ABSTRACT
The legal and practical disabilities that persons of darker phenotype suffered in colonial Latin America indicate to the existence of estate or caste-like hierarchies reflected in attitude and behavior. Scholars who believe that colonial Spanish America was wholly a caste system in which groups were rigidly constrained by racial origins should have their belief shaken by the Oaxaca data. Comparisons of structure and process in other areas of the empire with the statistical models proposed should contribute to understanding the determinants and directions of social change and stratification in colonial Spanish America. The external pressures of capitalist expansion in Oaxaca and the dependent character of that growth reinforced the racial basis of the social structure in both behavioral and ideological terms. The data from Valparaiso suggest that social norms demanded that individuals with certain economic attributes possess corresponding racial statuses.
