ABSTRACT
The problem with using marriage acts to study race relations in Oaxaca, it appears, is that marriage was just one situation where racial designations were employed. The basic function of the sistema de castas in colonial Oaxaca was to preserve the power base of the Spanish elite. Colonial society in Oaxaca—as elsewhere in the colonies—was based on conflicting principles. In Oaxaca as well as elsewhere in New Spain, many individuals of mixed racial ancestry were able to penetrate the ranks of the whites, a trend which Aguirre Beltrán first identified some thirty years ago. Racial attributes changed as social circumstances and economic fortunes demanded." The basic issues raised by Robert McCaa, Stuart B. Schwartz, and Arturo Grubessich, in our opinion, have nothing to do with statistics but involve assumptions and inferences regarding the significance of changes in individual racial classification.
