion s prepared in 1801 (18) contain eleven exam-pIes of mixed unions that had produced children. In seven cases the children were assigned the category of the father, in three cases the children were given the category of the mother, and in one instance the Franciscan preparing the census did not record the category of the child.
Several of the mixed unions recorded in the 1801 censuses pose interesting questions regarding the differences between calidad and culture. Juan Nuñez, a resident of Tumacacori categorized as a «gente de razon» was married to a Yuma woman (the Yuma or Quechan were an Indian group living at the confluence of the Gila and Colorado Rivers) named y gnacia Pena. Their young son Felix Nunez was listed as a «gente de razon)), following the status of the father. In this instance the child of this union was biologically mixed, but how much Yuma culture did the boy absorb from his mother? A case from Cocospera makes the contradictions in the caste system even more evident. An Opata (an Indian group from central Sonora) named Francisco Pena was married to a woman Y gnacia Pena cIassified as a «mulato). Their children, who were biologically mixed, were listed in the census as Opata. A similar case appears in the Tubutama census. An Opata named Jose Garcia was married to a woman identified as a «gente de razon). Their child was listed as an Opata. In these two cases how much Opata culture did the children retain, and what beliefs and practices did the mothers bring to the families.
Finally, the San Ignacio census contains three contradictory cases. Bernardo Burlano (pima) and Juana Martinez (mulato) sired children classified as being Pima despite being biologically of mixed ancestry. The children of Juan Castro (mulato) and Maria Cabrera (pima) were listed as «mulatos». In these two cases the children were assigned the status of the father, yet in the same census the children of a mixed family were assigned the status of the mother. The children of Joseph Cordova (Opata) and Maria Arment (mulato) appeared in the census as «mulatos».
Priests also assigned race/ caste identity in sacramental registers, registers of baptisms and marriages records (diligencias matrimonÚlles) which consisted of the documentation of the formal investigation into the proposed marriage of couples. In the baptismal registers priests assigned a race/ caste status to a newborn child, and the idiosyncrasies of each individual priest had a bearing on the choice of the category assigned. In the case of the diligencias, matrimoniales the idiosyncrasies of the priests also appear to have played a role in the choice of the category assigned to a couple, which contradicts the conventional wisdom that prospective bride and groom influenced the choice of calidad Few sacramental registers survive from Sonora missions in the seventeenth century, and the most complete records are from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
In the last decades of the eighteenth century most but not all missionaries and priests stationed in Sonora recorded the race/caste status of new-born children. Fray Joseph Medina, for example, stationed at Ures in the late 1770s, provided a specific race/ caste identity only to Indians. On December 26, 1778, Medina baptized a new-born girl who he simply identified as «de este Pueblo [U res]». A week later, on January 2, 1779, Medina baptized another new-born girl he identified as both a «Hiaqui» and «una india de aqui de este Pueblo». Four days later, on January 6, 1779, Medina baptized a third new-born girl he identified as «una india de Santa Rosalia» (19). In contrast, the missionaries stationed a Sahuaripa in the same years consistently assigned race/ caste terms to new-bom children (20).
An analysis of the categorization of new-born children by the priests assigned to one Sonora parish, Sahuaripa between 1781 and 1824, provides important insights to the creation of identity in colonial Sonora. Sahuaripa, located on the Rio Sahuaripa which is a tributary of the Rio Yaqui located in southeastern Sonora, was originally inhabited by Opata, one of four majar ethnic groups in Sonora. Jesuits established a presence at Sahua-  The Franciscans who replaced the exiled Jesuits described Sahuaripa in a 1773 reporto The community, located in a narrow valley, supported itself through agriculture, although the Franciscans stressed that flash floods and variable rainfall periodically damaged the crops generally grown in the river bottom. Crops grown included Old and New World cultigens: com, beans, chickpeas, peas, sugar cane, and fruit. The Franciscans reported little livestock at Sahuaripa, although Jesuit inventories of the mission in the 1750s and 1760s reported 100-200 head of cattle, 300-600 horses, 50-200 mules, and 700-2,2200 sheep and goats. Apache raids may have depleted the mission herds (22). The farming and ranching provided for the basic subsistence needs of the Indians living at the mission, but surpluses may have been sold to the growing settler population in the valley.
