Question

What are casta paintings?

Answer 1

Casta is a term which means "lineage" in Spanish and Portuguese and has historically been used as a racial and social identifier. In the context of the Spanish Empire in the Americas it also refers to a now discredited 20th century theoretical framework which postulated that colonial society operated under a hierarchical race-based "caste system". From the outset, colonial Spanish America resulted in widespread intermarriage between from unions of Spaniards, Amerindians and Africans . Basic mixed-race categories that appeared in official colonial documentation were mestizo, generally offspring of a Spaniard and an indigenous person; and mulato, offspring of a Spaniard and a black African. There were a plethora of terms for mixed-race persons of indigenous and African ancestry used in 18th-century casta paintings yet they are not known to have been widely used officially or unofficially in the Spanish Empire.

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Answer 2

Casta is a term which means "lineage" in Spanish and has been interpreted by certain historians during the 20th century to describe mixed-race individuals in Spanish America, resulting from unions of Spaniards, Amerindians, and Africans

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