ABSTRACT
Colonial mexico was a society of Orders or Estates. This chapter analyzes the composition of the Mexican elite during the eighteenth century, and describes the different patterns of social mobility exhibited by its creole and peninsular members. It examines creole participation in the bureaucracy, and discusses the allocation of political benefits to the different sections of the Mexican elite. Interest in colonial government has largely centered about the question of creole exclusion from public office. Judged in secular light as a career or livelihood, the Church served as a haven for the impecunious creole without the financial means to support his social pretensions; and for the most talented it offered a path of promotion. The increase in government activity undoubtedly gave employment to many creoles who at an earlier period would have petitioned in vain for some kind of office.