Two related demographic trends occurred at Sahuaripa and surrounding cornmunities in the Sahuaripa Valley. The first was the decline in the Opata population. Anthropologist Daniel Reff estimated a contact population in the Sahuaripa Valley of sorne 8,750, and a decline in the nurnbers to sorne 461 in the mid 17605 (23). The second was the establishment of mining camps and other settlements in the Sahuaripa Valley and surrounding valleys. The first mining strike was at Tacupeto in 1675, and over the next century there were other short-lived mining booms. The settler population of Ostimuri, the administrative jurisdiction that included the Sahuaripa Valley, grew from 3,641 in 1760 to sorne 6,500 in 1804, and the Sahuaripa Valley was one of the most densely settled areas in the province (24). In 1799, the settler population in the valley was 1,115, the numbers grew to 1,255 in 1802, and 1,401 in 1806 (25). Many settlers went to Uve in Sahuaripa and ihe other mission cornmunities, where the remaining Indians were increasingly rnarginalized and in sorne instances lost control over the lands previously assigned to the missions (26). Surviving baptismal records for Sahuaripa cover only the years 1781 to 1856. However, in 1824, following the declaration of the first federal republic in Mexico, the practice of recording race/ caste terms in sacramental registers was dropped. Therefore, the analysis of patterns of assigning race/ caste identity to new- born children is limited to the years 1781-1824. During these years four priests were stationed at Sahuaripa: Pedro de la Cueva (1781-1803); Ramon Mendieta (1803-1807); Jose Cuevas (1807)(1808)(1809)(1810)(1811)(1812)(1813); and Dionisio Onederra (1814)(1815)(1816)(1817)(1818)(1819)(1820)(1821)(1822)(1823)(1824). Each of the four priests showed a marked preference for specific race/caste terms used to categorized new-bom children. All four priests fairly consistently identified Indian children: the percentage frequency of new-borns identified as «indio» ranged from 10 to 14 percent. The greatest variation occurred in the casta categories. The percentage frequency of the category «spaniard» fluctuated from 19 to 38 percent. It was from O to 34 percent for the «mestizo» category, from two to 22 percent for the «mulato» category, and from nine to 35 percent for the «coyote» category (see Table 2). Pedro de la Cueva showed a preference for the «mulato» category, Jose Cuevas identified more children as «coyotes», and Dionisio Onederra categorized children as «mestizo» and «coyote» while at the same time making less use of the «spanish» category then had his predecessor Cuevas.
Interpretation of marriage records is somewhat more difficult because the couples getting married had influence over the decision made over the placement in a race/caste category. However, an interesting pattern emerges in the extant set of diligencias matrimoniales which cover the years 1810 to 1823 and the terrns of two priests, Jose Cuevas and Dionisio Onederra. The diligencias matrimoniales contained different categories of information to identify the prospective grooms and brides, including age, place of residence, and name of parents. In most of the investigations the first item recorded was calidad (27). Both Cuevas and Onederra applied the same race/ caste category to both the groom and bride in the majority of the cases, although as shown in Table 3 Cuevas followed this practice more cansistently. Moreover, Cuevas, who identified 38 percent of the children he baptized as «spaniard», used the same term to categorize the majority of the couples who carne befare him to get married. Onederra, on the other hand, used a larger number of race/ caste terms, and also recorded a larger percentage of marriages between different categories.
Censuses and parish registers from Sonora show clear subjectivity by individual priests in recording the racel caste identity of new-born children. The evidence for the use of race/ caste terms in marriage records is ambiguous, but suggestive of the need for further research. The use of terms, however, indicates sorne fluidity in the caste system as it evolved in Sonora. The second case study illustrates a different aspect of the creation of identity in colonial Spanish America; the relationship between the decline in the population of «indios», changes in the tribute system, and shifts in elite perceptions as to what an «indio» and «mestizo» were in the Cochabamba region of Bolivia.

