I am not sure what would be the most reliable authoritative source of information documenting the life experiences of the first Mestizo children of Mexico. I did get rather a harrowing report from a fictional source, the novel "Aztec Blood" by Garry Jennings. It is set in early seventeenth century Mexico documenting the trials and tribulations of a Mestizo boy (mixed Spanish and Indigenous heritage) coming of age. I read it last year in Spanish translation and if the author's research is reliable then it must have been absolute hell for those kids. Still, I am equally aware of the need of fiction writers to play creatively with facts in order to develop their plot and characters. There really is no reliable way of knowing just how horrible life might have been for the Mestizos, but I am inclined to assume that their chances in life would have been less than stellar.
These were the children of rape. Indigenous women were either forcibly taken or sold to the white invaders as slaves, or persuaded through who knows what kind of manipulation. I would imagine that a lot of the children born of these unions had only their mothers to provide for them, though it is also conceivable that perhaps in a few cases their Spanish fathers took some interest in them and actually did try to support and educate them. I don't imagine that this would have happened with any great frequency. So, what did these indigenous single mothers, also blacklisted from their community, do to survive? I would imagine that many were prostitutes or sex workers, perhaps subsistence farmers, or artisans.
I have not done enough research to be able to write much about this, but this much I know. The children of these mixed unions were almost always the offspring of Spanish fathers and Indigenous mothers. I understand that they were considered traitors by the Indigenous people and as less than human by the Spanish. There was no place for them in either society. Their native mothers had dishonoured the Aztec nation by lying with the enemy, the Spanish men. No one considered that these women had little choice in the matter. Remember, consent as we know it now, did not exist in sixteenth century Mexico.
Neither did social justice. Racism and racialism were accepted as the normal lens through which to view our humanity, whether you lived in Spain or Mexico. Those of other races were always looked on with disdain, hostility, suspicion and distrust. Slavery, especially along racial categories, was accepted and practiced everywhere. The sense of oppression and hopelessness that most people had to live with must have been monumental. But it was all accepted as normal. Society was strictly hierarchical and authoritarian. You deferred to your betters. No one even imagined that there might be equality across the barriers of class, caste and race. You simply did not know you were oppressed: you were permanently poor, uneducated, illiterate and suddenly an exile from the two founding cultures that would meld into the nation of your descendants.
The Mestizos eventually would become the official people of Mexico and, post-Revolution, the word would be abandoned. Meanwhile, for nearly four hundred years the people of mixed ancestry were oppressed, excluded, abused and treated like garbage. I believe that this legacy of oppression and social exclusion has helped shape the collective identity of the Mexican people, as rather a shadow to their legendary pride, joy and exuberance. I do not imagine that this collective trauma will be easily diagnosed, much less overcome. Perhaps in future generations...
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