Casta paintings of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries featured mixed-race people in the post-Conquest period.
Done by many of Mexico's great artists including Miguel Cabrera, the paintings were often comprised of several family group scenes which showed the progressive dilution of 'pure' Spanish blood,
with Indian, and African blood.
In casta paintings, Spaniards have the highest social standing; in successive scenes, the families become darker and increasingly poor. Beneath the paintings are inscriptions, such as "From Spaniard and Black, Mulatto," which essentially: "narrat[e] the process of miscegenation."
More information: Casta Painting: Images of Race in Eighteenth Century Mexico.
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Mixed Experience History Month is a yearly blog post series celebrating the history of the Mixed experience. Established in 2007, Mixed Experience History Month is an effort to show that we have long been a nation of multiracial and multicultural individuals of achievement (not tragic mulattoes). Please look for more profiles of people, places and events of the Mixed experience every weekday of May right here at Lightskinned-ed Girl, the blog! Thanks for reading.