INDIO vs METlZO: RACE/CASTE IN COCHABAMBA, BOLIVIA
Cochabamba was known even in the late colonial perlod as a region populated by mestizos, although the extensive mestizaje that a number of scholars argue occurred in the regian was as much a sleight of hand (28). In other words, censuses and parish registers recorded declines in the population of «indios» and the growth in the number of mixed-blood «mestizos» and «cholos». However, mestizaje more accurately reflected racial/ caste drift, especially in the stereotypical behaviors that members of the local elite used to distinguish between «indios» and «mestizos», and the form of access to land which elites also used to divide the peasantry into different segments. Changes in the rural society of Cochabamba in the nineteenth century contributed to the erosion of the race/caste system, and the breakdown in the colonial order in rural Cochabamba resulted in the decline and in sorne instances the near complete disappearance of peasants classified as «indios». Late nineteenth century liberal policies played an important role in initiating economic and social change.
For the purposes of the analysis here I foeus on one subregion in Cochabamba, the valley know as the Valle Alto or Valle de Cliza. The Valle Alto was the largest of the valleys (former lake beds) in the Cochabamba region that were the centers of population and agrieulture. Prior to the Spanish eonquest of Cochabamba beginning in 1539 the Valle Alto was a sparsely settled mosaie of ethnie eommunities that generally lived around the base of the mountains that surround the valley. A marshy area oceupied a large section in the eenter of the valley (29). Although indigenous corporate eommunities in other areas laid claim to lands, there were no cornmunities in the Valle Alto. In the two Hacienda labor carne primarily from migrants from the altiplano (high altitude plateau), especially districts subject to the mita labor draft to Potosi and other mining centers. The classification of hacienda labor changed during the course of the colonial perlod. At the end of the seventeenth century ya naco nas (<<indios» absent from their native community or with no community affiliation legally bound to the land) were common 00 haciendas in the Valle Alto. However, yanaconas were extremely mobile. A 1692 census of yanaconas showed that 62 percent of males aged 18 to 50 were absent from their hacienda of residence (31). By the early nineteenth century colonaje (service tenantry) was the dominant form of hacienda labor, and yanaconas were found prlmarily on church-owned estates: in 1805, 1,393 yanaconas still lived in the Valle Alto, most on large haciendas owned by convents and monasteries (32). Both yanaconas and colonos received a subsistence plot from the hacienda owner and provided labor for crops grown on the hacienda demesne. The major difference was the legal status of yanaconas. In the 1880s, 12,890 colonos lived and worked in the Valle Alto (33).
The shift from «indio» to «mestizo» in -the Valle Alto resulted from several factors. One was the erosion of the tribute system (adult males 18 to 50 paid tribute), especially in the nineteenth century. Tributary was analogous to «indio». The Spanish government created two separate tribute categories which defined «indio» peasants on the basis of the forrn of access to land. Originarios generally were members of corporate indigenous communities with full rights to community lands. Forasteros were tributaries absent from their native community who paid a sma-   Cochabamba», Siglo XIX, vol. 3, no. 6 1988, pp. 145-162;Brooke LARSON, Colonialism and Agrarian Transformation In BoliVIa: Cochabamba 1550-1900, Princeton, 1988 ller amount of tribute to the government. These categories marked legal-fiscal status which artificially divided the rural population into categories that did not reflect socio-cultural realities, but which have been given considerable meaning by many scholars who believe the artificial distinctions were meaningful beyond government fiscal policy. Moreover, the categories were manipulated by the Crown and Iater the Bolivian government. For exam-pIe, in the early 1860s the Bolivian government changed the status of forasteros living in Quirquiavi (a highland district in Cochabamba) to that of originarios, and created a new corporate indigenous community. In other cases the government increased the number of originarios in existing communities in order to collect higher tribute from the newly created originarios. This occurred in Capinota in the late 1850s (34). During the nineteenth century the number of tributaries declined in Cochabamba despite efforts by the government to bolster the number of originarios. Between 1838 and 1877, the total number of tributarles throughout Cochabamba department dropped fram 11,163 to 6,900. The greatest decline occurred on haciendas, where the number of hacienda workers classified as tributarles dropped by 57 percent. The decline in the population of tributarles can be directly linked to the drop in the number of peasants classified as «indios». the Valle Alto in selected years. The growth in the number of «indios» at the end of the eighteenth century reflects efforts by the colonial government to increase the number of originarios, as well as the source of information. Officials who prepared general censuses might use different subjective criteria to define who an «indio» was, whereas most nineteenth century figures for the population of (<indios» comes from tribute records which recorded the number of tributarles as well as the total number of individuals that the officials responsible for preparing the tribute rolls classified as (<indios» including the families of tributanes. Table 6 shows the decline in the number of tributarles and shift in the population of «indios» in selected jurisdictions in the Valle Alto. As the number of tributarles declined, so to did the «indio» population.
