Racial and cultural mixture complicated and blurred society greatly after the conquest period, but many social criteria were still the same under the surface. The intermediary functions were still the province of those ranking lowest in Hispanic society, but that stratum now contained not only the least senior members (new immigrants from Spain and other European countries) and Africans but also large numbers of mestizos as well as mulattoes and increasingly even Indians who had mastered Spanish language and culture. To organize the diversity, the Spaniards resorted to an ethnic hierarchy, ranking each mixed type according to its physical and cultural closeness to a Spanish ideal. As mixture proceeded across the generations, the types proliferated until finally, at the time of independence, the system collapsed under its own weight. The new categorizations were all at the intermediary level; despite them, all these people, often simply called castas, assimilated to each other and intermingled, occupying the lower edge of Hispanic society. The more successful and better connected among them were constantly being recognized as Spaniards, as a result of which the Spanish category grew far beyond simple biological increase and included many people with some recognizably non-European physical traits.
Silver mining in Peru and Mexico continued along the same lines as before, reaching new heights of production in the early 17th century. After that a series of problems reversed the trend for a time. The absolute value of transatlantic trade seems to have fallen during the same period. Scholarly controversies about the existence, nature, and extent of a general economic depression during the 17th century have not been entirely resolved, but it is certain that the expansion of the Hispanic sector of society did not halt.
The most profitable mercantile operations still involved the trade of silver for European products, but some structural changes were occurring. Most of the transatlantic firms of the conquest period had broken up by now. The merchants in the large Spanish-American centres were still mainly born in Spain, but, rather than being members of Spanish firms, they were likely to be agents working on a commission basis or to be operating independently, buying up goods from Spain that arrived in the annual fleets. The change of company structure brought with it a localization of the merchant corps, who now stayed permanently in America, married locally, bought property, and even acted as governmental officials, especially in the treasury and the mint.
This time saw the rise of forms of economic activity not present or not well developed in the conquest period, of which haciendas (landed estates) and obrajes (textile shops) are the most prominent. The social organization of such enterprises, however, was familiar from earlier encomienda operations, consisting of a city-dwelling owner, often somewhat removed from daily operations; one or more majordomos; foremen; skilled permanent workers (functional descendants of the naborías); and less-skilled temporary workers. The owner was usually Spanish, the middle levels poorer Spaniards or castas, and the temporary workers generally still Indians. A powerful trend, corresponding to the growth of city markets and ethnic-cultural changes, was an increase in the proportion of personnel in the middle levels and a decrease in those at the lowest, especially an increase in permanent workers at the expense of temporary ones (though the latter were still very numerous).
All these developments ultimately had an immense effect on society in the indigenous entities of the countryside. In time, many rural Indians were absorbed within Hispanic society, while leading members of local indigenous society would ally and even intermarry with the humble Hispanics who were now beginning to dominate the local economy. Ties to specific local Spaniards and Spanish organizations gained ever greater importance in the lives of the indigenous people, compared with their own corporate society; one result was large-scale fragmentation of indigenous entities. In central Mexico, many altepetl broke into their constituent parts, and in the Andes even many of these constituent parts (ayllus) went out of existence or changed their principles of organization. The Spanish fringe
From the notion of “centre” as used above it follows that the remaining area of Spanish occupation was, from the Spanish point of view at least, peripheral. Most of the Hispanic territories in the Indies were occupied by groups coming precisely from the central areas. Conquering groups had always consisted largely of people of lesser position in the base area, and, as it grew clearer that the central areas were unequaled in their assets, the marginality of the personnel going elsewhere became even more pronounced. In addition to being new and uprooted, those who went to places like Chile, Tucumán (northwestern Argentina), or New Granada (Colombia) were likely to be estancieros and tratantes in the centre—not well-born, well-educated, or well-connected. Among them were a larger than average share of non-Spanish Europeans and free blacks. Since these movements were posterior to the initial conquests, the first Hispanics arriving often included some mulattoes and mestizos born in the centre.
Even so, the first Spanish groups in the peripheral areas were comparable to the first conquerors of the central areas in being of varied origins and commanding a variety of necessary skills. A greater difference showed itself later. The central-area conquerors, having struck it rich, sent out appeals to Spain that attracted huge numbers of people, especially male and female relatives, as well as fellow townspeople and others. Fringe-area conquerors had not struck it rich. They were less able to pay for the passage of relatives and less able to attract people in general. As a result, subsequent immigration to the periphery was a much thinner stream than to the centre and was sometimes nearly nonexistent for long periods of time, as in Paraguay, and many activities that were profitable in the centre were not viable. Hispanic society on the fringe was characterized then by its relatively small size, slow growth, and lack of characteristic signs of the centre indicating vigorous development—the presence of Spanish women, practicing Spanish artisans, and transatlantic merchants. The institutional overlay was a mere shadow of the complex network of the centre. The silver-mining sector was entirely absent, though some areas maintained gold production as a second-best (Chile for a substantial period and New Granada indefinitely and on quite a large scale).
From the above it is clear that society on the fringe was less differentiated than in the centre. Also, the encomenderos never rose very far above the rest. Here, the indigenous people hardly knew tribute, and their labour could not be turned into large revenue; moreover, there were far fewer of them. More Spanish intervention was needed, and yet there were not many Spaniards available. Encomenderos on the fringe usually lacked a large staff of majordomos and estancieros. Since the Indians of these regions were organized in much smaller units than those of the centre, many more encomiendas had to be granted among a much smaller number of Spaniards, so that the proportion of encomenderos was greater. Encomenderos and others had to fulfill several functions simultaneously.
When any of these societies began to prosper, however, sharper categorization reappeared, along with a general approximation of central-area patterns. Areas that in one way or another were equipped to supply regions on the trunk line (Guatemala, Venezuela, Chile, and northwestern Argentina) moved most quickly in that direction.