From Spanish and Indian, Mestizo (De Español y India sale Mestizo)

Mexico defines the Caribbean basin’s western border. There, in the eighteenth century, casta (caste) paintings recorded racial mixing through a series of imagined family groups for a largely European audience. In this example, a well-dressed Spanish man, his indigenous wife, and their mestizo child drink pulque, the once-sacred indigenous beverage made from the fermented sap of the maguey plant.

The elaborate classifications and hierarchy of Spain’s caste system, in which white Spaniards were the most privileged, emerged as an effort to impose order throughout the empire on an increasingly diverse society.