Hacienda owners colluded with trlbute officials to remove their workers from the rolls of tributarles: hacienda owners either had to pay the tribute obligations of their service tenants classified as tributarles, or else allow them time off to work elsewhere to earn money to pay tribute. The influence of liberalism on elite perceptions with its stress on the integration of the «lndian» into society also played a role. As the government phased out the tribute system in the late nineteenth century, it was easier for service tenants on haciendas to escape tributary status.
A second factor was the profound change that occurred in the rural society of Cochabamba in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Liberal economic policy and the completion of railroads between the altiplano and coast led to the reorientation of Bolivia's econorny, the gradual loss by Bolivian grain producers of traditional markets in the southem Andes, and the opening of Bolivia to imports of grain and flour that competed with grain and flour from Cochabamba, which led to asevere economic crisis in the 1890s. Haciendas experienced rapid fragmentation, especially in the 1890s and first decades of the present century, and thousands of service tenants acquired land and thus changed their status to that of small landowners known locally as piqueros who were generally categorized as «mestizos» or «cholos».  Cochabamba, 1550-1900(Princeton, 1988, p. 326; Erwin Grieshaber, See Table 4, pp. 106-107; Pablo Macera, Bolivia tierra y poblacion, 1825-1936(Lima, 1978, p. 103.  The number of properties in the Valle Alto grew rapidly as the number of small parcels proliferated. In the early 1880s there were 5,842 separate properties in the valley, and 16,963 around 1916. In three jurisdictions, Cliza, Toco, and Tolata, the number of properties grew from 1,253 in the 1880s to 7,114 in 1924 (35). Many service tenants acquired land as the market in small parcels grew, or else migrated to work in Bolivian and Chilean mines or sugar estates in northern Argentina. Between 1882 and around 1916, the number of colonos in the Valle Alto dropped from 12,890 to 7,888 (36). However, the growth in the number of small properties in the valley began as early as the 1840s as traditional markets began to shrink. Service tenants classified as «indios» may have obtained small parcels of land from fragmenting haciendas, and thus changed their status to piqueros generally considered to be «mestizos».
The shift in identity from «indio» to «mestizo» can also be documented in extant parish registers. 1 consider here data from two parishes: Tarata, an important market town in the Valle Alto, and Paredon, a mountainous district bordering the valley.
Samples of race/ caste terms assigned to new-born children in Tarata parish shows a progressive decline in the categorization of children as «indios» and a shift to the use of the «mestizo» category. In the first sample period (1698-1707) 68 percent of new-born children were designated «indios». Within a century (1800-1809) only a quarter of the children were identified as «indios», and the percentage frequency of «mestizo» and «spaniard» had increased significantly. By the 1870s 80 percent of new-bom children were categorized as «mestizo», and less than one percent «indio» (see Table 7). Source: Same as Table 7.  Terms used to identify «indios» also shiftcd. At the end of the seventeenth century 89 percent of the baptisms ofnew-born Indian children used the term «indio libre», to distinguish the socalled free «indios» from ya naco nas. A century later (1800)(1801)(1802)(1803)(1804)(1805)(1806)(1807)(1808)(1809) the term «indio libre» no longer appeared in the baptismal register, and had been replaced by «indio». As yanaconaje declined in importance the distinction between yanaconas and free «indios» was no longer importante Was the decline in the «indio» category a consequence of demographic pattems, or shifting perceptions of identity? More detailed demographic studies are need of the population of Cochabamba, but evidence suggests that demographic pattems alone could not account for the rapid decline in the number of people classified as «indios». Table 9 surnmarizes a ten year sample of baptisms and burials from 1800 to 1809 broken down into three race/ caste categories. The population of «mestizos» and «spaniards» grew, while that of Indians declined. SuperficialIy it might appear that the Indian population was actualIy declining, but another factor must be considered. The number of children being categorized as «indios» was steadily dropping in the last years of the eighteenth century, whereas the priests at Tarata may have continued to categorize adults as «indios». The deficit may have resulted from fewer children being categorized as «indios», and normal mortality among the segment of the population still categorized as «indios» (see Table 9).
Evidence from Paredon parish seems to support this interpretation. The decline in the percentage frequency of new-born children categorized as «indios» occurred very rapidly. In a sample from the years 1788 to 1797, 48 percent of new-born children were categorized as «indios». A second sample from the years 1813 to 1822 shows that only 28 percent of new-borns were classified as «indios». Finally, after 1836 priests stationed in Paredon virtually discontinued use of the «indio» category. Over a period of roughly 50 years the percentage frequency of newborn children classified as «indios» dropped from nearly half to virtually none. Children previously categorized as «indios» were now listed as «mestizos». Over the same years the percentage frequency of new-borns categorized as «mestizos» increased from 34 percent to 90 percent, the result of a demographic sleight of hand (see Table 10). The decision to drop the use of the «indio» category may have been a political one.

CONCLUSIONS
The two case studies examined here provide important insights to the process of the creation of identity in Spanish America, particularly the inconsistency and subjectivity of race identity that Harris pointed to in his 1964 book. The subjectivity of the race/ caste information in censuses and parish registers renders analyses of colonial Spanish American society based upon these sources suspect unless other factors such as culture are taken into account. This caveat is especially true for studies that fail to document changed elite perceptions of race and society, and shifts in government social policies.
Sorne studies of social history based upon race/ caste terms and the concept of a functioning caste system carry with them a number of the same assumptions that underlay Spanish colonial social policy: the assumptions that meaningful distinctions existed between individuals classified as (indios» or «mestizo», and that indigenous culture was static and Spanish culture in America did not incorporate elements of indigenous culture. They view society from the perspective of an inflexible and rigid Spanish American caste system as understood by the same officials who created and tried to enforce it. Gootenberg's study of Peruvian society in the 1820s shortly following independence is typical of studies that contain elements of this view of society. Mestizo peasants who Gootenberg considers to be essentially different from indigenous peasants have to rnimic ayn~ which is an elernent of indigenous culture. Gootenberg's understanding of Peruvian rural society seems to rule out the possibility that indigenous culture changed and adopted elements of Spanish culture, especially material culture such as dress, food, use of horses and other European introduced livestock, and the language spoken. Gootenberg's mestizo peasants were more likely the indigenous peasants described in the mid-seventeenth century as making minor changes in dress and speech so as to conform to Spanish stereotypical notions of what Indians and mestizos were (37).
Use of Spanish concepts of race and caste are seductive for modern researchers, because they carry with them the authority of written documents and are easily quantified. This approach, however, tends to over simplify the complexities of colonial Spanish American society, and fails to deal effectively with elements which are more difficult to identify such as elements of culture, social practices, etc. Concepts such as calidad certainly had significant meaning, but the Spanish caste system was an artifaet of Spanish policy that had more to do with abstraet Spanish perceptions and little to do with social and cultural realities.